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Dear Mindful Readers, Rushing around, juggling tasks—that’s a typical Monday. But when everyday stress is punctuated by moments of fear and panic, it can feel paralyzing, leading to more stress and anxiety. Mindfulness invites us to pay attention to the moments that send our brains and bodies into panic mode. Here are a few ways you can create some space between yourself and your panic: 1) First, you may not be able to change your situation, but you can mindfully change your response to it. Try this mindful breathing practice. 2) Then, if you find yourself overwhelmed by emotions, here’s one crucial approach that mindfulness teachers recommend. 3) Finally, face your panic. Try this mindful practice for turning toward your panic, acknowledging it, and letting it be. Here’s hoping you all find moments to enjoy being mindful this week. Yours, The Mindful Editors |
Calming the Rush of Panic in Your Body
How to create space between you and what you’re experiencing in order to decrease anxiety and worry.
By
Bob Stahl
aleutie/Adobe Stock
Anxiety softens when we can create a space between ourselves and what we’re experiencing. Stephen Covey reiterates Victor Frankl’s powerful insight
and possibility: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In
that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our
response lies our growth and our happiness.”
When you react in ways that aren’t mindful, they can gradually grow into habits that are detrimental to your health and well-being. Consequently, these patterns of reactivity further your suffering or distress. This is why it’s so important to discern clearly the difference between reacting with unawareness and responding with mindfulness. When you become aware of the present moment, you gain access to resources you may not have had before. You may not be able to change a situation, but you can mindfully change your response to it. You can choose a more constructive and productive way of dealing with stress rather than a counterproductive or even destructive way of dealing with it.
Remember: easy does it; one step at a time. Slowly and gradually you can learn to live with more ease.
The Importance of Mindful Breathing
Mindful breathing is part of the foundation of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and often our first recommendation to anyone living with the challenges of panic. It involves diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing, also known as belly breathing, which is very helpful in calming the body because it’s the way that you naturally breathe when asleep or relaxed.
Explore your breath:
You can learn mindful breathing by following the script below, pausing briefly after each paragraph. Aim for a total time of at least five minutes.
Like other meditations, mindful breathing can be incorporated into your daily activities too. As far as where to practice informally, just about anywhere works. Take a few minutes at home, at work, at the doctor’s office, at the bus stop, or even while waiting in line to bring a little mindful breathing into your life. You can also make it a habit to take a few mindful breaths right after you wake up, when you take a morning break, at lunchtime, in the afternoon, at night, or right before you go to sleep. Once you’ve practiced mindful breathing at these times, you can experiment with using it when you’re feeling some angst, to help you calm the rush of panic in your body.
This article was adapted from Calming the Rush of Panic, by Bob Stahl PhD, Wendy Millstine NC.
When you react in ways that aren’t mindful, they can gradually grow into habits that are detrimental to your health and well-being. Consequently, these patterns of reactivity further your suffering or distress. This is why it’s so important to discern clearly the difference between reacting with unawareness and responding with mindfulness. When you become aware of the present moment, you gain access to resources you may not have had before. You may not be able to change a situation, but you can mindfully change your response to it. You can choose a more constructive and productive way of dealing with stress rather than a counterproductive or even destructive way of dealing with it.
Remember, there is no other place to go, nothing else you need to do, and no one you have to be right now.In regard to panic, when you become mindful that you are in a state of panic, you can begin to respond to it in a way that lessens its intensity rather than inflaming or fueling it. As your practice of mindfulness deepens, you can gradually prevent panic attacks from even occurring and begin to feel much more deeply at ease within yourself and in the world.
Take It Slow
So that you feel safe, before you begin, we’d like to offer some gentle suggestions regarding meditation and other practices. Please tread lightly. Meditations, and other practices are meant not to create more panic or pressure in your life but as a way to help you practice engaging with panic in safe and relatively comfortable surroundings. Know that you can stop at any time. Please take care of yourself in the best way you need to.Remember: easy does it; one step at a time. Slowly and gradually you can learn to live with more ease.
The Importance of Mindful Breathing
Mindful breathing is part of the foundation of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and often our first recommendation to anyone living with the challenges of panic. It involves diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing, also known as belly breathing, which is very helpful in calming the body because it’s the way that you naturally breathe when asleep or relaxed.
Explore your breath:
- Take a moment right now to be mindful of your breath. Gently place your hands on your belly.
