No one likes to feel crappy, right?

Certain powerful sensations and emotions are simply uncomfortable, if not downright painful. For some people, feeling sadness or grief is nearly intolerable; others would rather cry for an hour than feel intense anxiety or fear. Having experienced some form of depression on and off since my teens (and having grown almost used to it), I’ve always fallen in the latter category. I’d rather bear those ills I know, if I have to bear any ills at all.

Interestingly enough, it was in experiencing some new ones that I learned something about the old ones, and stumbled across a more effective way of dealing with both.

Desolation
A Personal Story

A year and a half ago my money started to run out. It was January, my town was buried in several feet of snow, and I was unemployed and living in a dark one-room apartment. For the first time in my life, an overwhelming anxiety took possession of me — and, truly, it was like possession — along with something like agoraphobia. I remember standing inside the entrance of a Target superstore one day in late winter, enveloped in what I can only describe as existential terror. (Never mind the valid sociological argument that the proper human response to a Target superstore is existential terror. That’s fodder for a another post, another time!) The warehouse-sized building full of endless rows of merchandise seemed foreign, overwhelming, even somehow menacing. I wove uneasily among adjacent departments, avoiding the aisles like a frightened rabbit. I was unprepared and uncomprehending. What was happening to me?

I had never before experienced such protracted and uninterrupted periods of unmitigated fear. Every morning I woke up consumed with dread; all day long my exhausted adrenals pumped fight-or-flight hormones throughout my body. In the ensuing months, I had a bout of pneumonia; my upstairs neighbor (a drummer in a rock band) and his drunken buddies awakened me consistently most nights around four a.m., until I developed insomnia; I started a high-stress job as administrator for an organization that had only two paid full-time staff; and I packed up all my belongings and moved in with an acquaintance to escape my neighbor’s nightly after-parties, which no amount of negotiating and pleading had quieted.

I have never been quite the same since. The cumulative effect of all of this on my nervous system was such that no amount of herbal therapy, yoga, acupuncture, hot baths, or the conventional prescription and nonprescription drugs I tried without success could completely mitigate the aftershock. Even now I sleep lightly, and not infrequently with difficulty. I feel the vibrations of adjacent footfalls and bass lines in my bones. There is a tightness, an almost painful constriction in my chest that I can feel acutely when I become still and empty my busy mind. Oftentimes meditation and relaxation are synonymous with a greater awareness of this discomfort. Depending on its intensity, it can feel like anything from restlessness to outright panic. It increases under certain stressors, like when I’m faced with the necessity of moving again. A task such as packing can literally give me heart palpitations.
Thinking about Feelings

Certain thoughts about controlling these feelings just exacerbate them, too. Well-meaning converts to the Law of Attraction, who caution me that such “negativity” will create more of the same in my life, only help to increase the anxiety by turning up the volume on my own obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Step on a crack, break my mother’s back. Quick, don’t think a bad thing! Oh my God, I’ve done it now…

Note that I said certain thoughts about controlling these feelings. Ever the rationalist by nature (or more likely by nurture), my first instinct is to try to solve my discomfort by thinking even more about it. Despite years of evidence to the contrary, I seem to believe that ruminating endlessly upon the possible causes of my distress will somehow make it go away. Why am I feeling bad? Let’s dissect this from every possible angle! A good seventy percent of the therapy I underwent for a decade (for depression) involved an endless and often fruitless dissection of my past in an attempt to alleviate the pain in my present. But adding context did not necessarily create relief.

In fact, it frequently seemed that the more I obsessed about my perceived troubles and “issues,” the harder I tried to “fix” these intractable “problems” I had, the bigger and more solid they grew and the more frustrating they became. As if my constantly spinning thoughts were actually spinning them into a gigantic snowball. The story gained momentum with each retelling.

Last summer I picked up The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle for the first time, and at once something clicked. With incredibly lucid, unadorned prose, he describes exactly how we perpetuate our own suffering in our minds, keeping our pain and worry alive with our repetitive thoughts about past and future. We expend a great deal of energy this way creating problems for ourselves, and making ourselves a problem, when what would actually free us is a return to awareness of the present moment (the only moment that truly exists). Although I’d read something like this before in other books — usually by prominent Buddhist teachers — it hadn’t sunk in on more than an intellectual level. And I had certainly never known how to apply it in my day-to-day life.
Non-Resistance

The key word he used was nonresistance. Which meant neither running away from discomfort nor fighting it. Instead of immediately commencing the usual struggle, he recommended that we allow the feeling, and give it no more attention than nonjudgmental observation. I honestly didn’t know if I could I sit still and just be with an experience, even when the experience was wholly unpleasant, but it was worth a try. Could I refrain from jumping on the thought train and turning everything into a major issue? Could I break a lifelong, ingrained, unconscious habit?

