Calming Your Anxious Mind

by Jeffrey Brantley

  In this chapter we will explore in some depth two basic notions— safety and silence —and learn more about how they act to support you in any method of meditation you choose. Learning to access feelings of safety, and to rest in the vast domain of inner silence empowers you to enter and remain more steadily in your own great heart of awareness. From there, you can access freedom and wisdom regarding fear, anxiety, and panic, and perhaps, also discover an unsuspected wonder and appreciation for all of life’s gifts.

  How You Listen Is Important

  Consider the following poem by William Stafford:

  Being a Person

  Be a person here.

  Stand by the river, invoke

  the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.

  Let any season that wants to come here make its own

  call. After that sound goes away, wait.

  A slow bubble rises through the earth

  and begins to include sky, stars, all space,

  even the outracing, expanding thought.

  Come back and hear the little sound again.

  Suddenly this dream you are having matches

  everyone’s dream, and the result is the world.

  If a different call came there wouldn’t be any

  world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.

  How you stand here is important. How you

  listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe .

  When practicing mindfulness, whether of the breath, the body, any sense experience, or the inner “weather” of anxiety, fear, or panic, how you listen is truly important.

  Are you listening with your whole being and not just your thinking mind? Listening in a way that perhaps you come to inhabit a larger field of awareness, one that includes a feeling of vast depth and presence?

  Are you listening in a way that is not waiting for anything else, but is totally focused on what is here, now, in the present moment? Listening in a way that transports you more deeply into the present moment?

  Eckhart Tolle, author of such popular books as The Power of Now , Stillness Speaks , and A New Earth , often points out how we can let nature teach us to be present and inhabit the present moment.

  Tolle advises us to watch a cat at a mouse hole. The cat is just waiting. Not preoccupied with what it will do later, not worrying about the past. Just waiting with relaxed, yet total presence. Waiting with its whole being, not just the thinking mind (do cats think?). Not in a hurry, interested and alert, aware, present .

  What if you practiced mindfulness this way? From your whole being? In your body, with all senses alert, with attention and awareness open and deeply penetrating the present moment? Relaxed, with no agenda, interested, curious, welcoming and friendly (unlike the cat toward the mouse!).

  Without realizing it, the cat seems to be embodying the seven essential attitudes of mindfulness that we spoke of earlier: nonjudging , patience , beginner’s mind , trust , nonstriving , acceptance , and letting go . Of course, it doesn’t need to think about these as it waits. Attention at the mouse hole comes naturally to it. As humans, we can learn to dwell in our wholeness and not limit the experience of life to habits of thinking and moving attention into past and future.

  Remember the practices in this book. Resting in your wholeness as you practice mindfulness means relaxing and letting the present moment reveal itself through your kind attention to all the dimensions of sense experience as they arise and change.

  Awareness comes through paying attention on purpose, letting your body relax, yet remaining alert. Nonjudging, nonstriving, and a welcoming attitude toward arising experience are involved. Especially related to nonstriving is not wanting or waiting for something else, but connecting with what is here. Beginner’s mind and letting go support you in truly being here, and letting life in all its forms come to you—without hurrying it along!

  Trust and acceptance support you in remaining present for the ups and downs that arise as you pay attention and return attention to the present moment.

  Remembering to cherish and welcome experience, befriending yourself and conditions arising inside and outside, maintaining gentleness and patience—all of these “heartful” aspects of mindfulness help you stay here, now, like this.

  Feeling Safe

  How you breathe is important.

  Do you feel safe as you breathe, or do you feel something else?

  How does fear breathe? Anxiety? Panic? How does the body feel during these times? What would safety feel like?

  Without realizing it, you can be operating in the world from a deep base of not feeling safe. Of course, anxiety, fear, and panic are major examples, acutely, of not feeling safe, but what I am talking about here is even more basic.

  You might call it a field, or a background for all experience. Only after practicing meditation for a time do some people actually realize the underlying feeling of unease, of nonsafety, that operates in the background, yet impacts, like a filter, their sense of the flow of experience.

  In some of my classes, I have asked people to notice if there is anything that is uncomfortable about feeling relaxed when they meditate. Interestingly, many report they don’t want to get “too relaxed.” If that happens, they notice feeling afraid, or at least anxious.

  They reflect that they have never “been able to relax,” and on deeper reflection, they often remark something to the effect that they think they “shouldn’t” relax too much. Looking back in their lives, they are able to recognize that they have actually lived much of their waking life driven by a feeling of fear, of not being safe, and the belief that it would be dangerous to relax “too much. ”

  When I ask them what it is they are afraid of if they relax, often they respond by saying something like “that I am not in control.” Their answer to the question “And why do you need to be in control?” is always insightful, and usually relates to some time or place or way in their lives when they felt danger, or did not feel safe. Somehow, that sense of danger became stored in them, in mind and body, and they carry it to this day.

