Calming the Rush of Panic (15 page)

Sit calmly with the weather report of the mind and body, watching the changing cloud formations overhead. If you do this practice regularly, you will experience greater levels of freedom and contentment.

Find Freedom from Thoughts of Death

Rumination on death is common for many people who suffer with panic. You may have watched a close friend or family member die or had a brush with death yourself. When these memories get triggered, you may find yourself thinking obsessively about those who have died, your grief, the loss, and all of the painful experiences from your past. Or you may face your own mortality with accompanying panicky thoughts. A continuous loop of death-related thoughts and fears can make you feel trapped and unable to stop dwelling on death.

Since you can never predict when your rumination and panic will hit, let’s imagine a normal, real-life situation, such as sitting down to eat your lunch. As mentioned earlier, the practice of “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” is an important skill to help free you from the plague of ruminating thoughts of any kind and at any time.

1. Take this moment to pause before you eat. You may want to close your eyes and settle more comfortably into your chair. Be aware of your posture, sitting tall and alert.
   
2. Focus on your breathing. Each breath is a step toward deepening your awareness of the present moment. Breathe in and out from the belly and reflect on what’s happening for you in this moment. Pay attention to what you can smell, hear, and feel. Your lunch might be making your mouth water. You might hear car doors open and close on the street. You might feel the warmth emanating from your hot beverage.
   
3. Go ahead and start eating your lunch, but stay focused on this mindful practice.
   
4. Observe and experience what’s going on with your body sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Your stomach might gently growl. You might feel tense. You might notice your thoughts racing over the same lines:
   I can’t stop thinking about how my dad died. I miss him all the time. He’s never coming back. I will never see him again. I don’t think I can go to work today.
   Round and round your thoughts may go, many of them repeating over and over again. It’s okay. Thoughts have a way of spiraling in the mind. You may notice unrelated thoughts like:
   I feel bloated. I can’t stand my job. I wonder who just texted me.
   Observe each thought and let it be. It’s just the natural flow of thoughts.
   
5. Take this moment to allow your thoughts to be, making room for them to express themselves however they need to. You may experience a strong desire to push away “bad” thoughts and feelings, to repress or stop them. It doesn’t feel comfortable to sit with panic-filled thoughts. For this practice, however, allow yourself to simply experience your panic and fears of death, rather than trying to push these things away.
   
6. You may notice how some thoughts are brief and fleeting, while other thoughts are persistent and keep returning. Notice how thoughts arise and then pass. Observe how old thoughts are replaced by new ones, even unrelated ones, and always changing—for everything is certain to change. That is the one certainty in life. Your thoughts are like storm clouds that pass overhead, which eventually make way for the sun.
   
7. Savor the rest of your meal and enjoy your day!
   

Make this a part of your informal practice of mindfulness that you can carry with you into any activity, whenever your panic and ruminating thoughts take over your normal routine. As you notice how transient your thoughts are, you will become less reactive to and less trapped by them.

Quiet Your Fears of the Unknown

Many people fear not knowing what might happen if there is not enough information to make a reasonable prediction. For example, some people fear being in a lake or ocean because they cannot see the bottom or what is under them or what might be near them. Others have a fear of the dark. If you are experiencing panic around your fear of the unknown or a fear of not knowing what to expect in your present situation, then you might be all too familiar with the kind of habitual thought patterns that can hijack your mind. These thoughts are frequently chronic, negative, and ingrained, and they may sound like this:
I can’t do that because something awful will happen to me. I can’t try anything new because I might get in trouble. I don’t want to go someplace that I’ve never been because I won’t know what to expect.

When your fear of the unknown feels suffocating and you feel plagued by chronic worry and fearful thoughts, try this mindful sitting meditation to help expand your understanding of panicky thoughts and loosen their stranglehold on you. Sitting meditation, as you may recall from earlier in the chapter, is designed to bring awareness to five meditative components: the breath, physical sensations, sounds, mind states, and choiceless awareness. Let’s explore each of those in depth now.

Find a safe, quiet, and comfortable place to sit in a chair or on a cushion, keeping fully alert and wakeful. Be sure to turn off any electronic devices that might interrupt or disturb your meditation. Feel free to set an alarm, if your time for meditation is limited.

Your practice commences when you become mindful of your breathing. Each breath is your personal guide into the present moment. With each in and out breath, acknowledge your fear of the unknown. Take several breaths now, and pay attention to how each breath feels in your body.

Now, gradually shift your mindful attention to whatever physical sensations ensue. Bring awareness into your whole body and notice any distinct or demanding sensations that you’re experiencing. You may experience a painful stiffening of muscles in your neck and shoulders, or waves of nausea in your stomach. While staying connected to your breathing, air flowing in and air flowing out, notice the ever-changing nature of your sensations. You may notice a pain in one area, then it moves into another area. You may feel the urge to sneeze, and then it passes. You may feel tingles, aches, stiffness, or your pulse, followed by so many variations of sensations, appearing and disappearing. Sensations continuously emerge and go away.

On your mindful journey, you will now extend your awareness to sounds and what you can hear at this time. Listen closely to any subtle or harsh sounds in your vicinity or beyond. As with the sensations, you may notice how sounds come and go, rise and then vanish, with the organic flow of nature and change. Sounds arise of their own accord and leave on their own. They appear to be ownerless, simply sounds that come and go.

