‘Causeless joy, imperturbable peace, love that knows no opposite and freedom at the heart of all experience… this is your ever-present nature under all circumstances.’
RUPERT SPIRA
James lay in bed listening to the traffic roaring past in the street outside thinking, How could anyone sleep through that? He and his wife had saved up everything they had to buy this dream house and within days of moving in, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. How had he not noticed how loud the noise was? He looked over at his wife sleeping soundly beside him: How could she not be awake? How was he supposed to get up and go to work in the morning with so little sleep? After all, this had been going on for months and he was exhausted. He wasn’t going to be able to hold down his job at this rate. And every time he went out to work, all he could think about all day was how much he didn’t want to go home. The situation was also starting to have an impact on his relationship: What would happen if he didn’t have the person he loved most in the world? The only solution would be to move to a new house: Yes, but who would buy this house, given the noise outside? And where would they live? Which get-rich-quick schemes could he invest in to raise the money? And what if the traffic was bad there, too, and they didn’t find out until too late?
There’s another car… and another… and another…
And all the time James’ heart was racing faster and faster and faster.
You don’t have anxiety.
You just really, really think you do.
The truth is you’re already anxiety-free and there’s nothing you need to do to realize that fact. Except maybe to read this book and be willing to consider what I’m going to share. There’s nowhere to get to, nothing you need to change and everything you’re going to learn is probably counter to everything you think you already know about anxiety and where freedom from trying to cope with it lies.
Whether you have agoraphobia or claustrophobia, a health anxiety or fear of death, a fear of being alone or social anxiety, a fear of driving or flying, have urgency anxiety or migraines, morning dread or all-day rumblings of fear, you’re in the right place and I want you to know it’s all going to be OK.
Whatever you consider to be the root cause of your stress – whether it’s the traffic outside your house, the job that you do, your boss, your children or partner, the exams you have coming up, your health, your divorce, the fact that you have to look after your grandchildren next month, your upcoming operation or dentist visit, or your impending redundancy – you’re in the right place and I want you to know it’s all going to be OK.
Because although it looks like there are a thousand different problems that a human being can experience, and a thousand different causes for those problems, in truth there’s an incredibly simple understanding that facilitates the realization of the innate wellbeing and mental health that sits within every single one of us. What’s more, we all have an inbuilt capacity to realize this understanding. And when we do, it changes everything.
Whether you’re a prisoner, a schoolteacher, a doctor, a business leader, a person with the label of schizophrenia or any other, a mother, have suicidal tendencies or OCD, a five-year-old or a grandmother, you already have everything you need to understand what I’m going to share with you.
Thousands of people who would put themselves into these exact categories have already had their lives transformed by this solution and, no matter how hard life seems, or how scared you currently feel, I want you to know that there’s never no hope. And that life-changing understanding is what I’ll share with you in this book.
I could try to impress you by pretending that I have a secret that you don’t know. But what you’re going to learn is, in fact, something you already know. In truth, it’s so profoundly simple that you’ll be tempted to dismiss it. You’ll almost certainly believe it’s more complicated than it actually is and you’ll undoubtedly be tempted to jump to ‘Yes, that’s great, but how do I…?’
That’s fine.
I’ve shared what I’m going to be teaching you in this book with schoolchildren, grandparents, people in work and out of work, entrepreneurs and CEOs, and every one of them (except for those under the age of about five) has asked the very same questions you probably will. With that in mind, I’ll continue to remind you of the following, as we travel on this journey together:
There’s always less to do than you think.
That might not sit well with you. Chances are you’ve been working really hard to get rid of your anxiety and possibly for many years. In fact, you probably work hard at most things in life. Here’s the thing – if trying hard and working on yourself was going to solve the problem, you would have been done with all this years ago. What you’re currently doing isn’t working. And it’s NOT because you’re not working hard enough. It’s simply that the traditional methods for overcoming anxiety innocently asked you to look for the solution in the wrong place. This book is going to point you gently in a direction you’ve probably never considered before, and all I’ll invite you to do is look. Because there’s a lot less to do than you think.
To complement the book, I have created a Little Peace of Mind Companion Course. This is your chance to watch a series of videos, access bonus content and discover answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.
To find out more and access your free copy of the course, visit: https://alittlepeaceofmind.co.uk/bookresources/