Ten days later, lying in the bath one Friday morning, the symptoms of depression passed. I felt the feelings, let the thoughts trundle through, and did my best to stay present and patient, despite the urge to scream.
But a shift was happening, and the next time I collapsed in an anxious frenzy, I called in sick, stayed at home and gave myself up to acceptance. I didn’t feel better yet – my psychic patterns of aggression and avoidance were strongly ingrained. Gradually, I worked up to longer sessions – 10 to 15 minutes a day. This felt profoundly counter-intuitive, and yet somehow freeing. The key was in how I related with them – rather than trying to stop or get rid of them, I began to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, letting go of the desperate desire for something, anything, better to happen.
Embrace your fear torrent#
This was vital – my teacher knew to start me slowly (mindful tea-drinking, some short periods of sitting quietly each day) and offered reassurance that the torrent of thoughts and emotions I encountered was nothing unusual. Still, there was something about mindfulness that made sense to me – if I could find friendly terms with the present, might that at least be a way to cope when life wouldn’t bend to my plans?įinally, rather than reading about the meditative life, I sought out practical instruction. I’d even tried it for a few minutes, now and then, but soon leapt up in horror when my experience was nothing like the Buddha-like peace I hoped would ensue.
Through my endless self-help reading, I’d come across meditation, of course. But what to do instead? I had little idea.
And I’m relieved to say that although tempting at times, I didn’t seem capable of overt self-harm – taking the struggle with self to extreme. Reacting to anxiety as if it was a predator about to eat me was spectacularly maladaptive – the more I tried to fight or flee, the more agitated and exhausted I became.Īt some level, I knew I couldn’t get away from myself – as the saying goes, wherever I went, there I was.
Embrace your fear series#
While a series of stressful life events – relationship break-up, buying a first property, realizing I was in the wrong career – had triggered this episode, I had a much longer-standing and deeply rooted pattern of trying to battle or escape from difficult feelings. What I needed to learn was that it was the very resistance to unpleasant thoughts and sensations that kept them going. What was I doing wrong that kept me in this state, when my life (good education, good prospects, supportive family and friends) looked so privileged, on the surface? Nothing I tried would shift the unholy mix of gloom and panic that had engulfed me a few weeks before my 28th birthday.