- Breathe normally and naturally. When you breathe in, simply be aware that you’re breathing in; when you breathe out, be aware that you’re breathing out.
- Feel your belly rise and fall with your breath. Now take two more mindful breaths and then continue reading.
Foundational Practice: Mindful Breathing
Find a quiet place where you can be undisturbed. Turn off your phone and any other devices that might take you away from this special time that you’re giving yourself. Assume a posture in which you can be comfortable and alert, whether sitting in a chair or on a cushion or lying down.You can learn mindful breathing by following the script below, pausing briefly after each paragraph. Aim for a total time of at least five minutes.
- Appreciate Your Time. Take a few moments to congratulate yourself that you are taking some time for meditation.
- Become aware of your breath. Now bring awareness to the breath in the abdomen or belly, breathing normally and naturally.
- Stay with your breath. As you breathe in, be aware of breathing in; as you breathe out, be aware of breathing out. If it is helpful, place your hands on your belly to feel it expand with each inhalation and contract with each exhalation. Simply maintaining this awareness of the breath, breathing in and breathing out. If you are unable to feel the breath in your belly, find some other way—place your hands on your chest, or feel the movement of air in and out of your nostrils.
- Just be. There’s no need to visualize, count, or figure out the breath. Just being mindful of breathing in and out. Without judgment, just watching, feeling, experiencing the breath as it ebbs and flows. There’s no place to go and nothing else to do. Just being in the here and now, mindful of your breathing, living life one inhalation and one exhalation at a time.
- Feel what your body is doing naturally. As you breathe in, feel the abdomen or belly expand or rise like a balloon inflating, then feel it receding or deflating or falling on the exhalation. Just riding the waves of the breath, moment by moment, breathing in and out.
- Acknowledge your wandering mind. From time to time, you may notice that your attention has wandered from the breath. When you notice this, just acknowledge that your mind wandered and acknowledge where it went, and then bring your attention gently back to the breath.
- Be where you are. Remember, there is no other place to go, nothing else you need to do, and no one you have to be right now. Just breathing in and breathing out. Breathing normally and naturally, without manipulating the breath in any way, just being aware of the breath as it comes and goes.
- Acknowledge your time. As you come to the end of this meditation, congratulate yourself that you took this time to be present and that you are directly cultivating inner resources for healing and well-being. Let us take a moment to end this meditation with the wish “May all beings be at peace.”
How to Practice Mindful Breathing
Give yourself the gift of formally practicing this meditation every day, even for a short period of time. It might be helpful to start off practicing mindful breathing for five minutes once a day and build it up from there. Maybe you’ll find that you can add a second or even a third five-minute session, practicing mindful breathing at different times of your day. You can get additional benefit if you gradually extend your mindful breathing to ten, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty minutes at least once a day. Let this be a part of your practice of mindfulness that you look forward to doing, a special time for you to center yourself and “return home” to your being. Feel free to use an alarm clock or timer; you can download free meditation timers from the Insight Meditation Center that feature a pleasant sound.Like other meditations, mindful breathing can be incorporated into your daily activities too. As far as where to practice informally, just about anywhere works. Take a few minutes at home, at work, at the doctor’s office, at the bus stop, or even while waiting in line to bring a little mindful breathing into your life. You can also make it a habit to take a few mindful breaths right after you wake up, when you take a morning break, at lunchtime, in the afternoon, at night, or right before you go to sleep. Once you’ve practiced mindful breathing at these times, you can experiment with using it when you’re feeling some angst, to help you calm the rush of panic in your body.
This article was adapted from Calming the Rush of Panic, by Bob Stahl PhD, Wendy Millstine NC.
and fear. Any of these strategies can lead to either defensive or aggressive behavior with others, or unhealthy attachment.
Panic affects you not only physically, but also in your
emotions and feelings. The body and mind are integrally connected, and
often when one is affected, the other is too. Learning how to work with
the powerful emotions and feelings that come up with panic—such as
terror, a feeling of impending doom, anxiety, worry, fear, anger,
sadness, or shame—can be enormously liberating to the panicked heart.
As human beings, we are all affected by emotions. Most of us love to feel good and hate to feel bad. We want to be liked and accepted and despise or fear being disliked or discounted. There’s a beautiful saying that people will always remember how you made them feel. Human beings are feeling beings, and it may often appear that your emotions are affected first before your thoughts. You can walk into a room and get a feel of a person or situation before you start thinking and assessing the situation to determine whether you feel comfortable or not.