  What then becomes very interesting is that they continue to feel and to react as if the danger were present, even when they know the threat is no longer there (indeed, it may not have been there for years).

  While this book is not a place to explore in detail all of the sources of fear and feeling unsafe in one’s personal life story, it is useful to recall that we have been learning meditative practices that can aid in overcoming such fear. Mindfulness, loving-kindness, and compassion for self are the practices we mean.

  The loving-kindness meditation, done in a way of deliberately cherishing and wishing yourself safety and ease, especially in the context of fear and danger, is a powerful way to steady your attention and to support mindfulness in stressful or challenging situations.

  Meditation Practice: Loving-kindness for Yourself

  This practice can be done as a formal meditation practice on its own, informally in different situations of daily life, or at the beginning or end of other meditation practices (for example for the first few minutes of your formal practice of breath awareness or body scan, or the last few minutes).

  You were introduced to this practice in chapter 12, Befriending Your Anxious Mind. This is a reminder of that practice, along with an invitation to begin your practice with a focus on phrases of safety and ease. You are also reminded to use your phrases as often as you like, during the day, and even in combination with other meditation practices .

  As always, as you practice, let go of trying to make anything happen. Let go of outcome. Practice is best done from the heart with a genuine wish for yourself (and ultimately others) to be safe, peaceful, happy, and at ease in mind and body.

  Whenever you wish, whatever posture you are in, try turning to the practice of wishing yourself well. Pick a word or phrase that resonates for you. Keep it simple, not too “heady.” For example:

  May I be safe and filled with peace.

  May I be protected f
rom inner and outer harm.

  May I have ease of mind and body.

  May I live in peace.

  May I live in safety.

  As you practice, try putting all your attention behind just one phrase. Speak from your deepest heart and make the strongest wish for yourself. Try a pause between each repetition of your phrase and let yourself feel the phrase through your entire being. Work with your phrase as long as you like. When you like, try another phrase, putting all your attention behind that for as long as you practice.

  As you practice, imagine you are speaking to a dear friend from the depth of your own heart. Be prepared for all sorts of intense feelings, pleasant and not, that may arise. When that happens, you have not done anything wrong. Treat each feeling, each thought or story, each arising with the same friendliness.

  Remember, kindness and friendliness are embedded in the practice of mindfulness. Practicing loving-kindness can brighten and strengthen the practice of mindfulness itself, as well as help to correct the distortions caused by deep feelings of fear and being in danger .

  Resting in Silence

  Just as feeling unsafe can distort the capacity to relax and be mindful, so can being distracted by noise, either outside or inside the body.

  Just as kindness toward oneself can help overcome feelings of fear, so can attention to silence help you connect to a vast and supportive field of silence within. Connecting with the depths of silence within is available to everyone, and is easier than you might think. Learning to make that connection to silence can be very helpful in meditating from a place of wholeness (not being stuck in the thinking or judging), and experiencing your fullness as a human being.

  The haste and momentum of the world can easily become the clamor in our own minds. Meditation practice is an opportunity to be still, listen deeply, and be present.

  The meditation teacher Christina Feldman, in her book Silence (2003), suggests that silence is not the opposite of sound, but rather is a dimension of consciousness that actually contains sound. Our practice as human beings is to develop an ease with silence, including our own inner silence. She points out that we have some ambivalence toward silence, wanting serenity yet being infatuated with drama; longing for wholeness yet fearing the unknown.

  Meditation practice involves learning how to be still, and present, and more patient and sensitive to all the sounds and movement of our lives. Feldman likens silence to a new territory, one that we must experience, inhabit, and learn to be intimate with. Such intimacy arises through practice—by being still, sensitive, and patient, and by beginning to notice as the dimension of silence arises in your consciousness. The benefits of this are profound.

  “Silence, as we come to understand, is not a denial of life, love, or community, but teaches us to celebrate the beauty of each moment. Silence empowers us. Stilling the chatter and clamor of our minds and our worries about life, we find the focus and clarity needed to end pain, alienation, oppression, and fear” (Feldman 2003, 26).

  I have found this view of silence, as a dimension or territory to be inhabited, to be quite useful, both in my personal practice and in teaching meditation to others. It has been so powerful that I wanted to give it special emphasis here, near the end of the book, as a reminder to support any and all of the different practices we have explored. As you do any of the practices, look for ways that the dimension of silence arises, surrounds, and supports you in seeing clearly and staying present.

  I like to practice by imagining relaxing back into this dimension. Letting it support me and hold me. Acknowledging that the silence (you might also think of it as stillness) is always there, waiting only for our gentle attention. The following meditation may help you turn more toward the silence that is always available.

