Meditations on the Anxious Mind

Far more than we tend to realise, we’re all – in private – deeply anxious. There is so much that worries us across our days and nights: whether our hopes will come true, whether others will like us, whether the people we care about will be OK, whether we can escape humiliation and grief...

Too often, we bottle up our anxieties or try to avoid looking at them directly. We are ashamed of how worried we are and end up feeling isolated and yet more worried. None of this is necessary. Anxiety is deeply normal and, like so much else that troubles our minds, it can be understood and brought under our control. We all deserve to wake up every day without a sense of foreboding.

This is a guide to anxiety: why we feel it, how we experience it when it strikes and what we can do when we come under its influence. Across a series of essays that look at the subject from a number of angles, the tone is helpful, compassionate and, in the best sense, practical.

We have suffered for too long under the rule of anxiety. Here – at last – is a pathway to a calmer, more compassionate and more light-hearted future.

Topics Include:

•   How could we be anything but …?
  •    Anxiety & Evolution
  •    Anxiety & Modern Times
  •    Varieties of Anxiety
  •    An Ideal Life for the Anxious

Extracts from the Book:

On Happiness & Anxiety

“There is nothing greedy or stupid about happiness. The ability to take appropriate satisfaction from the good times is a profound psychological achievement.”

On Self-Hatred & Anxiety

“The cure is to remind the anxious person that we are not inherently wretched, that we have a right to exist, that past neglect wasn’t deserved, that we should feel tenderly towards ourselves.”

On Stoicism & Anxiety

“We must always try to picture the worst that could happen – and then remind ourselves that the worst is survivable. The goal is not to imagine that bad things don’t unfold; it is to see that we are far more capable of enduring them than we currently think.”

Hardback book | 111 pages | 200 x 170 x 15mm | Colour photographs

Insomnia

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(The School of Life)