I find mindfulness very helpful, but I think of it differently than many people are talking about it. For me it's just a way of being more engaged in the world. It doesn't make me all that much less anxious, it just helps me to live a more engaged life while feeling whatever I'm going to be feeling.

I think of mindfulness as a heightened awareness of my current experience in the world. Meditation is one way to develop it, but it's by no means the only way. Just really paying attention when you are taking a walk can be mindfulness, or even talking to another person.

I used to live my life so much in my head and I didn't even know that I was doing it. I try much harder to be mentally present in the world now. We didn't spend a lot of time in therapy doing mindfulness exercises, but my therapist is a big promoter of it so I read a lot to understand it and did exercises on my own.