Are there any practical tools for overcoming anxiety?

Answer Podcast

So are there any practical tools that we can use to overcome anxiety? yes it says that worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken that means that most of the time we worry about things which haven’t happened which are unlikely to happen also so to be prepared for the future is intelligence to be paranoid about the future is self-destructance so basically one of the practical ways to deal with worry is worry is caused because we are too much connected with external changing material things so when we withdraw our consciousness from the changing material things and focus the consciousness on unchanging spiritual reality that itself calms us down that itself calms us down say if a boat is in a in a sea the waves will keep moving it up and down if a person is in the sea they will move up and down even more if they are in a boat they will move less if they are in a boat that is anchored they will shake even lesser the world changes will be inevitable and the changes if we are unsheltered like a person in the ocean will be tossed up and down it will cause anxiety but the Bhagavad Gita says spiritual knowledge is like a boat so if we cultivate spiritual knowledge then that itself is shelter we understand I am spiritual I am part of God who is spiritual then our anxiety will go down substantially and not just spiritual knowledge but if we follow a spiritual process then that is like the boat getting anchored so the process of mantra meditation chanting especially the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra in this age is like the anchor so when we anchor ourselves in spiritual reality anxiety will go down substantially because we will shift our consciousness from the material level which is changing and which induces anxiety the unchanging spiritual level where we find security at a practical level also once we have calmed ourselves we can differentiate between when we are faced with some situations we can differentiate between which of our anxieties are simply imagined and which are real if we are not calm then we just get worried this may happen, that may happen and the problems start feeling bigger and bigger and we start feeling smaller and smaller but once we are calmed down we can react to this if it happens, then we react there are possibilities and there are probabilities as a possibility this roof may collapse it may crash but the probability is extremely low so if we start getting paralyzed by possibilities we will not be able to do anything so we use our intelligence to evaluate what is likely to happen and then appropriately prepare for it so connection with spiritual reality through spiritual knowledge and spiritual practices and then using the calmed intelligence to evaluate which anxieties are realistic and which need to be dealt with that way we can practically cope with anxiety.