This type of practice takes some willingness and courage, but if you really want to know what’s fueling your panic, an investigation may sound quite reasonable. After all, what do you have to lose? It seems the only thing you have to lose is your panic. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”
As a way to prepare you for this meditation, it’s important to understand two important aspects of mindful inquiry for working with panic: acknowledgment and letting be. You will discover that each supports the other in this process of investigation.
This article was adapted from Calming the Rush of Panic, by Bob Stahl PhD, Wendy Millstine NC
When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives. At one point she described how she was learning to be “her own best friend.” A wave of sadness came over me, and I broke down sobbing. I was the furthest thing from my own best friend. I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, nit-picking, demanding, always on the job. My guiding assumption was, “Something is fundamentally wrong with me,” as I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self.
Over the last several decades, through my work with tens of thousands of clients and meditation students, I’ve come to see the pain of perceived deficiency as epidemic. It’s like we’re in a trance that causes us to see ourselves as unworthy. Yet, I have seen in my own life, and with countless others, that we can awaken from this trance through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion. We can come to trust the goodness and purity of our hearts.
In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I often introduce mindfulness and compassion through a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:
R—Recognize What’s Going On
Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us. Like awakening from a dream, the first step out of the trance of unworthiness is simply to recognize that we are stuck, subject to painfully constricting beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations. Common signs of the trance include a critical inner voice, feelings of shame or fear, the squeeze of anxiety or the weight of depression in the body.
Different people respond to the sense of unworthiness in different
ways. Some might stay busy, trying to prove themselves valuable; others,
fearful of failure, may become discouraged or even paralyzed. Still
others may resort to addictive behaviors to avoid facing their shame and
fear. Any of these strategies can lead to either defensive or
aggressive behavior with others, or unhealthy attachment.
Some of us are at war with ourselves for decades, never realizing how our self-judgment and self-aversion keep us from finding genuine intimacy with others or enjoying our lives. One palliative caregiver reports that a key regret of the dying is not having been true to themselves. Rather than listening to and trusting our inner life, most of us try to live according to the expectations of others, which we internalize. When we inevitably fall short of the mark, we condemn ourselves.
Though it may sound depressing or overwhelming, learning to recognize that we are at war with ourselves is quite empowering. One meditation student described the trance of unworthiness as “…the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” As he became increasingly mindful of his incessant self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy, his aspiration to free himself from his painful inner prison grew.
A—Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause
Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations we have recognized simply be there. Typically when we have an unpleasant experience, we react in one of three ways: by piling on the judgment; by numbing ourselves to our feelings; or by focusing our attention elsewhere. For example, we might have the sinking, shameful feeling of having been too harsh in correcting our child. But rather than allowing that feeling, we might blame our partner for not doing his or her part, worry about something completely different, or decide it’s time for a nap. We’re resisting the rawness and unpleasantness of the feeling by withdrawing from the present moment.
We allow by simply pausing with the intention to relax our resistance and let the experience be just as it is. Allowing our thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations simply to be doesn’t mean we agree with our conviction that we’re unworthy. Rather, we honestly acknowledge the presence of our judgment, as well as the painful feelings underneath. Many students I work with support their resolve to let it be by silently offering an encouraging word or phrase to themselves. For instance, you might feel the grip of fear and mentally whisper yes in order to acknowledge and accept the reality of your experience in this moment.
Victor Frankel writes, “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom.” Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life. For one student, the space of allowing gave her more freedom in the face of urges to binge eat. In the past, whenever she felt restless or anxious at night, she’d start thinking of her favorite food—trail mix—then mindlessly consume a half pound of it before going to bed, disgusted with herself. Learning to recognize the cues and taking a pause interrupted the pattern. While pausing, she would allow herself to feel the tension in her body, her racing heart, the craving. Soon, she began to contact a poignant sense of loneliness buried beneath her anxiety. She found that if she could stay with the loneliness and be gentle with herself, the craving passed.
I—Investigating with Kindness
Investigating means calling on our natural curiosity—the desire to know truth—and directing a more focused attention to our present experience. Simply pausing to ask, what is happening inside me?, can initiate recognition, but investigation adds a more active and pointed kind of inquiry. You might ask yourself: What most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? Or What am I believing? What does this feeling want from me? You might notice hollowness or shakiness, then discover a sense of unworthiness and shame masked by those feelings. Unless you bring them into awareness, your unconscious beliefs and emotions will control your experience and perpetuate your identification with a limited, deficient self.
