Calming Your Anxious Mind Read online

  Nonstriving

  We spend so much of our lives doing things and trying to change things. This habit of doing often carries over into meditation, and it can be a real problem. The ego mind wants to get more of what it likes and wants to get rid of what it doesn’t like. When it decides you aren’t the way you should be, the ego mind even puts on the pressure to change you.

  This pressure to do and to change is felt as striving, or straining to be different, to go elsewhere, or to do something else.

  The practice of mindfulness involves simply paying attention, without judgment, to whatever is happening. In this sense, meditation is a unique human activity. Meditation is about nondoing instead of doing. To practice meditation is to practice being, not doing.

  When you feel a sense of striving or of trying to change things, notice that without judging yourself. In a deep sense, the practice of mindfulness is about truly relaxing, allowing whatever is happening to happen, and bringing clear, compassionate awareness to it as it happens.

  Meditation involves a paradox. The best way to achieve your goals about meditation (whether they be control of anxiety and panic, stress reduction, spiritual growth, personal development, or anything else) is to back off from striving for results and instead start to focus carefully on seeing and accepting things as they are, moment to moment.

  Jackie’s Stor y

  Jackie is a worrier. She introduces herself that way at parties sometimes. But it is no joke to Jackie. Although she has never talked with a doctor about it and she has no diagnosis, Jackie wonders sometimes if her worrying isn’t a bit more severe than normal.

  She worries about what can happen in practically every situation she faces. She especially worries about work. Jackie is single and has a demanding job with a lot of responsibilities. She often works overtime or steps in for others who are sick or on leave. Jackie is well liked by her coworkers, and many people depend on her. But she finds it nearly impossible to leave work. In the evenings, on weekends, even during vacations, she often worries about people and situations at work.

  A few months ago she began to notice that she was even more keyed up than usual and felt tired more often. Some of her friends said she was more irritable, and she felt tight in the neck and shoulders almost every day.

  Jackie heard about a stress-management program through a notice at work. In order to participate, she would have to meditate for an hour every day for eight weeks. Although she didn’t know how she could possibly find an hour each day to meditate, she decided to try it and see if her worry would stop.

  Jackie joined the class and began to meditate. She did not do a full hour every day, but surprised herself at how much she did do. She began to experience some relaxation in her mind and body. Her muscles didn’t ache quite so much, and her sleep improved. She even thought she had a bit more energy at work.

  In class one night, the teacher talked about how much people strive and strain, and how meditation is about just being. Jackie began to notice how that applied to her. She reflected on how much she felt she took on the responsibility to change things in everything she did. She began to notice this attitude more and more on the job, and began to allow herself to feel it without identifying so much with it.

  Jackie made an interesting discovery about herself in meditation. While she was meditating, she began to notice how much she felt a restless tension in her body. The more she paid attention to this, the more she could begin to hear thoughts of criticism and urgency in her mind. She began to try to just let things be, as her teacher advised .

  The restlessness in her body seemed to ease, but the thoughts got meaner. Jackie kept practicing. She even stopped trying to make the thoughts go away or change. As she just let the thoughts “chatter on,” they began to quiet.

  Jackie had succeeded in being and not-doing. She stopped trying to stop worrying and, in that way, became free from worrying after all.

  Acceptance

  The process of acceptance begins with the willingness to see things exactly as they are in the present moment. Can you keep your attention focused exactly here and now, taking each moment as it comes and connecting with whatever presents itself?

  Often, to be able to accept what comes into awareness, you must pass through periods of intense feelings such as anger, fear, or grief. These feelings themselves require acceptance.

  Acceptance means seeing things exactly as they are rather than as you think they are or as you think they should be. Remember, things can only change in the present moment. You have to see things as they are and yourself as you are—truly—in this moment if you wish to change, heal, or transform yourself or your life.

  Acceptance includes softening and opening to what is here. The sense of struggle is released. By ceasing to deny and to fight with the way things are now, you can find yourself with more energy to heal and to transform what is here.

  Acceptance does not mean you have to like everything or that you have to take a passive attitude. It does not mean you have to be satisfied with things as they are, or that you have to stop trying to change things for the better. As we are speaking of it here, acceptance simply means willingness to see things as they are, deeply, truthfully, and completely. This attitude sets the stage for acting in the most potent and healthy way in your life, no matter what is happening.

  Sam’s Stor y

  Sam had never liked going to the dentist. As a child he had to have quite a lot of dental work, and it left its mark on him. All he could remember was the pain, the smells, and the sounds as the dentist worked in his tiny mouth. His childhood experience was so damaging that as an adult Sam simply did not go to a dentist.

