Anxiety, Overthinking, and Overwhelm: Buddhist Hacks For Changing Your Mind | Joseph Goldstein

What It Covers

Dan Harris interviews meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein about Buddhist-derived mental phrases for managing overthinking, anxiety, and overwhelm. Goldstein shares roughly a dozen specific teaching phrases drawn from decades of intensive practice in India, Burma, and retreat settings, explaining the lived experiences behind each phrase and how to apply them in daily life.

Key Questions Answered

• •"Up and Out" for persistent thoughts: When a thought has already been processed and keeps recycling, mentally noting "up and out" signals release without hostility. The key distinction: use it as an acknowledgment of what is already happening, not as a command to force thoughts away. Applying it with aversion backfires — resistance feeds the thought by strengthening the mental connection to it rather than dissolving it.
• •Counting self-critical thoughts: When a run of self-judgments or judgments of others floods the mind, number each one sequentially — judgment one, judgment two, judgment five hundred. The absurdity of high numbers naturally produces a smile, which breaks identification with the thoughts. Humor is the mechanism: it removes both belief in the judgment and aversion to its presence, the two forces that sustain it.
• •"Little dictators" and creating discernment space: Unobserved thoughts function as automatic commands — Goldstein illustrates this with a pizza craving that physically moved him out the door. Mindfulness of a thought converts it from a dictator into a suggestion, creating space to evaluate it against three Buddhist frameworks: the five ethical precepts, whether the action achieves your actual aims, and whether the motivation is rooted in greed, aversion, or delusion.
• •"It's okay" as genuine acceptance vs. recognition: Goldstein spent years recognizing fear during meditation while secretly wanting it gone — a subtle aversion that kept the fear active. The shift came when he genuinely accepted that the fear could remain permanently and that would still be acceptable. That full acceptance, distinct from mere recognition, caused the fear to dissolve. The phrase works by ending the internal war with an unwanted experience before responding to it.
• •The inevitability suite for overwhelm: Four phrases work together when facing a difficult situation: "the inevitability of unwanted experiences" (suffering is structural, not a mistake), "I am not exempt" (counters the subliminal belief that hardship shouldn't apply to you personally), "if it's not one thing it's another" (normalizes the continuity of challenges), and "anything can happen anytime" (produces acceptance rather than paranoia when genuinely internalized).
• •"What matters most" as a values filter: Before acting on a thought or making a consequential decision, pausing to ask what matters most activates an intuitive values check that requires no extended analysis. For larger decisions — career moves, organizational choices — Goldstein recommends a deliberate written exercise with a partner to list core values explicitly, then evaluate each option against them, preventing the pull of surface-level rewards from overriding deeper priorities.