Before I was even remotely spiritual, I struggled with severe anxiety.
Social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, to be exact.
I was medicated but it wasn’t working.
It often escalated to the point of hyperventilation triggering uncontrollable hiccups that would last for DAYS.
Out of control - I was trying everything and nothing was working.
Then one day, at my weekly therapy appointment, my therapist suggested something.
She said I needed an activity to take my mind away from the anxiety. That thinking about the anxiety was making the anxiety worse.
She had an idea. I needed a task to do.
That’s when she taught me the meditation.
It changed my life - the meditation that she called a breathing exercise. I agreed, it was definitely NOT meditating, obviosly, because regular meditation involved me clearing my head of thoughts, which just made me more anxious (or so I thought at the time).
It was the first mindfulness practice I’d ever learned, and also the first thing I’d ever done that relieved the anxiety.
it was the first time my eyes were opened to the idea that spiritual, mindful, meditative and not medicative techniques could work to combat anxiety.
Meditation worked for me where medication never did.
And it was the first step on a very long journey that would lead me to becoming a Shaman.
Thank you, Michele, for teaching me.
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