Poet Dorothy Hunt says that we need a “…heartspace where everything that is, is welcome.” Without such an attitude of unconditional care, there isn’t enough safety and openness for real investigation to take place. About ten years ago I entered a period of chronic illness. During one particularly challenging period of pain and fatigue, I became discouraged and unhappy. In my view I was terrible to be around—impatient, self-absorbed, irritable, gloomy. I began working with RAIN to recognize these feelings and judgments and to consciously allow the unpleasantness in my body and emotions to just be there. As I began to investigate, I heard an embittered voice: “I hate living like this.” And then a moment later, “I hate myself!” The full toxicity of self-aversion filled me.
Not only was I struggling with illness, I was at war with the self-centered, irritable person I believed I had become. Unknowingly, I had turned on myself and was held captive by the trance of unworthiness. But in that moment of recognizing and allowing the suffering of self-hatred, my heart began to soften with compassion.
Here’s a story that helps to describe the process I went through. Imagine while walking in the woods you see a small dog sitting by a tree. You bend down to pet it and it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. Initially you might be frightened and angry. But then you notice one of its legs is caught in a trap, buried under some leaves. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern. You see that the dog’s aggression sprang from vulnerability and pain.
This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful, reactive ways, it’s because we’re caught in some kind of painful trap. The more we investigate the source of our suffering, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart toward ourselves and others.
When I recognized how my leg was in a trap—sickness compounded with self aversion— my heart filled with sorrow and genuine self-care. The investigating deepened as I gently put my hand over my heart—a gesture of kindness— and invited whatever other feelings were there to surface. A swell of fear (uncertainty for my future) spread through my chest, followed by an upwelling of grief at losing my health. The sense of self-compassion unfurled fully as I mentally whispered, It’s all right, sweetheart, and consciously offered care to the depths of my vulnerability, just as I would to a dear friend.
Compassion arises naturally when we mindfully contact our suffering and respond with care. As you practice the RAIN of Self-Compassion, experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to soften or open your heart. Many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek; others, in a whispered message of care, or by envisioning being bathed in warm, radiant light. What matters is that once you have investigated and connected with your suffering, respond by offering care to your own heart. When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture—even if, initially, it feels awkward— will serve you well.
N—Natural Loving Awareness
Natural loving awareness occurs when identification with the small self is loosened. This practice of non-identification means that our sense of who we are is not fused with any limiting emotions, sensations, or stories. We begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness.
Though the first three steps of RAIN require some intentional activity, the N is the treasure: A liberating homecoming to our true nature. There’s nothing to do for this last part of RAIN; we simply rest in natural awareness.
The RAIN of Self-Compassion is not a one-shot meditation, nor is the realization of our natural awareness necessarily full, stable, or enduring. Rather, as you practice you may experience a sense of warmth and openness, a shift in perspective. You can trust this! RAIN is a practice for life—meeting our doubts and fears with a healing presence. Each time you are willing to slow down and recognize, oh, this is the trance of unworthiness… this is fear… this is hurt…this is judgment…, you are poised to de-condition the old habits and limiting self-beliefs that imprison your heart. Gradually, you’ll experience natural loving awareness as the truth of who you are, more than any story you ever told yourself about being “not good enough” or “basically flawed.”
A friend of mine was sitting with her dying mother while she was in a coma. At one point the mother opened her eyes, looked at her daughter with great lucidity, and said “You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me.” She closed her eyes, sank back into a coma and died shortly thereafter. For my friend, her mother’s words were a parting gift. They inspired her to dedicate herself to the mindfulness and self-compassion that frees us.
We each have the conditioning to live for long stretches of time imprisoned by a sense of deficiency, cut off from realizing our intrinsic intelligence, aliveness, and love. The greatest blessing we can give ourselves is to recognize the pain of this trance, and regularly offer a cleansing rain of self-compassion to our awakening hearts.
L
Calming the Rush of Panic in Your Emotions
Mediation can help you explore how panic affects you not only physically, but also in your emotions and feelings.
By
Bob Stahl
As human beings, we are all affected by emotions. Most of us love to feel good and hate to feel bad. We want to be liked and accepted and despise or fear being disliked or discounted. There’s a beautiful saying that people will always remember how you made them feel. Human beings are feeling beings, and it may often appear that your emotions are affected first before your thoughts. You can walk into a room and get a feel of a person or situation before you start thinking and assessing the situation to determine whether you feel comfortable or not.