Leaving behind the focus on sounds, contemplate the mind states with regard to your thoughts and feelings as the focus of your meditation. A variety of thoughts may come to your mind:
I feel scared about tomorrow’s work meeting because I don’t know what to expect. Why does my mother always call when I’m the most stressed out? I can’t remember the last time I watered my plants.
Begin to direct your awareness to the thought process itself. Simply witness and experience your mind without clinging to or resisting any thoughts or emotions that come up. Let yourself acknowledge the myriad of fluctuating mental processes or formations in this ever-evolving moment of now.

Perhaps it might be like lying in a chaise lounge outside, on a warm evening, watching the stars and constellations tracing the night sky. You might experience the mind in the same way. Stars, like thoughts, come into focus, some brighter, some weaker, and then pass overhead. These are just states of mind, changing with the course of time and moving along their natural path. You are cultivating mindfulness when you detach from the storyline of your thoughts and just experience the external thought as a thought—a thought generated from the mind, vocal at times, quiet at other times, just thoughts without an owner or driver.

Remember to stay tuned in to your breathing. Each breath is a window into the present moment. This moment right now.

Through choiceless awareness, you are allowing whatever might be happening for you in this breath, sensation, sound, or state of mind. Feel into your body and observe the ever-changing starry sky like the ever-changing thoughts and feelings of your mind and body. At one moment, your attention may be drawn to something acute and panicky. The next moment, your chin itches and your panic diminishes. Everything is constantly changing—your mood and the stars, your thoughts and the seasons, your worries and the weather. It’s just the nature of things to be continually shifting. Observe and let them be.

As you gently shift away from choiceless awareness, return to the breath and feel your entire mind and body connected to this orchestra of experiences. May you feel peace and tranquility greeting you at every step and wherever you go.

Feel Comfortable around Others

For most of us, there is no way to completely avoid people in life. If you have acute anxiety, panic, or discomfort in the presence of other people, then you may avoid social events or being in public at all costs. You may experience severe shyness or lack of self-confidence when meeting people or making introductions. You may also not like to be the center of attention. Since you can rarely avoid people and gatherings, you may often feel as if another panic attack is waiting just around the corner.

The following applied practice will guide you step by step and moment by moment through “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow,” to help you harness your innate ability to find balance and ease in every panicky moment.

You can do this anywhere, whether seated or standing.

1. Take a thoughtful pause to congratulate yourself for committing to this practice right now. This conscious decision to bring mindfulness into your mind and body is important to your overall well-being and peace of mind.
   
2. Pay attention to your breathing—the rhythm and cycle, the rising and falling, and the sound of air passing into and out of your nose and mouth and body. Be with your breath, pause, and be present.
   
3. Make space for noticing any thoughts that may be generated at this time. Be aware of any emotions, thoughts, and sensations that present themselves. You might find yourself saying:
   Oh look, there’s that worry about the upcoming conference that I have to attend. Look again, there’s that nagging fear about the lunch date with my friend at the outdoor restaurant. Here comes that reoccurring and uncomfortable thought about everyone looking at me.
   More thoughts arrive, like uninvited guests, and more thoughts depart, without so much as a good-bye. Notice how they come and they go at their leisure. Nothing stays the same. No thought, feeling, or sensation is ever fixed and permanent.
   
4. Simply allow whatever comes to mind to be. Remember that whatever arises passes away. When you don’t fight it, when you just let your thoughts be the way they are, you will begin to notice how impermanent your panicky thoughts can be, and the mind can steady itself with this acknowledgment. You are learning to let things be and learning to go with the flow of your changing mental landscape.
   
5. Return to your breathing and reconnect with the unfolding moment that is right here before you.
   

May you embrace the beauty of change. May you find ease of mind.

Here We Are

As we come to the end of this chapter, you have been introduced to sitting meditation and the “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” practice for dealing with the rush of panic in your thoughts. You also carried out and reflected on some mindful practices that you can bring into your daily activities to help you deal with panic. We recommend that you continue to use the meditations, mindfulness in daily activities, and S.T.O.P. and R.A.I.N. every day.

The next chapter is our last, and we want to send you off with hope and encouragement that you can live a life beyond panic. You will be introduced to loving-kindness meditation and the “web of life” meditation, along with some informal mindful practices to grow a sense of interconnection with the web of life.

chapter 4

Life Beyond Panic

B
efore picking up this book, you may have never imagined that you could live a life with less panic. We hope that by now you are already doing so, or at least have a glimpse of what’s possible. Thus far you’ve explored and learned practices of working with panic in the body, in your emotions, and in your thoughts. In this last chapter we want to explore with you how to connect to the richness of life beyond the immediate physical, emotional, and mental experiences of panic.

We trust that you now understand that this journey is an opportunity for greater self-discovery and a gateway into your heart for deeper wisdom and compassion. As you work with panic and learn from it, you will cultivate greater understanding of yourself and the world around you, and this will make you feel more alive, connected, and free. You’ll come to know that you’re part of this great universe and can feel more at home within it. This is what we mean when we speak about a life beyond panic.

Albert Einstein, who was known for his wisdom as well as his scientific genius, points to the interconnectedness of existence in an excerpt from one of his letters, published in the
New York Post
(November 28, 1972):