The pain of mental health challenges
During my first big race, the Capital City Half and Quarter Marathon in Columbus, my anxiety nearly kept me from even signing up. On race day, when we hadn’t allowed enough time to arrive and park, my body flooded with unpleasant jolts of adrenaline. It felt as if my head was going to come off, and I was certain my heart would explode from the pounding.
Depression, anxiety, mania, and other mental health issues have specific qualities of pain, primarily mental and emotional—although depression has a heaviness, and anxiety and mania have an agitation, both of which are quite physical.
Meditation can desensitize these. Tiny doses of exposure (my leaf blower desensitization) can allow you to turn these experiences into tools for insight. By focusing directly on the place in the body where the anxiety arises and following the thoughts that come and go with an anxiety outbreak, you will see the impermanence within it and learn that it will not harm you.
At that race, as my friend Leslee and I approached the starting corrals and I saw the throng of people pushed together in the small spaces, my head began to swim. I stopped, unable to walk any further.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said and joined a long line at the bank of port-o-potties by the start corrals.
When I emerged from the plastic box, Leslee said, “Let’s just stand at the corral entrance. Once everyone starts to move, then we’ll jump in.” I heaved a sigh of relief.
My anxiety didn’t disappear, but I knew what to do.
We walked to the opening and stood next to it, letting others pass through as we waited. As we stood, I did a quick scan: tremble in my arms, shuddering in my belly, pounding in my heart. I found the sensation that was most prominent, my rasping breath, and poured all of my awareness into it. Even within the shortness of my breathing, I found the familiar in breath, the turn, the out breath, and the splendid quiet pause. I sank my awareness into the pause, staying with it until my body naturally pulled breath in again.
When the clamor of the crowd of excited runners and walkers eager to start broke my concentration, I gently returned my focus to my breath. In, turn, out, pause. In, turn, out, pause. Old faithful. Right here. Safe and secure in this moment.
Other body sensations shouted for attention. Now that I had relaxed into the breath, I scanned those again, giving each one a hit of awareness before shifting to the safety of the breath, which had deepened and calmed.
The crowd began to move. Our turn came, and Leslee asked, “Ready?” I had a choice. I could hop in and go or miss this chance. I nodded and stepped through the opening. My first big race had begun.
I have included more than twenty “Your Turn” exercises in the book Make Every Move a Meditation.
This excerpt is from Make Every Move a Meditation by Nita Sweeney. Buy the paperback, ebook, or audiobook now at Amazon or Mango Publishing Group.
