[Blellurgews]

After my last thread I made about my anxiety while meditating, I was given the advice to just take it slower than I was, and start to focus more on my breathing. Twice a day since I made that topic and got all the great advice from so many people here, I've just done a very light meditation where I simply focus on the breath as it enters and leaves my body. Whenever my mind wandered I'd just say, "Focus" silently to myself and my thoughts would be back on my breath.

This morning I had a very trying time. Some family issues came up and I was really stressed out, and having a severe panic attack. Usually when I have a bad panic attack at home, I go lay in a hot bath. For some reason it comforts me. So I put some lavender oil in the bath and laid there trying to relax, and something in the back of my mind said, "Focus". I automatically started to focus on my breathing, and in no time the anxiety was just gone. Vanished into thin air.

As I kept focusing on my breathing, in the warm water, all the things that were bothering me would pop up, but they didn't feel like they were a part of me anymore. They were more like a wisp of smoke. They'd be there, but they'd just dissipate into nothing. Each one of the issues I'm dealing with would just pop up and then sort of fade out as if that's all it ever was. Nothing. I got this feeling that all my pains and anxieties weren't really a part of me, they were something else, something completely irrelevant to who I am.

I felt as though I was there, existing in that very moment and everything else was just an irrelevant wisp of smoke that I could just blow away from me. It's really hard to explain, but when I got out of the bath, I felt completely relieved. All day today after that I've felt amazingly content. Something incredibly new for me. Every time my anxiety started to creep back, I could just tell myself, "focus" and it would just... wisp away.

I'm obviously not at the end of my journey, and haven't really found anything profound really, but for once I realize that my journey is the point, and not the goal. Like I've been far too worried about when this anxiety will stop, what I'm going to be doing in ten years, and stressing too much over some future period of time. I realized I'm wasting the very life I'm trying to enjoy by just not enjoying the here and now. I feel a little bit better about my position as a part of this world now.

I wanted to share that and get some feedback. I don't really have any specific questions, just would like to know if some of the more experienced can understand what I mean. It's new to me.

Thank you.

Aaron.

[Qynvtlur]

Hi Aaron,

Its good to hear from you again and I enjoyed reading your post -nice avatar too!

Thank you for sharing.

It sounds as though you have already made some progress by remembering your breathing and then experiencing present moment awareness. This can be a continuing source of self-help at any time. Its also great that you've understood that if one worries all the time about past and future its missing out on the freshness of the here and now.

There are some meditation resources in our Study Links which I think you might find beneficial:

http://www.buddhismwithoutboundaries...356-Meditation


With kind wishes,

Aloka

[ddxbovMQ]

Thank you! I'll be reading those shortly. Hope all is well with you.

[antipenq]

I'm so pleased you are finding a way to deal with panic attacks. Wouldn't it be great if you could keep this awareness beyond meditation?

Each time a stressful situation occurs I remind myself of anicca, dukkha and anatta (impermanence, suffering and not-self), the three marks of existence. This stressful situation will pass, it is just my mind that is suffering which is affecting my body, and that this suffering is not 'me', it is not 'mine'.

[Unoloknovagog]

Yeah, I don't know if it's really called mindfullness or not, but I watched some of the videos Aloka linked me and in one of the related videos a guy was explaining how to do mindful prostration. In it, he said basically to help you learn to just repeat what you're doing in your head and focus on that. Like, when he put his hands together he would say, "touching, touching, touching" then when he bent down he would say, "bending, bending, bending".

I thought about that some and when I started having some anxiety, I decided to finish this project I've been doing, which is to hand bind a book. So I started back on it, realizing my anxiety seemed to be because my thoughts were just so scattered. So while I was doing the stitching on the book, I just kept repeating, "stitching in, under, over. In, under, over." I ended up spending quite a few hours just completely focused on stitching the book and my anxiety just disappeared.

This morning I started some walking meditation doing just that. Repeating my steps in my head and focusing entirely on just... walking. Being there. It was great.