Jeffrey Brantley - Daily Meditations for Calming Your Anxious Mind

We live in the present moment.

In this very moment you have within you the possibility and the necessary ingredients to transform your experience of life in all of its expressions, including the joys and fears, and the pain and pleasures.

Through the softness and gentleness of simple noticingwithout judgment and with affection and mercy for your inner and outer experienceyou can begin to realize a deeper connection and awaken to a wiser understanding of who you are and what life actually offers.

These daily meditations offer a wide variety of ways to use your innate capacity for sensitive attention and compassionate awareness in order to help you embrace your full potential in being human. In this book, that full range of human experience expressly includes learning new ways of meeting and managing the demanding and upsetting energies of fear, worry, and anxiety.

To fully appreciate your wholeness and possibility as a human being, it is crucial to learn the language and skills of awareness and of kind, compassionate attention. The practice and actual experience of yourself as present, aware, and openhearted will tell you more about who you are than any particular experience, including difficult ones.

To fully benefit from the possibilities in these practices, therefore, you have to actually do the meditations! It is not enough to just read them, although that in itself can be helpful.

Some Initial Practical Points About Doing Your Meditations

In meditation, it is most helpful if you cultivate the habit of practicing your meditations no matter how you are feeling. Excited, bored, sleepy, anxious, it doesnt matterjust do it!

And practice without requiring anything special to happen or anything to change. Not judging and not striving thus become immediate practice allies and attitudes that support you.

Be sure to give yourself the time and space you need for your meditation practice to unfold. This means doing some practice daily, either as formal meditation or informally in the moments of waiting and moving through your day.

Make your meditation your friend and ally, and take it with you wherever you go. By weaving your daily meditations into the fabric of everyday life, you give your practice its best chance to flower, and yourself the best chance to discover your true possibilities for transformation and healing in the myriad situations that living brings.

It is only through regular meditation practicein good times and badthat you will develop your art and skills in meditation and will learn your real capacity and ability to meet even the most difficult challenges with fresh eyes and deep awareness.