The answer turned out to be yes — when I’m paying attention! I’m a lot more conscious of my unconscious reactions now than I was, so when the intense anxiety possesses me, as it did when I was in the midst of packing for my latest move, I can sometimes catch myself in the act of resistance.

I was in the car with an old and dear friend, on the way to what I had hoped would be a lovely Sunday brunch, when it seized me, violently, like a blindsided hostage. I was seasick with dread; my stomach knotted and my heart raced. The downtown streets looked ugly, squalid, and hostile. At first I tried to fight the feeling, then despaired at the thought that our outing was ruined.

Suddenly I remembered Tolle’s words: resist nothing.

I relaxed into my discomfort. As if it were the most normal thing in the world. Okay, I decided, so I’m going to feel like this right now. I neither battled nor ignored the sensations, but simply allowed them to blow through my system like a minor typhoon, as my friend continued to tell me about her new house. By the time we were parking, they were already ebbing away. When we sat down at a table, it was hard for me to believe how I had felt only minutes before, and we did have a lovely brunch, after all.

Who woulda thought it? Certainly not me. But that’s the beauty of not thinking.
A Beautiful Meditation

A postscript for other anxiety and panic sufferers: in addition to surrender, I have found this breathing meditation, adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh (and borrowing a gesture from Kundalini yoga), very helpful. It can be done while lying down or sitting in your favorite meditation posture. Placing your right hand over your heart, breathe deeply from the belly while silently reciting each line with the appropriate inhalation or exhalation:

Breathing in, I calm my heart.
Breathing out, I smile at my heart.

Suspending each in-breath and out-breath for a few seconds will help slow your pulse.

沒人喜歡不適的感覺，對嗎？

這樣強烈的感覺和情緒，如果不是完全的痛苦，那只是簡單的不適。對有些人來說，感到悲傷或憂愁，幾乎是不可忍受的；另一些人則情愿大哭一個小時，而不愿感受強烈的擔心或害怕。在我十幾歲的時候斷斷續續得過幾種抑郁癥（隨著我的成長我幾乎習慣了它的存在），我總是會患上最近的一個種類的抑郁癥。如果我要完全承受任何病痛，我情愿承受我知道的那些病痛。

非常有趣的是，在我經歷一些新的病痛時，我學到了一些與舊的病痛有關的東西，并且偶然發現了一個治療兩者都更有效的方法。

Desolation

一個我自己的故事

一年半之前，我的錢快要用光了。那是在一月，我的家鄉被幾英寸厚的雪掩蓋，我失業在家，住在一個暗無天日的一室戶里。在我的人生中是第一次，一種極度的擔憂占據我的內心——事實上，它就像侵占——有點像是廣場恐懼癥。我記得在冬季的夜晚，我站在一個Target超市入口內，被我一種感覺緊緊包圍，我只能將它形容為存在感的恐懼。(從沒注意有充分根據的社會評論說特有的人對Target超市會感到存在感的恐懼。那是另一個地方，另一個時間的創作素材！) 像倉庫一樣大的建筑物放滿了望不到盡頭的貨物，好象是國外生產的，勢如破竹，甚至是有點危險的。我艱難的在相鄰的貨架之間穿梭，像是一只受驚的兔子避開走道。我沒有準備好也不懂。發生什么了？

我之前從沒有經歷過，在如此漫長的、停止不了的一段時間里，感到徹頭徹尾的害怕。每天早上我醒來的時候都被恐懼弄得身心疲憊；整整一天我幾近枯竭的腎上腺素遍布我的全身。隨后的幾個月，我在和肺炎作斗爭；我樓上的鄰居（一個搖滾樂隊的鼓手）和他那些喝醉的朋友，持續地在幾乎每個晚上，大概凌晨四點吵醒我，直到我患了失眠；我開始一個壓力很大的工作，是一個只有兩個全職全薪員工的組織的管理者；我打包了所有的東西，搬去和一個朋友一起住，以此來逃避我鄰居的午夜派對，沒有任何談判和爭辯，安靜了下來。

在這件事發生之前，我從來沒有如此安靜過。這對我的神經系統累積的作用是，任何劑量的中藥、瑜伽、針灸、熱浴，或是傳統的處方或非處方藥我都試過，都不能完全緩和后遺癥。直到現在我仍然睡得很淺，并且偶爾會睡不著。我感覺得到隔壁走路的振動和我骨頭里低沉的聲音。當我靜下來并且拋開繁忙的思緒時，我強烈的感到有一個密不透風的、幾乎令我痛苦的阻塞物在我的胸口。沉思和放松與更強烈地感到這種不適時常相生相伴。由于不同的強度，我會產生各種情緒，從煩躁不安到徹底的恐慌。這些情緒在一定的刺激下會增強，比如當我面對必須再次搬家的問題的時候。一項工作，像是打包，簡直會使我心悸。
回想感受

