Addicted to the "inner net"

#267

I used to shy away from meditation and meditation-related advice. Someone would say "just focus on your breath" and I'd immediately start hyperventilating. Like, congratulations, now I'm anxious and panicking about my breathing patterns. 

BTW this happens to a lot of people—especially if you've been through burnout or your nervous system's been running on high alert. Focusing inward can feel threatening when your body's already in defense mode. So "just calm down" doesn't work. Your system isn't listening.

Anyway, I decided to give Insight Timer a shot this year because it was free and didn't require me to pretend I was some zen person sitting cross-legged in silence and stillness. The app has these category-specific meditations—anxiety ones, sleep ones, breathwork, affirmations, manifestations, challenges you look forward to because they're short and manageable, and more. I chose the guided meditation track and started with five minutes because anything longer felt overwhelming at the time.

After sticking with it for a couple of months, I started lengthening the duration - to ten minutes, then to fifteen, twenty, going back to ten on not-so-great days, and so on. I also learned to observe my thoughts and feelings without judging them. Not trying to fix them or make them go away—just noticing them pass. My mind would wander and I'd be able to bring back my focus to my breathing.

One thing that helped me, because I'm visual, was to start painting a picture: O2 oxygen molecules entering through one nostril, filling my lungs, making them all happy and buoyant. And CO2 carbon dioxide molecules leaving through the other nostril, taking the dirty stuff with it. Clean air in. Stale air out. Over and over. Watching my lungs expand and deflate like balloons.

There's a book written by Sylvia Boorstein titled: "Don't just do something, sit there." Which is basically the opposite of how I was wired in the olden days (read more about that in my Post #261: Resting Guilt). 

My entire system used to be built on react-now, fix-immediately, keep-moving-or-collapse mantras. Sitting with the discomfort instead of trying to bulldoze through or problem-solve it instantly? Kinda felt impossible. But nowadays? When anxiety starts creeping up, I become aware of it, label it, and say what's happening because putting words to it immediately causes a distraction and reduces the anxiety felt. I no longer panic about the panic. I try to sit with it. Watch it do its dance. It passes soon enough. And I'm still standing.

My best connection this year is the one running between my lungs and my brain. I enjoy continuing to increase that bandwidth.