Panicky feelings can arise as quickly as a flash of lightning and send powerful waves of impending doom that render you feeling out of control and not knowing what to do.Within the body, the feelings of panic are very distinct and visceral; there may be rapid breathing, a pounding heartbeat, and many other pronounced physical sensations. Equally panic affects the mind with a strong array of emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Panicky feelings can arise as quickly as a flash of lightning and send powerful waves of impending doom that render you feeling out of control and not knowing what to do. Sometimes those feelings are beyond reasoning, for it feels as though they come out of nowhere. Other times, there may be unacknowledged emotions, wounds, or traumas from your past that have yet to be worked through with meaning and healing. Whether the origin of your panic is known to you or not, panic affects your body and mind. Mindful inquiry meditation can help you deal with emotions and feelings of panic.
How to Work with the Emotions of Panic
Mindful inquiry meditation is a very useful way to work with panic-stricken emotions and feelings. It is a meditative process of inquiring into the nature of what may be fueling or driving your panic. This type of inquiry is a form of investigation; it is not a process of analyzing, trying to figure things out, or making you feel better through positive thinking. It’s a deep exploration of your body and mind, with a willingness to be in the unknown and the curiosity to see what’s actually there.This type of practice takes some willingness and courage, but if you really want to know what’s fueling your panic, an investigation may sound quite reasonable. After all, what do you have to lose? It seems the only thing you have to lose is your panic. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”
As a way to prepare you for this meditation, it’s important to understand two important aspects of mindful inquiry for working with panic: acknowledgment and letting be. You will discover that each supports the other in this process of investigation.
1) Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment is similar to one of the mindfulness attitudes: allowing. It is the practice of validating whatever’s in your direct experience in a matter-of-fact way, just as a meteorologist reports the weather: it’s 35 degrees, raining, and overcast; or it’s 75, calm, and clear. In the same way, if you are feeling panicked, scared, or fearful, you directly acknowledge those feelings in your body and mind whether you’re okay with them or not. Acknowledgment is this ability to see things just as they are without the filters of avoidance or grasping (disliking or liking).
Acknowledgment is similar to one of the mindfulness attitudes: allowing. It is the practice of validating whatever’s in your direct experience in a matter-of-fact way, just as a meteorologist reports the weather: it’s 35 degrees, raining, and overcast; or it’s 75, calm, and clear. In the same way, if you are feeling panicked, scared, or fearful, you directly acknowledge those feelings in your body and mind whether you’re okay with them or not. Acknowledgment is this ability to see things just as they are without the filters of avoidance or grasping (disliking or liking).
2) Letting Be
Letting be is another important aspect or quality that you can bring to acknowledgment. Letting be is different from letting go. Letting be is cultivating the ability to let things run their course rather than trying to push them away or adding on to them. How many times have you told yourself to let go of panic and it didn’t work? If you could let go, you would have. Letting be is much more accessible, since you don’t have to change anything. Letting be is learning to ride the waves of panic that are affecting you physically, mentally, or emotionally and allowing them to run their course, just like ripples from a rock thrown into a lake.
In the practice of mindful inquiry, please acknowledge whatever
feelings of panic you may be experiencing in the body and mind and let
them be. Learning how to go with the flow of life is a much more
skillful approach to dealing with panic than fighting it. There’s a wise
saying: “Whatever you resist, persists.” Although at first it may feel
counterintuitive to turn toward your panic and acknowledge it and let it
be, you may discover soon enough that as you learn to go with it rather
than fighting it, it will begin to dissipate.Letting be is another important aspect or quality that you can bring to acknowledgment. Letting be is different from letting go. Letting be is cultivating the ability to let things run their course rather than trying to push them away or adding on to them. How many times have you told yourself to let go of panic and it didn’t work? If you could let go, you would have. Letting be is much more accessible, since you don’t have to change anything. Letting be is learning to ride the waves of panic that are affecting you physically, mentally, or emotionally and allowing them to run their course, just like ripples from a rock thrown into a lake.
Although at first it may feel counterintuitive to turn toward your panic and acknowledge it and let it be, you may discover soon enough that as you learn to go with it rather than fighting it, it will begin to dissipate.It’s also important to note that when you begin to acknowledge feelings of panic they may actually feel as though they are getting stronger. Please know this is a normal reaction. The reason why it may feel like that is because you’re actually bringing your light of awareness to the panic, rather than turning away from it. You will, however, discover that if you continue to ride its waves, acknowledging the feelings and letting them be, they will gradually subside. In time, you will grow in confidence, you will feel empowered, and the panic will not be able to consume or control you as much as before. You will learn that you don’t have to be frightened and held hostage by your panic and fears and realize that you can live your life with greater ease and peace.
