Meditation and panic attacks.

You could be forgiven for thinking that because I write about meditation, I live an exemplary life with no stress or aggrevation.

Wrong!

Just like everyone else my life has it's ups and downs.  Its highs and lows.  Do I deal with them any better than any one else, simply because I meditate?  Possibly.  I hope, probably, but sometimes it doesn't feel like that.

There will be times, regardless of how often you meditate, that life will simply take you down, cut your knees out from under you.  Are you going to sit there while shocked witless and say 'Now I must meditate myself out of this crisis/problem/trauma?  Of course not, but you can remember to stop and take deep slow breaths.

Perhaps, you find yourself faced with consequences of the shock and traumas, let's say the onslaught of panic attacks, before you've even had chance to really get your head round the rocks that life is hurling at you.

Slowing your breathing, giving yourself time to take stock of things, won't make everything magically disappear, but it will give you time.  Time to prevent yourself falling all the way down into those attacks, time to begin to tell yourself you *can* get through to the other side of what is happening in your life.

You might ask, "what difference will managing my breathing do?"  And I'll remind you of the very first meditation we ever did together.

While you force your mind to focus on your breathing, it's not sidetracking you to imagine even more dire consequences of what's going on in your life.

It may not seem like much, but it's enormous!
Why?
Because it puts the power over your life back in your court.

Breathing is not just a matter of life, it is also a matter of the quality of your life.