  Whenever you wish, either in formal meditation practice, or informally as you pause and pay attention during the activities of daily life, let yourself remember the possibility that silence exists as a vast dimension or territory, as a ground or context for experience .

  As you practice mindfulness, paying attention on purpose in a friendly and nonjudging way, imagine that you are actually resting in this boundless territory of stillness and silence. Turn your attention toward the places and spaces of silence as you begin to notice them. Letting yourself relax more and more, remaining alert and attentive, you may begin to notice the silence before and after sounds, thoughts, sensations, and all experience. Perhaps noticing how particular sounds arise from silence and return there. You may even notice the sounds of your own breathing, and how it comes from silence and returns there.

  As you practice, let the sense of silence and stillness hold and support you. Trust it to safely contain any fears you have, any worries, any anxieties. Allow yourself to open more and more to the experience of silence and stillness arising within. Notice how it arises naturally, and can contain any physical contractions in your body and any agitation in your heart or mind. Perhaps you will experience directly how awareness is brighter and remains more present, noticing the passing flow of experience, even intense feelings of fear or anxiety, as you let yourself open to and rest in silence and stillness .

  Continue to practice for as long as you like. Explore how attention to silence and stillness can reward and empower you in any moment of your life.

  Keep in Mind

  This chapter has explored two key concepts, safety and silence. You are invited to consider and practice with them more explicitly as you deepen your mindfulness practice.

  Chapter 16

  Applying Mindfulness to Fear & Anxiety

  In an interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn published in Healing and the Mind , Bill Moyers (1993) asked about the purpose of meditation. Kabat-Zinn responded, “There is no purpose in meditation. As soon as you assign a purpose to meditation, you’ve made it just another activity to try to get someplace or reach some goal” (128).

  When questioned further, Kabat-Zinn explained that yes, everyone in the mindfulness-based stress reduction program had a purpose for being there, “but paradoxically, they are likely to make the most progress in this domain if they let go of trying to get anywhere and just learn through the practice of meditation to experience their moments as they unfold” (129) .

  Developing a Skillful Approach to Fear & Anxiety

  Probably you are reading this book because you are seeking help for the fear, anxiety, or panic you experience. You have a definite purpose and goal. And most likely, you have done and continue to do everything you can to understand these forces and to manage them or even eliminate them from your life. Perhaps someone told you to learn to meditate to rid yourself of anxiety or panic. All of this is fine and understandable.

  The Paradox of Meditation

  The catch is that if you are trying to use mindfulness to get rid of something, it doesn’t work. Mindfulness is nonjudging, nonstriving, and nondenying. The practice of mindfulness is about connecting with what is here and holding it in kind and compassionate awareness. This includes the experiences of fear, anxiety, and panic.

  So if you have a “secret agenda” of using mindfulness against anxiety or panic, remind yourself that mindfulness involves accepting what is here. Having an agenda to get rid of something or to change something is a common source of frustration in meditation practice. Change and transformation do occur through meditation, but only when you teach yourself to allow attention and awareness to include disturbing and unpleasant conditions like anxiety and panic.

  In the domain of meditation, it is the practice of being, not doing, that works. To be skillful in approaching any distress in your life—including fear, anxiety, or panic—through meditation, it is helpful to recall some fundamental points.

  Everything happens in the present moment.

  Fear, anxiety, and panic are only experiences flowing into and out of the present moment.

  Meditation can be understood as a process of inner transformation that involves establishing a calm and focused attention, cultivating awareness
, developing understanding and wisdom, and activating kindness and compassion.

  By correctly practicing mindfulness of fear, anxiety, and panic, you develop a clear understanding of their lesson and begin to see what action is necessary.

  Again, there is the paradox. To produce change through meditation, you have to stop trying to change anything! It is good enough to be present. It is strong practice to bring full attention to the present moment— as it is. Doing this, you actually touch the mystery and beauty of life and resonate with it. Change and transformation follow from this contact and awareness.

  Acceptance of Disturbing Experiences

  Fear, anxiety, and panic are demanding visitors. They can turn your inner world upside down. It can be difficult to be allowing and accepting of them because of their intense and disturbing nature. Are there practical ways to deal with such disturbing experiences in meditation?

  The final answer to this question comes through your own direct experience in making meditation a part of your life. You will need to practice mindfulness in different ways as a formal daily meditation, and without trying to get anywhere or accomplish anything other than becoming more mindful. You will also need to bring mindfulness forward as an informal practice by remembering to establish and maintain attention and awareness in the situations of daily life.

  Learning to make room for upset will help. Cultivating and resting more in the “heart” qualities of mindfulness—kindness and compassion—will comfort and steady you. And, discovering your inner resources for safety, silence, and stillness will empower you to deal with the most disturbing experiences.