I started to get stressed out when my sister got cancer. I had headaches, back pain, panic attacks, developed agoraphobia and so on - all the spectrum of mental issues. I tried to approach all of them with weeding them out one by one(and did not look on all of that as a whole picture), so I tried medications, that were meant to cure my insomnia, then headaches(some of them made it even worse), got brain scanned etc. and could not understand the reason and why nothing worked. I just could not calm down, because thoughts that were occupying my mind in background could not just go pooh and vanish. More or less ALL of those symptoms(in most severe states) now are gone and I am now almost back to normal ~1 year later after my sister died. Because now I can afford not to think about her state - now I am able to achieve mindfulness about that situation, that now has gone, and I can occupy my mind with other thoughts, but it has become possible only because now it is too late to worry.

So, it is perfectly correct, that author of this article is talking about mindfulness in regards with imaginary threats and that is very useless for me, as that type of threats actually does not make me stressed out, but inability to save close relative from death I can't perceive as imaginary threat, but it is (pardon my french) sh!t advice to suggest mindfulness in extreme cases(that require most help on anxieties), for example - for someone who would be freaking out over someone close who has died in car accident. The first step would be getting away from that place and not sing kumbaya on that spot.

Knowing that humans have evolved as most violent primates(with everyday aggression amongst themselves), I don't think that meditation is that good, compared to inability to release frustration and anger - from my experience I got a break after I had to deal with situations that required violent solution, so I realized, that for me it had better therapeutical effect and more properly wired to my brains, than "coping" with stress and staying alive and healthy by inability to do anything and trying to meditate.

They're not talking about anxiety that makes sense here. You being scared of your sister dying makes sense. They're talking about irrational anxiety, like having a panic attack, because your stomach feels slightly funny, or because you slept weird, etc. Those irrational anxieties are often times hard to pinpoint to an actual cause. Like your sitting at home on a sunday and suddenly have a panic attack, without any immediate cause or threat.

It applies to both. Being scared of one's sister dying has a definite cause you can pinpoint to, but that still doesn't explain the racing heart, or stomach sickness, or anything else. There's no "tiger in the bushes" reason why your body needs to dump a whole bunch of adrenaline in you right now.

Learning that you can calm your body down separately from wanting to think about the actual issue at hand is a good lesson.

> I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions).

How many teachers actually have this, and how can one know that the one you’ve chosen is one of them?

I loved loopz's answer, but it's also important to grapple with the fact that you can never truly know whether a teacher is good. The path is always a risk. It's best to learn as much as you can and assess for yourself as you go.

In any event, the common wisdom is "you'll know." Or to put it plainly, do you like the person and feel like they have something to teach you?

I like the term "spiritual friend," because it's easy to understand the dynamic by analogy. How do you know one of your friends is truly your friend?

As for how many there are: I don't know. I live in the Bay Area, where the concentration of practitioners is perhaps highest in the US, and I'm aware of maybe a handful of teachers I would consider consider studying with. I'm aware of many more I would not.

I like the term "dangerous friend": https://www.shambhala.com/dangerous-friend-466.html

You will notice you have lots to learn and experience that gives you something. No teacher is forever, except life itself perhaps.

It has more to do with the "student".

You're hired!