Chronic anxiety is better
Coloring aside (and other “active meditation,” I guess), there is something that I hate about meditation (guided imagery especially). Deep breathing maybe helps me when I’m starting to freak out, but I think that’s because I’m telling myself “chill, take a moment, calm down, relax, collect yourself, you’ll be okay.” However, breathing deeply does stop my heart from beating so quickly.
Meditation is different though. I think it’s frustrating and I feel so impatient with it. It’s supposed to be calming, but really it just wears on my attention span and my nerves. It’s like when you’re stuck sitting at a red-light in the middle of the night, and are the only car there. You are watching that light and a minute goes by…. another minute… and you start thinking, “Seriously? You have to be kidding.” Another minute goes by and you are convinced the thing is broken. FINALLY the light changes.
I’ve had several therapistic explanations for this:
- I think I am a human doing, rather than a human being.
- I am uncomfortable sitting with myself.
- Meditating is letting my guard down and I am afraid to make myself that vulnerable.
- That’s my eating disorder talking (which I don’t think is really even relevant in this situation, but I swear there are therapists who say this about everything)
I think I can sit with myself and be calm. I love long car rides, coloring, napping, walking the dog… if you don’t count any of these “sitting with yourself and being a human being,” then what else besides meditation fits into this category?
When I am feeling panicky and anxious, meditation is about the last thing in the world that I want to do. It sounds so wrong when you state it this way, but some degree of anxiety is less painful than meditation! I think it’s great that meditation is calming and refreshing for some people… but I am convinced that meditation is not for everyone, and that it’s not necessarily a symptom of mental illness.
I agree — meditation is not for everyone. Instead of trying to empty your mind to counteract anxiety, perhaps you could go with your first instinct as a “human doing” (great term!) and find an activity unrelated to your stress. Something like exercise or cleaning always helps me, much more than guided imagery, take my mind off my problems. I think being able to take control of *something* helps, when you feel unable to control bigger things in your life.
Hi:
I am not sure what kind of meditation you practice, but there are a lot of different approaches, and maybe it’s a matter of finding one that fits YOU, rather than you not fitting meditation.
For example, some people do “guided imagery” as a meditation. Others count their breaths. Others simply listen to ambient noise. Sometimes meditation is an attempt to empty one’s mind of thoughts (pretty near impossible, I say), other times meditation brings focus and awareness to our inner processes. What kind do you practice? If you’re having trouble, maybe it’s because you haven’t yet found the kind of meditation that suits your temperament.
I practice a form of Zen meditation that emphasizes paying attention to one’s thoughts — just noticing what they are — and then letting them go. Sometimes, to help this process, we practice “labeling our thoughts,” where we notice what we are thinking and put a label to it, like “Now my knees hurt” and “Now I am thinking about what I will do when I stop meditating” and “Now I am feeling anxious again.” But most of the time, we just sit. I admit that this was very frightening to me when I just starting meditating, and was still in the early stages of recovery, but over time I came to look forward to that “just sitting” time, time that was just about ME and whatever I happened to be thinking at the moment.
I also feel that meditation is most meaningful when it is in the context of a religious or spiritual practice. There are Christian forms of meditation, such as contemplative prayer, as well as Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist — and probably more that I don’t even know about. I started meditating because I wanted to calm down and feel less anxious, but as I did more sitting with a Zen group in college, I became interested in the rituals involved in Zen and decided to learn more about the tradition as a whole, which led me down the Buddhist path that I now follow. So now, I meditate because I am Buddhist, and not to quell my anxiety — though there is still plenty of that — and meditation has a larger purpose that I find rather soothing in its own right. I am connecting with a tradition and faith that are larger than I am — WOW!!