想要控制這些感覺的想法也只會加重它們。善意的行為轉變為吸引力法則（Law of Attraction），這個法則提醒我這樣的“否定性”會在生活中產生出一樣的情緒，提高嗓門只會加重我自己對強迫觀念與行為的趨勢的擔心。踩上去一聲響，弄傷我媽媽的背了。快，不要想不好的事情！哦，天吶，我現在就在想……

注意，我說的是一定的回想能控制這些感覺. 即使是天生的理性主義者（或者應該算天生的），我試著緩解我的不適的第一直覺是更多地回想它. 盡管這些年都在做南轅北轍的事，我似乎相信，無休止地反復思考可能造成我的煩惱的原因，會以某種方式解決這個問題。我為什么覺得難受？讓我們從每一個可能的角度剖析它！十年來，我嘗試的治療中，至少百分之七十（令人失望地）采用無休止地，并且一般是無意義地剖析我的過去的方法，企圖以此來緩解我現在的痛苦。但是要產生放松情緒，制造相應環境不是必需的。

事實上，看來往往我對之前的麻煩和“問題”糾結得越多，我越加牢牢的“盯住”這些難對付的“問題”，他們變得更大、更頑固，于是他們變得更消極。如果我不斷地圍繞這些問題回想，事實上他們會越滾越大，變成一個巨大的雪球。這個故事從復述中得到了推進力。

去年夏天，我第一次讀了Eckhart Tolle寫的《當下的力量》（The Power of Now），并且當即收到了一些啟發。通過不可置信的清晰的、不加渲染的散文形式，他精確地描述了我們如何一直讓自己受著自己的思想的折磨，重復回想過去和將來讓我們的痛苦和擔憂一直持續著。我們花很大的精力通過這種方式為自己制造問題，并且把自己變成一個問題。此時，真正能夠解放我們的是回到感受當下的狀態（只是真正存在的這一刻）。雖然我以前也在其他書里讀到過類似的東西——一般是杰出的佛學家寫的——它沒有滲入到比智力水平更深的層面。當然，我從不知道怎么把它運用到我的日常生活中去。

沒有反抗行為

他用的關鍵詞是沒有反抗行為。意思是既不逃避煩悶也不與它作斗爭。他建議我們縱容那種感覺，而不是立即著手與它斗爭，并且給與它更多的關注而不是無關緊要的觀察。我真的不知道，如果我安靜地坐著，并且只是感受著，甚至當這種感受是徹頭徹尾地令人不快時，會是怎樣，不過這值得一試。我能控制自己，不因沉思而跳腳并且把所有問題都變成主要問題嗎？我能打破一個終身養成的、根深蒂固的、毫無意識的習慣嗎？

當我開始注意它時，答案揭曉，我能——我現在對我的無意識反應比以前有意識多了，因此當強烈的擔憂占據我，就像我覺得我是在我最后一次搬家的時候，我有時能夠在反抗的行為中控制我自己。

我和我的一個親密的老朋友在車上，前往我希望會是一個快樂的周日早午餐的地方，煩悶情緒猛烈襲來，我就像一個無意識的人質。我因害怕而暈眩；我的胃翻滾著，我的心臟狂跳。市中心的街道看上去丑陋、骯臟、充滿敵意。一開始我試著抵抗這種感覺，然后失望地認為我們的出行被毀了。

突然我記起Tolle的話：不抵抗任何東西。

我在我的煩悶中放松了下來。就像這是世界上再正常不過的事。好， 我決定了，我現在開始這樣去想.當我的朋友一直在和我說她的新房子時，我既不和這種感覺斗爭也不忽略它，而只是讓它們像一個小型臺風一樣吹過我的神經系統。當我們停車的時候，它們已經褪去了。當我在桌邊坐下，我很難相信僅僅幾分鐘前我所感覺到的。并且在那之后我們確實愉快的享用了早午餐。

誰會再去想它？肯定不是我。但是這是不去想的魅力。
一種極好的沉思

給其他被憂慮和恐慌折磨的人附言：除了放棄之外，我發現這個呼吸沉思法，改編自Thich Nhat Hanh（并且從生命力瑜伽<Kundalini yoga>中借用了一個姿勢），非常有幫助。它可以或躺或坐著進行，以你最喜歡的沉思姿勢就可以。把你的右手放在心臟部位，腹式深呼吸，同時伴隨適當的呼氣或吸氣平靜地閱讀下面兩行字：

吸氣，我的心平靜了。
呼氣，我會心地微笑。

每一次吸氣和呼氣保持幾秒時間會幫助減緩你的心跳。