Robert Lurye on Unwinding Your Anxiety with Mindfulness
This week’s conversation is with Robert Lurye, a mindfulness meditation and yoga teacher who offers classes on unwinding your anxiety. Robert shares mindfulness practices that can help us observe our mental and emotional states without getting so lost in them, as well as embodied movement practices that help to get us out of our heads.
Episode Details:
Robert’s background as an artist and animator provided him with an interest in human behavior and emotional expression (as well as some pretty stressful work experiences). You’ll hear how his experiences as an artist helped lead him towards exploring Mindfulness Meditation, as it trained him to appreciate paying attention.
We also talk about how common anxiety is, and how understanding the habit loops of anxiety can help us find some freedom around it.
Elements of unwinding your anxiety that we discuss:
- learning to observe how we react to uncertainty
- that anxiety can be considered a learned behavior, or habit
- the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering or struggle)
- how our resistance to change or challenge creates more stress
- evidence-based meditation practices that quiet the parts of the brain that are active in anxiety
One of my favorite parts of this episode is when Robert talks about some neuroscience research that showed meditators had remarkable ability to be present with pain, minus the dread and anticipation that most of us experience.
Give it a listen, and pick up some new possibilities for unwinding your anxiety habits!
Guest Bio:
Robert Lurye is an artist, educator, and meditation practitioner who loves teaching the ancient wisdom and modern science of mindfulness. He is a certified MBSR teacher through Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, a CYT 200 yoga instructor, and a facilitator for Mindfulness-Based Habit Change programs that address unwanted habits from cigarettes to smart phones, emotional eating, and anxiety.
Robert also teaches mindfulness programs at InsightLA, Long Beach Mediation, University of Southern California and facilitates sitting groups for the LGBTQ+ community. He’s been a computer animation artist since 1985 working on feature film, television and video game productions. He earned a Master of Education degree from The Ohio State University and has taught art at Ohio State, Texas A&M, and University of Texas, Austin.
Robert is currently training as an Eco-Chaplain and developing contemplative care focusing on Eco-Anxiety.
Links & Resources from this episode:
To get in touch with Robert, look for him at InsightLA and visit his coming-soon website at robertlurye.com.
- Learn more about Dr. Judson Brewer and his Mindfulness-Based Habit Change programs out of Brown University (including the Unwinding Anxiety app and course Robert mentions).
- Read the study that we discussed (about expert meditators’ enhanced stress resilience and pain tolerance) and/or watch researcher Richie Davidson describe it during this lecture (look for the segment from 47:00-53:30).
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like Episode 35 – So You Think You Can’t Meditate (Part 3): Anxiety and Strong Emotions or Episode 25 – Stress and Brain-Body Resilience with Jessica Patching-Bunch.