Before anxiety entered my life, I was free...

In my twenties, the world felt wide open. I chased adventure across continents - sailing in the South Pacific; surfing warm waves around the world; running my own English school in Japan; months skiing waist-deep powder in Canada.

Shortly after my thirtieth birthday, that carefree world imploded. Without warning, my chest tightened, my heart raced. Reality felt thin and unreal. I thought I was going insane.

It was my first panic attack.

Then it happened again. And again. Panic attacks quickly began consuming my life - within months, I had to quit my job and move home with my parents. The expansive life I had lived had been reduced to a fragile existence governed by fear.

I felt utterly lost, alone, and hopeless.

After a year and a half of relentless anxiety, I was empty. Exhausted. Running on fumes. Desperate, I bought a stack of self-help books. One suggested surrendering to a higher power. I rejected the idea immediately. I didn’t want God. I didn’t want religion. I didn’t want surrender.

I just wanted my life back. But I was terrified, broken, and out of options.

So with tears in my eyes and certain of nothing but my own desolate future, I dropped to my knees and - unconvinced and unbelieving - whispered words I had just read: “Thy will, not mine.”

Instantly, the anxiety vanished. A deep calm flooded in.

After a year and a half of torment, I was at peace. Total peace.

A profound inner shift had occurred.

That moment changed everything and set me firmly on an inner path I had no idea existed - and one that I committed to navigating as bravely and truthfully as I could.

Over time the deep peace I initially experienced slowly faded and anxiety occasionally returned - but I wasn’t lost anymore. I had tools: yoga, meditation, therapy, inner work. My anxiety softened. My mind grew quieter. I began experiencing deeper peace again.

And then, many, years later Covid arrived. As an asthmatic, I was suddenly high risk. An invisible threat was everywhere, and an intense tsunami of anxiety surged back into my life - raw and overwhelming. After all those years of practice. All that work.

I did everything I had learned, yet the anxiety still burned. That’s when an unsettling realization appeared: mindfulness alone wasn’t enough to heal it. The map I had trusted had run out of roads.

The stakes became clear: Was lasting peace actually possible? Or would overwhelming anxiety always return?

And then, a couple years later - as if out of nowhere - clarity

As Covid passed, so did my anxiety. Silent meditation retreats had been a refuge for more than twenty years — a way to slow down and reconnect with stillness. I signed up for another, eager to deepen the peace that had returned.

Just days before it began, I developed a painful dental abscess. Once in silence, the pain intensified. Fear exploded. I came face to face once again with overwhelming anxiety - something I hadn’t experienced since the pandemic. I was alone in silence with all of it - and nowhere to hide.

Then, in one intense moment of pain and fear, I saw what was keeping me trapped: beneath my mindfulness was a deep, hidden resistance.

I realized that I wasn’t just suffering from anxiety,
I was participating in it.
I was contributing to it.

In that moment, I saw that anxiety doesn’t dissolve through observation alone. It softens when we introduce ease and safety into the body and the breath - and when we courageously embrace our feelings with acceptance and compassion.

In that moment, everything shifted.

A year later, during a six-week silent retreat I entered while completely heartbroken from a relationship ending, that discovery profoundly deepened. The pain was unbearable. And then, on top of it, old childhood wounds - abandonment, trauma, grief - rose to the surface.

For weeks, I was on fire. I was in hell.

But I persevered - committed to doing what I had learned on that earlier retreat.

Instead of tightening, I infused my body with ease.
Instead of armoring against the fear, I began meeting it with compassion.
Instead of resisting it, I held it - as if comforting a frightened child - my inner child.

And by doing that, I discovered something life-altering: we have the power to create an entirely new inner world - one of peace, spaciousness, and quiet power - that not only heals our anxiety, but can become our new reality. An inner world that anxiety may have buried, but never erased.

That realization changed my life.

It taught me that inner peace is not something we have to wait for; it is something that we can choose and create in every moment.

Today, debilitating panic attacks are a distant memory. Anxiety still arises occasionally, as do all human emotions, but now it is right sized - just one thread in the rich tapestry of a life anchored in deeper presence…

This path has led me much more deeply into the stillness and beauty of the here and now. Having continued to follow it, I'm honestly amazed at the deepening inner peace and strength it has brought me.

A long time ago, I searched the world for new experiences.

Now I find them in every moment.

And today, I teach others how to transform their relationship with anxiety and create an inner world of greater safety, resilience, and ease - without having to endure the years of suffering I did.

I help them realize that anxiety is not an obstacle to inner peace, but the doorway to it…

Inside this work, we don’t just cope with anxiety. We transform our relationship to it. We learn how to build an inner world rooted in peace and strength. And from that place, peace is no longer something we chase. It becomes something we inhabit.

My work is informed by over twenty-five years of study, training, and practice. After a nine-month residency at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health studying yogic traditions in 1999, I completed the MBSR Teacher Training program at the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School in 2001. I have attended more than ten extended silent meditation retreats since 2000 and studied trauma-informed healing techniques and Nonviolent Communication. I am certified at the professional level through the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and have authored two books on mindful living.

My mindfulness teachings have been used by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and my course Creating Inner Peace has supported more than 2,000 people in transforming their relationship with anxiety.

Originally from Canada, I’ve called Western Massachusetts home for the past twenty-five years. I’m also an artist - drawn to painting, photography, and creating sculptures from natural materials. And I love playing in nature: skating on frozen lakes, mountain biking, and going barefoot whenever I can.

Embrace fear with courage and compassion

THREE WAYS THAT I CAN SUPPORT YOU WITH YOUR ANXIETY

- Geoff Bell-Devaney

For I Awaken

Because I breathe, I am enough.
Because I breathe.

For I awaken to each new day, I am enough.
For I awaken.

Since I am alive, I am enough.
I am enough.

And I can sit without moving,
without doing.

Because I am enough.
And I am whole.

Because I breathe.
Because I awaken.
Because I am.

That is enough.

We can create a more peaceful inner world

“Geoff provided me with multiple ways to incorporate mindfulness into everyday living and develop healthy habits.” - Nancy S