The surge of adrenalin is spreading outwards from somewhere near my stomach, overtaking my body like a tsunami as I start to experience those familiar feelings of anxiety yet again. My mind is hijacked by “what-if’s”, images of future catastrophes are played out and shown to me in startling detail and my body reacts as though these events were happening right now.
I want to make all of this go away. I can’t blame my body for reacting in this way; one of the unfortunate side effects of having a human brain that is able to imagine possible future scenarios is that it becomes quite difficult for the poor old body to discern which threats are real and present and which are being created by the mind. And so here I am, having already bought my ticket for the rollercoaster of fear – the ride has begun and it’s too late to get off now.
It’s not long before I realise what is going on and what I need to do. However it is certainly not easy. Just over three years of mindfulness practice has taught me to notice these types of thoughts, feelings, sensations and urges. As best I can I try to stand back from them. Observe these sensations in my body; watch the thoughts that are careering around my mind like the proverbial bull in a china shop. I also know that my not wanting of these feelings is an ultimately redundant and possibly dangerous wish. They are here, already here, and the risk of trying to reason, analyse or ruminate my way out of them is that I will end up deeper in; like someone trying to wriggle their way out of a particularly tenacious patch of quicksand.
So I catch myself, again and again and again, over a few days, pulling myself back to a position of observing and allowing, as best I can. Even trying at times to accept and welcome in these difficult, painfully familiar feelings. I’m certainly no stranger to feelings of crippling anxiety, doubt and self blame and as I try to stay with these feelings, my fear becomes one of fear itself. How much longer will I have to feel this way? Will it come back again? Will I ever be free of it? And then I realise that these are just thoughts too. Mindfulness is not an antidote to difficult feelings, thoughts or experiences. It will not prevent me from feeling anxious now, or in the future. But it allows me to recognise that I’ve got off this roller-coaster a little sooner than I might have previously. It allows me to try and take wiser action, bringing my awareness to other aspects of my experience so that I don’t get quite so bogged down in fear.
In years gone by, I probably would have continued to be stuck in a seemingly never ending cycle of rumination, arguing with my thoughts, for much longer, feeding the flames of my anxiety and unintentionally keeping it going by doing the very thing my brain thought would fix it. Now I am able, I think, to get off this ride a little sooner. I don’t pour quite as much petrol onto the flames. Do I know how important my daily mindfulness practice is? Yes. Is it always easy to get myself to my mat or my stool? No. Just like me, it is a work constantly in progress.
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This is absolutely brilliant – I can so relate to this. Wonderful that someone has put into such lucid words these feelings – thank you.
This could have been written by me. I live and process my thoughts this way and it takes an incredible toll on one’s well-being at all levels. Mindfulness is the most wholesome tool that I have found to snap out of the distorted thinking of a very noisy and often destructive mind.