| Yes a lot of your story is mine as well, weed can help and hurt with anxiety IME, but like a lot of medication it can be abused and it's ultimately addressing symptoms and not necessarily their causes Meditation is very useful in this regard, it's also a word that is used to describe many different things in the English language, so sometimes people are speaking past each other This site is heavily geared toward Theravada Buddhist teachings (one of the three main schools of Buddhism), particularly Mahasi Sayadaw's, one of two major offshoots in the West of Burmese Buddhism In that particular tradition, the noting technique is used to disembed from one's (bad) habits, giving perspective (the good aspect of what you describe with weed). In this practice one mentally notes thoughts, emotions, sensations and reactions. When awareness is less scattered, noticing is the more subtle practice, where verbal noting ceases, and one is just aware 'Beyond' this practice is something more 'non-dual', being awareness without being an observer of things. The progression of your own experience with these different practices is guided by the teachers you gravitate toward and your own natural inclinations, but I highly recommend 'meditation' in general as a natural alternative to drugs in order to come out of fear Ultimately one finds fear and anxiety to simply be made of two things, fleeting ephemeral thoughts and uncomfortable sensations in the body, and awareness and equanimity builds as a sort of light within, that dispels negative mindstates on the spot, until they stop arrising, at least temporarily, so one can see the source of suffering, and move in the direction of lessening it |