Investigating What Fuels Your Panic
Mindful inquiry meditation is an investigation into what’s fueling your panic, fear, or anxiety. The more you understand what’s driving it, the more you can be free of it. When your awareness and understanding grows brighter, the darkness of panic and fear diminishes. So after acknowledging your panic and letting it be, you are welcome to proceed further into a deeper investigation into what’s driving the panic. This is called mindful inquiry.In time, you will grow in confidence, you will feel empowered, and the panic will not be able to consume or control you as much as before.When you practice mindful inquiry, you may first want to try to calm your body and mind with some mindful breathing and then begin to acknowledge and let be whatever you’re feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally. In this meditation you are going to stay and investigate those feelings of panic by bringing attention to the fearful feelings themselves. This is done by bringing awareness to the feeling of panic in your body and mind and letting yourself experience and investigate it non-judgmentally, just the way it is. Allow yourself to acknowledge what it feels like in your body, emotions, and feelings, and let these feelings be. There’s no need to analyze or figure them out; just ride and observe and experience the waves of emotions and feelings as they come and go. In time you may discover that within those feelings of panic lie important insights into what may be fueling them. You may also realize that within you are tremendous resources for resiliency and healing—that you can learn to overcome those powerful and captive feelings of panic and live with more freedom and ease in your life.
Foundational Practice: Mindful Inquiry
In a quiet place, find a position in which you can be alert and comfortable, whether seated or lying down. Turn off your phone and any other electrical device that could disturb you. Read and practice the script for this guided meditation below, pausing after each paragraph. (Note: Before beginning this meditation, please consider whether this is the right time for you to do it. Do you feel reasonably safe and open? If not, do some mindful breathing and come back to it at another time.)
1. First, congratulate yourself that you are dedicating some precious time for meditation.
2. Become aware of your body and mind
and whatever you are carrying within you. Perhaps there are feelings
from the day’s events or whatever has been going on recently.
3. May you simply allow and acknowledge whatever is within you and let it be, without any form of analysis.
4. Gradually, shift the focus of
awareness to the breath, breathing normally and naturally. As you
breathe in, be aware of breathing in, and as you breathe out, be aware
of breathing out.
5. Awareness can be focused at either
the tip of the nose or the abdomen, depending on your preference. If
focusing at the tip of the nose, feel the touch of the air as you
breathe in and out… If focusing on the abdomen, feel the belly expanding
on an inhalation and contracting on an exhalation.
6. Just living life, one inhalation
and one exhalation at a time. Breathing in, breathing out, experiencing
each breath appearing and disappearing. Just breathing.
7. And now gently withdraw awareness from the breath and shift to mindful inquiry.
8. Mindful inquiry is an
investigation into emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations that are
driving your panic, anxieties, and fears, often beneath the surface of
your awareness. There is a special and unique way of doing this practice
that can foster the potential for deep understanding and insight.
9. When you practice mindful inquiry,
gently direct your attention into the bodily feeling of panic or fear
itself. Allow yourself to bring nonjudgmental awareness into the
experience of it, acknowledging whatever it feels like in the body and
mind and letting it be.
To begin this exploration you need to first
check in with yourself and determine whether it feels safe or not. If
you don’t feel safe, perhaps it is better to wait and try another time
and just stay with your breathing for now.
10. If you are feeling safe, then
bring awareness into the body and mind and allow yourself to feel into
and acknowledge any physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts and just
let them be…without trying to analyze or figure them out.
11. You may discover that within
these feelings there’s a multitude of thoughts, emotions, or old
memories that are fueling your fears. When you begin to acknowledge what
has not been acknowledged, the pathway of insight and understanding may
arise. As you turn toward your emotions, they may show you what you are
panicked, worried, mad, sad, or bewildered about.
12. You may learn that the very
resistance to unacknowledged emotions often causes more panic or fear
and that learning to go with it, rather than fighting it, often
diminishes them. When we say “go with it,” we mean that you allow and
acknowledge whatever is within the mind and body. Just letting the waves
of emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations go wherever they need to
go just like the sky makes room for any weather.
