How I Transformed a Panic Attack Into Divine Joy …
… in less than 5 minutes.
If you’ve ever had a panic attack, you know how debilitating it can be. The adrenal gland surges, pumping an overload of energy through your body. This usually can be felt most intensely in the chest area. If you’ve never had one, I am happy for you. Read on and hopefully it might help you have even more empathy for others when they tell you they are experiencing them.
I had my first panic attack when I was 25 years old, but I didn’t know it was called a panic attack. My brain learned to put me in “fight or flight” during encounters with a business partner. A part of me viewed this person’s behavior as threatening to my safety and security (in my case, mostly emotional safety … all that matters is how you perceive it, not that a “real” threat is there, by the way).
When I was 33, someone came into my life, only this was a boyfriend. His behaviors mirrored those in the way they made me feel, so my brain said, “I’ve learned that when you have this feeling, you’re not safe! Here’s some adrenalin so you can sprint like a superhero! Now, run!” This was the first time that I developed a real problem with panic attacks. And still, I didn’t know there was the name for what I was experiencing.
A few years later, yet another person did behaviors that mirrored those of the two prior people. This time, the over-reaction by the adrenalin in my body was debilitating. I would sometimes go an entire day in this state of fight-or-flight, heart pumping, pains shooting through my chest, tightness in my throat. Imagine when you’ve had a near-miss car accident, and how you felt right after the car almost hit you. Now imagine that in two minutes, you haven’t calmed down, but that it goes on all day or all week. At least by then, I had learned there was a name for the extreme discomfort I was feeling!
Luckily, by that time, I had learned how to direct energy, and that energy waves exist in a state of polarity. In other words, at the exact same moment you have an unwanted feeling or a bad experience, the exact opposite of the feeling you’re experiencing is available to you. The thing is, you’re only perceiving one extreme.
In Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, he discusses how the act of observing something causes it to act differently. This concept was also addressed in a fascinating experiment in the DVD Down the Rabbit Hole. A crude analogy is this: have you ever been at a wedding, and someone was walking around the reception with a video camera? And at some point, they would be filming your table? You would be aware that you were being filmed, but you were supposed to go on with your conversation like you weren’t being filmed. It’s pretty hard to pretend the camera isn’t there. You know it’s there. You act differently because you know you’re being observed. You DO alter your conversation, sit up straighter, smile, etc. It’s kind of like that.
So one day, something triggered me, and I was having a whopper of an all-day panic attack. Feeling desperate, at lunch, I went out to my car and did meditative breathing (meaning I became aware of my breathing – I aimed for breathing in deeply), while I sat and observed my body. And I saw that all of this excess energy my adrenal gland had shot through my body was sitting in my chest.
I laid back in my seat, and I observed this going on. This is where your real power comes in your life: when you become the watcher of your experience rather than being overtaken by your experience. When you can focus with laser precision without your mind wandering. I watched my chest and what was going on. This wasn’t easy, because there was such discomfort, the urge was to “look away” so to speak. But I kept at it. I didn’t wish it was gone, or say, “I’m tired of having these stupid panic attacks!” I watched it from a completely neutral, accepting place. And you know what happened? Within about two minutes, that ball of energy sitting there, causing me discomfort and chest pains, transformed into a ball of energy that felt like pure divine joy. You know when you see someone do something really nice for someone else, and your heart will kind of bubbles over with love and joy? It was like that, only on steroids. I had accessed the polar opposite of the energy’s potential.
Three other times, I used that same method to transform panic attacks into that feeling of euphoric love and joy. (Eventually, through daily meditation, living in the now, and recognizing I was stuck in a pattern with relationships, I virtually eliminated panic attacks from my life.)
I don’t know why or how it works, but all I can tell you is that YOU control how you feel and feeling good is available to you. You can use the observation method whenever you have persistent negative thoughts or persistent unwanted feelings. Of course, ultimately, you’ll want to discover what’s driving the pattern, right? But if you’re willing to stop and get really present, no matter how bad you may feel, you ultimately hold the power to feel good.
I hope it was helpful that I shared this with you. Feel free to leave a comment – I’d love to hear what you have to say. Also, if you think it would be helpful to others to hear about my experience, you can share this post by clicking on the Share/Save thingy below if you’d like, or the Tweet This button. Have a great day!
Elizabeth
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Hi Elizabeth and thank you for your insights. I would be very interested to know more precisely how this method would work for persistent negative thoughts. I occasionally get these and find them hard to shift. Thanks.
Elizabeth, thanks for the email alerting me to your newest post. I have stayed to read the other posts on the page as well. I experienced the same transformation of energy from anger/rage to love and calm, too. I used the same method you described. I became curious about the reactions my body was having to my thoughts and I observed my anger. Literally in five minutes I was very calm. Thanks so much for sharing your other observations about energy sensitivity. One becomes more sensitive to the energy of a place the more one observes energy!
Hi Leila. When the thought comes in your mind, stop, close your eyes, and observe it. Sometimes it helps to think of your mind’s eye like a movie screen, and you are in the audience. You need to detach from the thought itself. If you do this and hold your attention watching it, it will eventually disappear from your mind’s eye. If you do this enough times, it should stop the thought pattern altogether. I know someone who used this method to rid herself of an obsessive thought she was having about her son possibly dying. This stopped the thoughts very quickly and they have not returned.
