Try these three meditations to support you and help you stay grounded amid stress and anxiety

One of the things that we often begin to discover, with a little bit of mindfulness practice under our belt, is that thoughts and emotions—including the stressful ones—are not the core of who we are. They’re not you. Through resting our attention on the breath or another sense anchor and simply being present with that, we get the hang of allowing each sensation of worry, anticipation, impatience, and so on to pop into our awareness, and fade back out on its own time—without mentally grabbing on to it, believing it, or starting a fight with it.

Finding our balance when sticky thoughts and fiery emotions arise is not always easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Regular practice over time is what’s needed: After all, you are helping your brain to rewire itself. In essence, practicing mindfulness is a process of learning to trust and stay with feelings of discomfort rather than trying to escape from or analyze them. This often leads to a remarkable shift; time and again your feelings will show you everything you need to know about them—and something you need to know for your own well-being.

Try these three meditations to support you and help you stay grounded amid stress and anxiety:

1. Let your thoughts float by. This guided practice helps you become aware of how your mind is not a static thing, but is constantly changing. Practicing awareness of the mind helps break our addiction to the contents of our mind.

2. Create space around big emotions. As you inhale and exhale with this 7-minute practice, allow all your emotions to be there, without having to fix them. You can even say to yourself on your outbreath. It’s OK to feel this, whatever it is, it’s already here.

3. Soften up feelings of judgment. We often don’t realize how much we’re judging others (and ourselves), every minute of every day—that is, until we attempt to stop doing it. The more we practice sitting with our whole selves nonjudgmentally (the good, bad, beautiful, and painful), the better we get at opening ourselves up to every kind of moment with discernment and acceptance.

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