13. Now gently returning to the breath and being mindful of breathing in and out…riding the waves of the breath.
14. As you come to the end of this
meditation, take a moment to congratulate yourself and take a moment to
appreciate the safety and ease you may be feeling right now that you can
bring into your day. By acknowledging your fears, you may open the
possibility for deeper understanding, compassion, and peace. Before you
get up, gently wiggle your fingers and toes and gradually open your
eyes, being fully here and now.
15. Send some loving-kindness your way. May I dwell in peace. May all beings dwell in peace.
In mindful inquiry you’re invited to bring nonjudgmental awareness
into any panicky emotions or feelings, whether they are related to
memories or not, and to fully acknowledge and experience them in your
body and mind and let them be. You may discover that within the panic is
a whole plethora of feelings and experiences that are causing the
agitation or whatever emotion you are feeling. When you begin to
acknowledge what has not been acknowledged, the doorway of understanding
can begin to open. By learning to turn toward your panic, you may
experience more freedom than you could have ever imagined.This article was adapted from Calming the Rush of Panic, by Bob Stahl PhD, Wendy Millstine NC
Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember “RAIN”
Four steps to stop being so hard on ourselves.
When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives. At one point she described how she was learning to be “her own best friend.” A wave of sadness came over me, and I broke down sobbing. I was the furthest thing from my own best friend. I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, nit-picking, demanding, always on the job. My guiding assumption was, “Something is fundamentally wrong with me,” as I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self.
Over the last several decades, through my work with tens of thousands of clients and meditation students, I’ve come to see the pain of perceived deficiency as epidemic. It’s like we’re in a trance that causes us to see ourselves as unworthy. Yet, I have seen in my own life, and with countless others, that we can awaken from this trance through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion. We can come to trust the goodness and purity of our hearts.
In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I often introduce mindfulness and compassion through a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:
Recognize what is going on;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying
with the experience.
You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps in a more abbreviated way whenever challenging feelings arise.Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying
with the experience.
R—Recognize What’s Going On
Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us. Like awakening from a dream, the first step out of the trance of unworthiness is simply to recognize that we are stuck, subject to painfully constricting beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations. Common signs of the trance include a critical inner voice, feelings of shame or fear, the squeeze of anxiety or the weight of depression in the body.
In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves.
Some of us are at war with ourselves for decades, never realizing how our self-judgment and self-aversion keep us from finding genuine intimacy with others or enjoying our lives. One palliative caregiver reports that a key regret of the dying is not having been true to themselves. Rather than listening to and trusting our inner life, most of us try to live according to the expectations of others, which we internalize. When we inevitably fall short of the mark, we condemn ourselves.
Though it may sound depressing or overwhelming, learning to recognize that we are at war with ourselves is quite empowering. One meditation student described the trance of unworthiness as “…the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” As he became increasingly mindful of his incessant self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy, his aspiration to free himself from his painful inner prison grew.
A—Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause
Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations we have recognized simply be there. Typically when we have an unpleasant experience, we react in one of three ways: by piling on the judgment; by numbing ourselves to our feelings; or by focusing our attention elsewhere. For example, we might have the sinking, shameful feeling of having been too harsh in correcting our child. But rather than allowing that feeling, we might blame our partner for not doing his or her part, worry about something completely different, or decide it’s time for a nap. We’re resisting the rawness and unpleasantness of the feeling by withdrawing from the present moment.
We allow by simply pausing with the intention to relax our resistance and let the experience be just as it is. Allowing our thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations simply to be doesn’t mean we agree with our conviction that we’re unworthy. Rather, we honestly acknowledge the presence of our judgment, as well as the painful feelings underneath. Many students I work with support their resolve to let it be by silently offering an encouraging word or phrase to themselves. For instance, you might feel the grip of fear and mentally whisper yes in order to acknowledge and accept the reality of your experience in this moment.
Victor Frankel writes, “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom.” Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life. For one student, the space of allowing gave her more freedom in the face of urges to binge eat. In the past, whenever she felt restless or anxious at night, she’d start thinking of her favorite food—trail mix—then mindlessly consume a half pound of it before going to bed, disgusted with herself. Learning to recognize the cues and taking a pause interrupted the pattern. While pausing, she would allow herself to feel the tension in her body, her racing heart, the craving. Soon, she began to contact a poignant sense of loneliness buried beneath her anxiety. She found that if she could stay with the loneliness and be gentle with herself, the craving passed.
