How to "Lean In" to Feelings - Anxiety Meditation w/ Thomas McConkie

Therapy in a Nutshell

Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam

Mental Health, Education, Health & Fitness:mental Health, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 658 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you ever felt more anxious when you've tried to calm down? Learn how to lean in to feelings with acceptance and meditation expert Thomas McConkie. Learn the skills to Regulate your Emotions, join the membership: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/membership Check out Thomas' School: https://lowerlightswisdom.org/ Learn how to lean in to your feelings, how to sit with them and accept emotions with this exercise and debrief with Thomas McConkie, mindfulness and mediation expert. Many people try deep breathing or vagus nerve exercises to calm anxiety — only to feel more anxious. In this episode, I explore with Thomas why that happens, why it’s actually a sign of progress, and how learning to stay present with discomfort can strengthen your nervous system and deepen your sense of peace. Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com Support my mission on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/therapyinanutshell Sign up for my newsletter: https://www.therapyinanutshell.com Check out my favorite self-help books: https://kit.co/TherapyinaNutshell/best-self-help-books Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health. In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger Institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction. And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to another episode of the Therapy in a Nutshell podcast. I'm Emma McAdam and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
0:07.0	And this podcast is all about taking the life-changing, but usually kind of complicated topics of therapy and boiling them down into simple, easy-to-understand concepts that you can use in your daily life.
0:18.6	If you find today's episode as helpful to you,
0:21.0	please pass it on to someone else who could benefit from it as well. Each podcast episode
0:24.8	comes from a corresponding video you can find on the Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube channel.
0:29.4	Also, these podcasts are educational and don't replace the advice or direction you may be
0:33.7	receiving from a therapist or other health professionals. Now please enjoy the episode.
0:38.9	Today I've invited meditation expert Thomas Mekonki to teach us another practice for when we want
0:48.8	to be resisting the feelings that we're having in our body when we want to make them go away, or we're
0:55.0	unintentionally struggling against them or trying to avoid them. And what I'm talking about is when
0:59.6	you feel anxious and you don't want to feel anxious, when you feel sad and you don't want to
1:04.2	feel sad, when you feel angry and you think you shouldn't feel angry. Thomas McCongy is a meditation
1:10.3	expert with decades of experience and he's
1:12.3	going to be teaching us practical exercise instead of just talking about it. Today you're going to
1:17.3	practice how to feel your feelings, how to open up to them and drop the struggle with them.
1:23.8	Very grateful for Thomas joining us today. He's one of my favorites.
1:31.3	And really hope you benefit from this exercise as well.
1:40.9	All right.
1:45.6	Well, Thomas, thanks so much for agreeing to join us. Again, really appreciate you being here.
1:47.9	Happy to be here. Always good to see Emma.
2:02.0	So today I wanted to use your experience, expertise in this topic, because I think one of the areas that I see come up pretty frequently when I teach grounding skills or I teach people these ways to kind of regulate their nervous system is that they'll try deep breathing
2:07.3	or they'll try a vagus nerve exercise and then they'll say, well, I feel more anxious.
	...

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