The Anxiety Lab

Episode 12: Kimberly Brown Returns!

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 theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here’s MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 11: Jesse Giunta Rafeh

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 always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here’s MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 10: Myq Kaplan

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,” and many other things. Myq is at @myqkaplan on twitter/IG, and his latest album, “A.K.A.” is one of the best I’ve heard in recent memory. As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here’s MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 9: Koshin Paley Ellison

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 anxiety, and lots of other things. 

As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here’s MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 8: Emma Varvaloucas

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 theprogressnetwork.org. Highly recommend. As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here’s MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 7: Ayo Yetunde

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 student, chaplain, pastoral counselor, and professor, and you can find her at centerforheart.org. For more on her work with The Buddhist Justice Reporter/the George Floyd Trials, go here: https://commongroundmeditation.org/about/supporting-the-center/

As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here's some merch: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 6: Mona Chopra

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 theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, here's some sick merch: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 5: Joe List

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 including Letterman, Conan and Netflix. His latest special “I Hate Myself” is on Youtube. You can find him at comedianjoelist.com or on his podcast Mindful Metal Jacket.  As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, it's way too early for merch, but we like what we've done here: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 4: Ari Goldfield Part 2

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 spiritual practices to create a new “spiritual” identity, which is actually an old dysfunctional identity—based on avoidance of unresolved psychological issues—repackaged in a new guise.” I plead guilty. You can find Ari at https://wisdomsun.org/. As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, it's way too early for merch, but we like what we've done here: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Episode 3: Ari Goldfield

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. Ari has an extensive background in Buddhist philosophy and meditation. He’s also versed in western modalities of counseling psychology. You can find him at https://wisdomsun.org/. As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, it's way too early for merch, but we like what we've done here: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.