Good point! Thanks for taking the time to read the post and giving your insights, Jessica.
Hey Elizabeth, I love this post!
I would like to share something similar that happened recently, not a panic attatck but a migraine (a challenge since I was a kid).
I went through a phase recently of having a number of migraines in a short space of time. I had learnt a year or so ago to ’self talk’ (trying to hit upon the phase or trigger that my subconcious was initially wanting to let me know about), & sometimes it would halt a migraine in the early stages.
However this time, all it was doing was postponing the migraine (so it seemed).
I felt another one coming on just as I had lay down to sleep & felt like crying.
I had been reading a book (Energy medicine by Donna Eden) & a technique for bringing blood flow back into your forebrain quickly, to halt & reverse anxiety & stress (holding the bumps above your eyebrows until you feel a strong pulse). I decided that this would be worth trying now…even if it didn’t stop the migraine, which is usually in between my eyes,I was feeling anxious about it.
I held the neurovascular points & also did exactly what you mentioned in your post. Instead of trying to get away from the pain I went INTO it.
Almost imediately I felt more relaxed & the pain lessened. It felt as though I were inside a big red ball, & the more I focused on it, the more pleasurable being inside the ‘redness’ was!
It faded within 10 minutes & I haven’t had a recurrence since. (It’s been over a month)
Sorry this has gotten so long, but I wanted to comment on this as I think that something that sounds so simple really can be imensely effective!
Julia, thank you so much for sharing that! Yes, I totally know what you mean about going into the discomfort, while the habit or instinct is to try to avoid it. So glad to hear the method you’re using is working so well!
Thank you so much for this post. As a musician who has suffered from debilitating stage fright for decades, I can really relate to what you say, and admire the way in which you handled your panic attack. Over the years I’ve learned various methods, the most effective one being what I learned from Susan Jeffer’s book “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway” – that when a panic attack is coming on, to actually deliberately try to have it. Somehow, doing that defuses the energy. I suspect the panic feeds on fear, and as the adrenalin rush begins the cascade of “flight” response escalates. It’s as if being afraid of the fear/panic/pain adds fuel to the fire.
I recently learned a new breathing technique in a meditation class, where the outbreath is longer than the in-breath, as a way to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system and help bring calmness. I know you teach this technique as well.
The other thing I’ve started doing, is to hold the energy of the panic like a ball on my lap. I feel the panic in my stomach, and keeping it on my lap is a way of not only acknowledging it, staying present to it, but also of not letting it into my body in a metaphorical way.
It’s such a relief to hear that others suffer from this debilitating disturbance, too, and to be able to share ways to handle it. I haven’t yet had an experience of the panic turning to love or joy, and I seldom have 5 minutes to handle it, as it can often suddenly explode just before a solo. So I thank you for the post and the opportunity to learn how others are dealing with similar situations. I liked the idea of pressing on the forehead above the eyebrows, too, that someone posted.
Very inspiring, all of this, and comforting, too. Thank you!
Great input! Thank you, Barbara. For those reading, you can learn about the breathing method Barbara is talking about (or something very similar), but dowloading the meditation instructions on my resources page.
Panic attacks have been with me since I was in my early thirties, and I am currently 55 years old.
I was about thirty three years old, my son’s 3rd birthday was approaching and I was busy with cakes, food, tents for our guests, etc. I was alone with Chandler (my son) when I felt slightly odd, then dizzy and tingly. I crawled to the phone, which destination, I barley made. Chandler thought I was playing pony and kept trying to climb on my back.
Long story short, I had had a transient ischemeic attack. One step under a stroke. I eventually had carotid by-pass surgery, however, subsequent to this event I would suddenly become completely paralyzed on my right side. I would become completely numb on my right side from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, but only on the right side. Luckily, I am left handed. I would remain paralyzed for 1-2 minutes, and then it would just “go away”. The catch was I never knew when it would occur.
Because of this condition I would not drive much, only the 6 or 7 blocks to take my child to preschool. Every excursion was an act of faith. I was terrified to be alone and my mother, bless her heart, would stay with me all day until my husband returned from work. I had one test after another to try and figure out what was causing my condition.
Nothing, some doctors wanted to prescribe certain medicines or perform certain tests which I refused. Being a guinea pig to figure out my condition was not for me.
It was not until I met with the head of neurology at Scripps Hospital in Layolla, Ca. that I was given a flame of hope. The man simply said, (after having me smell cloves and touch cotton with my eyes closed), your brain has short circuited (due to loss of oxygen from the original event), but it will eventually re-wire itself.
I believed. Four years later I stopped going paralyzed on the right side of my body.
Today it has been some 20 years ago, but the fear of suffering this event again occasionally surfaces. When I panic I think I cannot breath and I have to tell myself “you are breathing”. I have never been the same since that time so long ago, a new self was born. A self aware of her mortality and how fleeting life on this earth is. Fear is such a debilitating emotion!
I appreciate you sharing your experience. I will try to center the next time I have any troubles…..
Thanks for sharing your experience, Kim. –E.G.