Matt's Audio Letter of the Week

Hey there, and welcome to this edition of The Feel-Better Letter (FBL).

This is Matt.

Hope you're all having a great day and week.

Today, I’m going to talk about meditation, attention, stress, and anxiety—specifically, how I currently perceive meditation and attention training, and their role in OCD, anxiety, stress, panic, and chronic pain. I want to explore how they fit together because I think a lot of people misuse meditation, which leads to frustration or overdoing things in the wrong way.

Before we dive in, I just want to mention that next Tuesday, I’m running a live webinar where I’ll be covering five key things you need to understand to expedite your recovery process.

I’m really excited about this training!

I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, and now it’s finally put together. We’ll be running it for free, so make sure to register for your spot—the link will be in the email we sent.

Now, let’s dive into today’s FBL.

A lot of people use meditation as a way to get rid of things they don’t want. They meditate from a place of resistance, thinking:

I’m not supposed to feel this anxiety.
I’m not supposed to have these intrusive thoughts.
If I meditate, I’ll make them go away.
So, they focus on their breath, which temporarily takes their attention away from the thoughts and feelings they don’t want. When they feel some relief, they assume meditation "worked."

But true meditation isn’t about getting rid of thoughts or feelings. It’s about developing the ability to control your attention and awareness—recognizing yourself as consciousness beyond your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and identities.

The more aware you become of something, the more you can learn to release it. And by release, I mean dropping resistance to it—fully experiencing it in a non-resistant state so that it can naturally pass.

Many people try to meditate from a place of resistance. They direct their attention away from what they don’t want to feel and never actually confront it.

In reality, meditation is most effective when used to place a neutral attention on what we’re running from. And the only way to do that is from a place of consciousness—by not identifying with it.

Meditation helps us sit in that seat of consciousness and control where we place our attention, especially when we get lost in our minds.

Most people, when faced with uncomfortable feelings, immediately go into their minds:

They judge their emotions (This emotion is bad. I’m bad for feeling this.)
They try to rationalize or ruminate about their feelings.
They look for ways to escape them.
This is why meditation is so valuable. It helps us notice when our attention is being pulled into the mind, recognize when we’re fleeing from emotions, and consciously redirect our focus toward what we’ve been avoiding.

Because when we can fully experience something in a non-resistant state, we can finally release it. Our resistance is what keeps it stuck.

If you’re meditating to get rid of anxiety, you’re actually reinforcing the loop.

Meditation can indirectly reduce anxiety—but only if you use it to observe and accept your emotions, not escape them. If your goal is simply to feel stillness and avoid discomfort, the emotions will still be there when you stop meditating.

That’s why people often say, “See? Meditation didn’t work.”

It didn’t work because it was being used for something it wasn’t designed for.

I wanted to share this today because meditation is often misunderstood. People either give up on it, think they’re not good at it, or assume it’s not for them—when in reality, it’s a powerful tool for training our attention and stepping into consciousness.

If we use it intentionally, it can support recovery. But if we use it as an escape, it can hold us back.

Hope that makes sense and helps!

And don’t forget—our live training is next Tuesday. I’m really excited for it, so be sure to claim your spot.

Wishing you a great day and week, and I look forward to talking to you soon!