  Then, the day came when he could stay away no longer. He had been having pain in a right lower molar for weeks. Advil and aspirin had lost all effectiveness. Sam was distracted by the pain and couldn’t chew easily on that side. His wife did not have this fear of the dentist and made regular visits to her dentist, whom she liked. Sam decided he had to go, and made an appointment with his wife’s dentist.

  In the dentist’s chair, with his mouth open while the dentist did the exam, Sam began to be flooded by the fear and painful memories of his childhood dentist visits. He began to sweat, and his heart raced even faster. He began to wonder if he could go on.

  Then he remembered the talk in his meditation class about being relaxed and present, and being willing to see clearly exactly what is here. The teacher had defined acceptance that way. He had invited the class to practice mindfulness by softening and opening in whatever situation or experience they found themselves.

  Sam figured he didn’t have anything to lose. He shifted his attention away from the memories and thoughts in his head, and concentrated all of his attention on his breath. He used his breath to connect his attention to his mind and body in the present moment. He felt the in breath and the out breath. On the out breath, he felt the sense of relaxation in his body and allowed it to strengthen. Sam began to feel a little better.

  He began to let himself feel the different sensations, to hear the sounds, and even to smell the smells. He came back repeatedly to his breath and, whenever he felt his body stiffen, he imagined the breath went out exactly at that spot and brought a feeling of relaxation with it. He was breathing into the experience and staying present with the experience as it was.

  The dentist said, “Good news. You just have a small cavity and some gum infection around the tooth. We’ll fix you up in no time. ”

  Sam remembered more about acceptance from his class. He said to himself, “This is not pleasant, but it is the way it is, and I seem to be managing it better than I expected. I will just keep on trying to be here with things since it won’t help to fight them.” And he kept on working with his breath and relaxing, paying attention to things as they unfolded.

  When the work was finished, the dentist actually thanked Sam for his cooperation.

  Letting Go

  Letting go, or nonattachment , is another attitude esse
ntial to mindfulness. Much of the time, people are practicing the opposite attitude, clinging, without even knowing it. Often, what you cling to most strongly are ideas and views about yourself, others, and situations. It is a kind of clinging on the inside. It may be difficult to see, but is easily felt.

  These ideas to which you cling filter and shape your moment-by-moment experience in profound ways. When you start paying attention to your inner experience through meditation, you will rapidly discover which thoughts, feelings, and situations your mind seems to want to hold onto. And you will notice other things that it wants desperately to get rid of.

  Clinging is driven by liking and disliking, and by judgments about things. As you practice mindfulness, it is important to put aside the tendency to judge each experience. Instead, you teach yourself to recognize judging. Don’t get caught up in good or bad, high or low, pleasant or unpleasant. Just let your experience be what it is, moment by moment.

  This letting be is actually a way of letting go. By not interfering, by just letting things be, you give them a better chance to go.

  Can you feel the sense of contracting and hardening that arises around both pleasant and unpleasant situations? Letting go just means releasing the contraction around the thing and allowing it to be. It is not necessary to push the thing away. No force is required. Just soften the contraction. Just let go. You do it all the time, actually. Make a fist. Squeeze it tight. Now let go. Notice the feeling. Try it again. This is the physical sensation of letting go. Practicing meditation, you are practicing letting go on the inside. Become familiar with the interior sense of contraction, in the body and the mind. Then practice letting go of that.

  Alice’s Story

  Alice is troubled by an irrational fear. She knows it is irrational. She has lived with it since her teenage years, and yet, at age twenty-eight, she still experiences it frequently. She recently read a magazine article about social phobia and thought it described her perfectly.

  Alice’s fear usually has to do with the irrational idea that she will embarrass herself in some way in front of others. She is tormented by thoughts that she will do something “stupid” or “crazy” in public and be humiliated. This fear has led Alice to avoid situations with others, especially social situations involving strangers. On occasion, she has declined job opportunities if they involved public speaking or making presentations to large groups.

  Alice knows her fear is out of proportion to the situations of her life. She is quite intelligent and did well in school. She has some good friends, but sometimes feels she must decline their invitations because her fear of embarrassing herself is so strong.

  The article Alice read mentioned that learning relaxation skills and meditation might help some people with social phobia. She decided to find a meditation class and see if it could help.

  Alice joined a mindfulness meditation class taught at a local hospital. As she began to meditate, she recognized the powerful interaction of her mind and body. She learned to connect with her body and to relax her body simply by paying attention to the parts, something her teacher called the body scan. Then she was amazed to notice how having just one or two of the fearful thoughts about humiliating herself in public would cause her body to stiffen and her heart to race.

  She heard the teacher explain that letting go is important and that sometimes the only way to let something go is to let it be. Alice decided to practice doing that with the irrational fears that were disrupting her life. Whenever she had the thoughts about public embarrassment, she just listened. Even though they continued to frighten her, she tried to let them just be there, in her awareness, without doing anything about them. After a while, Alice could see the thoughts in a wider and softer way. She didn’t think of them so much as her enemies anymore, but as just some passing noise. Alice began to think she might be able to accept more of the invitations from her friends.

