Linda Barlow

Every time I start meditating again, I wonder why I ever stopped. Over the years, meditation has proved to be the best strategy I’ve ever found for reducing stress and anxiety. Not only is it very relaxing, but meditation seems to ramp up my creativity as well. I have had some truly visionary experiences while meditating, and, in that quiet inward-looking state I feel much more in tune with myself, with the world around me, and with the essential nature of things.

There is no right or wrong way to meditate. In fact, I’ve long suspected that meditation is a natural state that we practice unconsciously as children, but tend to forget as we grow older. I used to watch my daughter when she was a toddler, and her usual way of relaxing herself was to sit down quietly with her blanket, stick two fingers into her mouth, and suck. She would continue in that dreamy state for 10 or 20 minutes before coming out of it, energized.

But all too often we have to rediscover and teach ourselves the wisdom that we knew as children. I have tried various methods of meditation — all are efficacious. Here’s a simple meditation that always feels wonderful to me. It is both calming and revelatory.

You begin by putting yourself into a relaxed state: sitting still and quiet, breathing slowly from the belly, exhaling for a little longer than you inhale. Let your thoughts drift, and don’t follow any particular line of thought. After a few minutes, when you feel relaxed, you are ready for the four segments of the meditation:

1. Aspire toward the Light.

Inhale slowly, reaching up mentally (or physically stretching up your arms) over your head, toward the source of all light.

2. Receive the Light.

Exhale gently, while lowering your arms and cupping your hands in a receptive state. Feel the light pouring into you.

3. Incorporate the Light.

Inhale with your arms crossed gently over your chest, imagining the light filling your chest and moving up into your head, down throughout your torso and legs, and out through your arms to the very tips of your fingers.

4. Radiate the Light.

Exhale as you spread your arms, palms outwards, envisioning the light flowing through you and out to touch and nurture everyone and everything in the world.

When you have completed the meditative chant, begin again and continue for your usual time period (15-20 minutes is what I usually do), breathing slowly and evenly as you Aspire, Receive, Incorporate, and Radiate the Light.

Depending on your own personal spirituality, you can imbue these meditative actions with whatever imagery best suits you. Here’s what works for me:

1. Aspire toward the Light — Mentally I reach upwards toward the Light/Love that flows through everything. That light is always there, but most of the time I am not consciously aware of it. To Aspire toward the Light (or toward God) is to open myself up and know the Light — see it, feel it, experience it. To aspire is to yearn or desire, and my state of mind is prayerful. Although the Light is always present, I have to direct my attention to it.

2. Receive the Light. This is often quite an ecstatic feeling. Again, it can be argued that we are always receiving the light, but it often feels to me as if I am separated from it, and must re-attune myself to it before I can truly appreciate the splendor and power of divine Light/Love moving through me. I am not, in my ordinary everyday life, a particularly spiritual person, nor do I currently practice any form of organized religion, although I am reasonably knowledgeable about several of the world’s great religions, and have been observant in the past. Meditation puts me back in touch with my spirituality, and makes me aware of certain aspects of reality that do not figure into my day-to-day life. Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I had a panic attack, I didn’t know what was happening, and neither, it seemed, did anybody else. I felt what folks who suffer from anxiety states and panic attacks will well recognize — that foggy, sticky sense of doom. Mind whirring, heart galloping, palms slick and limbs unsteady — surely I was dying, slipping over the muddy edge of my grave; or if not, I was going completely and irredeemably mad.The worst of it was, I was only a little kid at the time. In my innocence, I thought that when I grew up to be wiser and more knowledgeable, I would understand what was happening to me and know there was nothing at all to fear. I would grow up to be strong, brave, and resilient, and I would understand just how silly my childish self had been.

Instead, I grew up to have panic attacks that were even more devastating, since adulthood and knowledge had given me far more things to be afraid of and considerably more medical insight into the various ailments that could be (must be!) stalking my poor trembling body. Combine a certain amount of relevant physiological knowledge with my vivid, complex, natural story-teller imagination, and the playful nip of a neighborhood dog was transformed into a slow, agonizing death from rabies, just as every case of indigestion was either a heart attack or a dissecting aortic aneurysm.

Even though I was rational enough to understand how unlikely these scenarios of doom were, I couldn’t seem to stop the dizzying spiral of mental obsessing, nor the adrenaline surges that played such havoc with my pulse and blood pressure. And then, of course, I further worried (more reasonably) about the very real effect the physical manifestations of my mental terror were having on my heart and blood vessels.

I realize I’m speaking as if this is all in the past, but it isn’t, not entirely. I did learn to understand the neural mechanism of anxiety, and psychotherapy helped give me insight into what may have been some of the factors that increased what is probably my genetic disposition towards some easy-to-excite, slow-to-inhibit neurons. Several drugs, including Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa among the SSRIs, and Klonopin among the benzos helped during the really bad times (some of the other benzos, like Xanax, had nasty snap-back-into-panic-while-wearing-off effects that discouraged me from using them and my doctors from prescribing them for me). Certain breathing and meditation techniques have also been helpful over the years, as has exercise.

But perhaps the most useful thing I’ve learned about anxiety/panic is that I manage these episodes better when I can just remember to let go and stop fighting. Instead of allowing that almost automatic “Oh no! It’s happening again! What if….what if….what if….” to wind its tentacles into my brain, I get through it much faster and more easily if I can go, “Yeah, yeah, big deal, I’ve seen this all before. If I’m going to faint right here in the elevator and make a scene, then so what, I’ll faint. If I’m about to drop dead, fine, so be it. If I’m about to have a stroke and crash into the tree, then goodbye world. If I’m about to start screaming, hallucinating, and crazily foaming at the mouth, then fine, I’ll be psychotic. Nothing I can do about it, is there? Come on, Fear, I dare ya. Here I am — come and get me.

Usually — not always, but usually — the not-fighting, the acceptance allows the fear to pass over and through me, leaving me shaky, but still standing, still here, still sane, and still able to summon a smile.