The Anxiety Lab

Drew Dowdy enters the Anxiety Lab! Drew is a comedian and writer (Flatbush Misdemeanors on Showtime) and one of my favorite people.  We discuss looking at yourself in your mirror, overthinking, finding compassion for parents, psychedelics, racism, Miles Davis petting his horse, how getting his comedy dream job affected his happiness, how “everything is simplicity” and so much more!  

You can find Drew on...

Such a fun and silly yet deep episode. My first with two guests! I’m joined by comedians Katie Hannigan (Colbert, Corden) and Sarah Tollemache (Colbert, Comedy Central), who host the Lady Journey podcast. We discuss maladaptive daydreaming and the ridiculous fantasies that shape our desires (and make us suffer!), the freedom found in quitting, unconsciously dividing people into winners and losers, mental health days, ...

So happy to be back in The Anxiety Lab with you! Today I talk to meditation teacher Pascal Auclair. We discuss the practice of literally slowing down, being “absolutely no one,” the fascinating nature of ever-changing mind states, working with craving and desire, changing our relationship to pleasant vs unpleasant experiences, how being HIV positive changed his relationship to happiness, and so much more!  

Author and meditation teacher Mark Van Buren enters the Anxiety Lab! Mark leads meditation workshops, silent retreats, and corporate wellness classes. He offers simple tools and practices that can reduce stress, help with anxiety and depression, manage pain, and transform the many difficult aspects of life. 

We talked about day-to-day integration of the teachings, the important impact of meditation, the ...

Comedian and writer Ashley Brooke Roberts enters the Anxiety Lab! Ashley is brilliant and had plenty to offer about Anxiety. We talk about FOMO, having conflicting desires, finding that “true” inner voice/desire, clinging to selves, status anxiety, how we think that anything worthwhile should be difficult, gratitude, self-care, and so much more.  

Check out Ashley at  https://www.ashleybrookeroberts.com/...

One of my favorite musicians Matt Sucich enters the Anxiety Lab! Matt is an NYC-based singer-songwriter who has played all kinds of places including Bonnaroo, Willie Nelson’s Heartbreaker Banquet, Firefly, and Newport Folk Fest. One review said his latest album, Don't Be So Hard On Yourself, "feels like a good, honest talk with a close friend after a tough year."

Matt was awesome and got incredibly vulne...

Liz Moore (NYT bestselling author of Long Bright River, The Unseen World, Heft) gets out of her pre-written comfort zone and opens up about her anxiety. Whether you’re familiar with her work or not, this episode is a treat. We discuss the self-consciousness of taking up space to talk about one’s anxiety, the pressure of expectations, forming our artistic identity through adolescence, parenting, forming identities from...

Dr. Jud Brewer (neuroscientist, NYT bestselling author, Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, executive medical director at Sharecare Inc.) brings so much wisdom to the Anxiety Lab. He shares his breakthrough approach to tackling anxiety using mindfulness. We talk about treating anxiety like a habit, a better way to change behavior than “I should,” mindful eating, having imagina...

The Anxiety Lab is back! Season 2 starts with Aparna Nancherla (Netflix, Colbert, The Great North). We discuss defining ourselves through the eyes of others, the creative process, other people’s expectations, being an outsiders/observer, procrastination, being a performer as a defense mechanism vs as a process of healing and SO much more. You can find Aparna on IG and Twitter as aparnapkin. 

Sagar’s new ...

Season 1 concludes with same guest we started with, Kimberly Brown. Kimberly and I discuss gratitude, generosity (and working with putting pressure on ourselves to give), fear of the mundane, being present to all joys and sorrows of life, and much more. Kimberly is amazing, and you can find her at meditationwithheart.com. Her book Steady, Calm and Brave is available on Amazon. As always, feel free to get in touch at t...

Decision anxiety with therapist Jesse Giunta Rafeh! Jesse and I talk about my favorite type of anxiety, big and small decisions, along with lots of other things like needs for approval, anxiety serving an evolutionary purpose, and EMDR. At one point Jesse coaches me through some real time anxiety. You can find Jesse at www.jesse-giunta-rafeh.com, and her book, Life Launch, is available on Amazon.  

As al...

Myq Kaplan (The Tonight Show, Conan, Letterman) enters The Anxiety Lab, and he is a tightly wound coil of brilliance and depth and humor and compassion. We spend some time unpacking the following quote by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki: “Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.” Myq and I also discuss impermanence, psychedelics, what it means to say that someone “is trying their best...

Honored to bring Koshin Paley Ellison into The Anxiety Lab. Koshin is an author (most recently, Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up), Zen teacher, psychotherapist, chaplain, and co-founder of New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (zencare.org). We discuss our addiction to our phones, the regrets of the dying, the importance of real relationships, the usefulness in mining one’s history when it comes to anxi...

Emma Varvaloucas, executive director at The Progress Network and former executive editor at Tricycle Magazine, joins me! We talk about catastrophizing, worst case scenarios, how trying to figure out where anxiety comes from can sometimes cause more anxiety(!), volatile childhoods causing a need for control, how to accept reality AND work for change, and other stuff. You can find The Progress Network at theprogressnetw...

I’m thrilled to present this conversation with Ayo Yetunde, co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom. Ayo and I discuss some of the complexities arising at the intersection of Buddhist principles and the effort to rehabilitate racial trauma. We also discuss her experience in hospice work and a few other things. Ayo is a Community Dharma Leader, Zen ...

My dear friend and teacher Mona Chopra joins me as we get back to basics and talk about the qualities of mindfulness and how they offer relief from anxiety. Mona also offers a wonderful guided meditation to help put the conversation into practice. In addition to teaching meditation, Mona is an acupuncturist and yoga teacher, and you can find her at www.peopletreewellness.com. As always, feel free to get in touch at th...

Comedian Joe List joins me and we talk about hating ourselves, anxiety (surprise), the toxicity of social media, green tea, Sam Harris, getting grandiose when listening to music, and lots of other things. We also get into some Jack Kornfield and discuss the opposition between Buddhist notions of dropping identity and the pursuit of “self” that’s involved in stand-up comedy and self-promotion. Joe has countless credits...

Ari Goldfield joins me again to unpack some of the major wisdom he dropped in Episode 3. We discuss the importance of direct experience vs. intellectualizing. We also get into spiritual bypassing, which John Welwood details as follows: “While still struggling to find themselves, many people are introduced to spiritual teachings and practices that urge them to give themselves up. As a result, they wind up using spiritu...

Buddhist teacher Ari Goldfield joins me to explore the deeper messages that are contained within feelings of sadness and depression. So often in Buddhism, people talk about awakening through suffering, and I wanted to flesh this out a little. We also discuss clinging to identities, when stories are useful and when they are not, and some other things. At one point, Ari gently calls me out for spiritual bypassing and he's 100% right....