  Keep in Mind

  In this chapter we have learned about the important inner conditions and attitudes that form the foundation for your mindfulness practice. Meditation will be most effective if you approach it as a curious skeptic, motivated to practice and confident in your innate power. Mindfulness is founded on the seven essential attitudes of nonjudging, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, nonstriving, acceptance, and letting go. Recognizing and cultivating these inner qualities will create the optimal conditions for you as you teach yourself to be present in order to manage fear, anxiety, and panic.

  Chapter 7

  Building Your Practice Foundation

  Although the internal conditions—attitudes and habits of thinking and feeling—are crucial elements of support for your mindfulness practice, there are external conditions and issues that deserve your attention as well. If you are to have a reliable meditation practice, you need a strong foundation.

  Where you do your formal meditation practice and when you do it, having the support of those you live with, gently reminding yourself to return to the present moment in different situations, and the skillful use of readings, tapes, and other guides are all elements of a strong foundation for meditation. You will also want to consider things that might be hindering your practice .

  Formal & Informal Meditation Practice

  In this book, and generally in mindfulness-based meditation, we talk about formal meditation and informal practice .

  Formal meditation is the period of time when you practice meditation as your main activity. I recommend you do a mindfulness practice as a formal meditation at least once daily for at least thirty minutes.

  Informal practice means that throughout the day, in different situations, you practice mindfulness of what is happening. You can pay attention on purpose to the activity itself, or use conscious breathing as a way of establishing contact with the activity and linking mind and body in the present moment.

  The suggestions in this chapter will help create the best possible conditions for your formal practice of meditation. Your informal practice of meditation will flow naturally from your formal practice.

  Supporting Your Formal Practice of Meditation

  Let’s look more closely at the external conditions, along with some practical suggestions to optimize the support that each can provide.

  Where to Meditate

  It is important to make an actual place in your physical environment for meditation. The idea is to avoid having to decide where to meditate each time you want to do your meditation practice. This will help make meditation a routine in your life, which is what you need for it to actually help you.

  Pick a comfortable chair or cushion in one room in your home and let that be the usual place you practice. Of course, you can go outside or use another place at times, but having a designated spot is a great support. Some meditation traditions refer to this as the one seat .

  You will be more inclined to meditate if the room is inviting. Make it beautiful. If there is clutter everywhere, and that distracts you so much that your mind spins story after story about cleaning up the clutter and all you have to do, then do something about the clutter and keep the area clean.

  Include some personal items that help create a sense of security. This will help you feel safe as you challenge yourself to remain present when fear or anxiety arises.

  It helps if your beautiful, safe place to meditate is also reasonably quiet. While it is not necessary that you have absolute quiet around you (indeed as your practice grows you will learn how to work with all kinds of sounds and distractions), it is a good idea to let your phone or pager ring in another room and to turn off the TV, radio, computer, CD player, or whatever else is in the background.

  It is often said that the world around us, the outer world, accurately reflects the world within us, the inner world. And, to some extent, having a peaceful outer world can help you reconnect to the peace and calm within. You can take advantage of this relationship between the inner and outer world explicitly as you set up the place where you meditate each day. Let the inner world of pea
ce, calm, and beauty show itself in how you establish the physical place where you do your meditation practice.

  When to Meditate

  In the same way that you need to make a place in your home to meditate, you need to make a place in your schedule. When are you most likely, each day, to have the time and the energy to do your meditation? The goal is to establish a habit of meditating, like the habit of brushing your teeth. Pay attention that the time you choose enables you to practice almost every day at about the same time. Don’t be too rigid, however. First thing in the morning, mid-afternoon, or early evening could be just fine. You probably cannot practice at precisely nine in the morning or three in the afternoon or seven-thirty at night every day. Choose a time when, for the most part at least, you will not be interrupted by outside demands or other people.

  Wakefulness is important. The time you pick to practice meditation should be a time when you have enough energy to practice. Some people try to practice just before they go to bed. Then they find they are too sleepy to meditate! It can be helpful to do some meditation before going to bed, but if you find yourself repeatedly falling asleep or feeling too dull and drowsy to pay attention, try another time of day.

  You will need to experiment to discover the best way to bring meditation into your life. If there is a time of day when you feel particularly anxious, you might try meditating then. If you do so, consider also meditating at a time when you usually feel less anxious and can more easily gain perspective on the anxiety without danger of becoming lost in it. Remember that the practice is to hold the experience of anxiety in the focus of mindfulness.

  Developing Your Own Program of Daily Meditation

  With place and time established, you will want to consider your program of practice. What should you do during the meditation time you have now created?