I—Investigating with Kindness
Investigating means calling on our natural curiosity—the desire to know truth—and directing a more focused attention to our present experience. Simply pausing to ask, what is happening inside me?, can initiate recognition, but investigation adds a more active and pointed kind of inquiry. You might ask yourself: What most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? Or What am I believing? What does this feeling want from me? You might notice hollowness or shakiness, then discover a sense of unworthiness and shame masked by those feelings. Unless you bring them into awareness, your unconscious beliefs and emotions will control your experience and perpetuate your identification with a limited, deficient self.
Poet Dorothy Hunt says that we need a “…heartspace where everything that is, is welcome.” Without such an attitude of unconditional care, there isn’t enough safety and openness for real investigation to take place. About ten years ago I entered a period of chronic illness. During one particularly challenging period of pain and fatigue, I became discouraged and unhappy. In my view I was terrible to be around—impatient, self-absorbed, irritable, gloomy. I began working with RAIN to recognize these feelings and judgments and to consciously allow the unpleasantness in my body and emotions to just be there. As I began to investigate, I heard an embittered voice: “I hate living like this.” And then a moment later, “I hate myself!” The full toxicity of self-aversion filled me.
Not only was I struggling with illness, I was at war with the self-centered, irritable person I believed I had become. Unknowingly, I had turned on myself and was held captive by the trance of unworthiness. But in that moment of recognizing and allowing the suffering of self-hatred, my heart began to soften with compassion.
Here’s a story that helps to describe the process I went through. Imagine while walking in the woods you see a small dog sitting by a tree. You bend down to pet it and it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. Initially you might be frightened and angry. But then you notice one of its legs is caught in a trap, buried under some leaves. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern. You see that the dog’s aggression sprang from vulnerability and pain.
This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful, reactive ways, it’s because we’re caught in some kind of painful trap. The more we investigate the source of our suffering, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart toward ourselves and others.
When I recognized how my leg was in a trap—sickness compounded with self aversion— my heart filled with sorrow and genuine self-care. The investigating deepened as I gently put my hand over my heart—a gesture of kindness— and invited whatever other feelings were there to surface. A swell of fear (uncertainty for my future) spread through my chest, followed by an upwelling of grief at losing my health. The sense of self-compassion unfurled fully as I mentally whispered, It’s all right, sweetheart, and consciously offered care to the depths of my vulnerability, just as I would to a dear friend.
Compassion arises naturally when we mindfully contact our suffering and respond with care. As you practice the RAIN of Self-Compassion, experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to soften or open your heart. Many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek; others, in a whispered message of care, or by envisioning being bathed in warm, radiant light. What matters is that once you have investigated and connected with your suffering, respond by offering care to your own heart. When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture—even if, initially, it feels awkward— will serve you well.
N—Natural Loving Awareness
Natural loving awareness occurs when identification with the small self is loosened. This practice of non-identification means that our sense of who we are is not fused with any limiting emotions, sensations, or stories. We begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness.
Though the first three steps of RAIN require some intentional activity, the N is the treasure: A liberating homecoming to our true nature. There’s nothing to do for this last part of RAIN; we simply rest in natural awareness.
The RAIN of Self-Compassion is not a one-shot meditation, nor is the realization of our natural awareness necessarily full, stable, or enduring. Rather, as you practice you may experience a sense of warmth and openness, a shift in perspective. You can trust this! RAIN is a practice for life—meeting our doubts and fears with a healing presence. Each time you are willing to slow down and recognize, oh, this is the trance of unworthiness… this is fear… this is hurt…this is judgment…, you are poised to de-condition the old habits and limiting self-beliefs that imprison your heart. Gradually, you’ll experience natural loving awareness as the truth of who you are, more than any story you ever told yourself about being “not good enough” or “basically flawed.”
A friend of mine was sitting with her dying mother while she was in a coma. At one point the mother opened her eyes, looked at her daughter with great lucidity, and said “You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me.” She closed her eyes, sank back into a coma and died shortly thereafter. For my friend, her mother’s words were a parting gift. They inspired her to dedicate herself to the mindfulness and self-compassion that frees us.
We each have the conditioning to live for long stretches of time imprisoned by a sense of deficiency, cut off from realizing our intrinsic intelligence, aliveness, and love. The greatest blessing we can give ourselves is to recognize the pain of this trance, and regularly offer a cleansing rain of self-compassion to our awakening hearts.
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