Meditation doesn't have to be a mysterious proposition. If done keeping in mind your temperament and predisposition, it can aid immensely in reducing anxiety.
Meditation for anxiety doesn't have to be a mysterious proposition, or a difficult one and if it is done keeping in mind your tendencies and inclinations, it can aid significantly in creating space and calm.
Millions of people, the world over suffer from anxiety. This anxiety can range from being a mild irritation to a pervasive and paralyzing fear. While medications such as the commonly used selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can do much to alleviate this condition, it makes good sense for the therapist to look into the propensities, predispositions and psychological make-up of those suffering from anxiety. Anxiety can be mysterious, at times emerging without any obvious cause or reason. Research still has to conclusively elucidate the biological underpinnings of this condition. While not definitively researched, techniques such as contemplation and meditation have shown a lot of promise in tackling anxiety.
Meditation for anxiety can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Not surprisingly, meditation has been described to be different things by proponents of different lineages. Some describe it as an exercise to develop calm, clarity, emotional stability and focus, while some state that it is a way to tap into the ever present spaciousness and spontaneity that is the ground of all being. The latter definition brings with it the notion of 'not doing' or that meditation 'isn't', and that getting used to that, 'is'!
From a therapy point of view, it makes sense to keep things as simple as possible and the exercise of meditation simply follows and augments the 'decluttering' of inner space. This clearing involves some shifts in perspective that not only inform therapy but are also part of the meditation practice. One such shift is the notion of acceptance. For meditation for anxiety to be most beneficial, acknowledging that there is bound to be distress and also that circumstances are often beyond our control is key. While engaging in contemplation or meditation, this acceptance translates to a willingness to let things be the way they are. During the times when we sit in meditation, or even at other times, this willingness allows us to let go. So our meditation both involves and generates the ability to see that control isn't always the answer. At least during the time when we attempt to sit in silence, we let go of our involvements, we let go of our desire to constantly think, reason, explain or manipulate. Inhabiting such a mindstate creates room for healing, space to connect with silence, with unfabricated completeness and wonder.
Meditation, or specifically meditation for anxiety should likely also begin to realign our relationship with mental events, with thoughts, feelings and sensations. More often than not, our distress stems from these mental events. One way of reducing anxiety and creating calm is to examine what these mental events are. The more we look, the more we realize that there is no substance to mental events. For instance say we have thoughts of inadequacy along with the attendant anxiety and suffering. When we look for the actual thoughts or feelings, can we find them? During meditation, it helps to pose questions relating to these very mental events. Where are they located? What are they made up of? Are they inside or outside? Do they have any color, or shape? What are they? How do they arise? Where do they abide? The more we look, the more we realize that all mental events are evanescent, insubstantial phenomena. Literally empty of the characteristics, solidity and finality we confer upon them.
Calmly abiding in a state that is accepting of whatever arises and reasons that mental events will come and go, irrespective of the import we tend to accord to them, is meditation. And can be meditation for anxiety as well.
During meditation, for some, it can help to have some support, an anchor to return to if we get excited, drowsy or distracted. Many find that an external focus helps, some find that keeping the mind immersed in the body helps and some claim that making the breath the anchor is easiest. As a psychiatrist in Delhi who practices contemplative psychotherapy, I often counsel my clients to let the in-breath come and go but focus on the out-breath. Be aware of the exhalation as it were. And in the interest of effective decluttering therapy as well as calming meditation, I ask them to visualize that with each exhalation, they are letting go of the very thoughts, feelings and sensations that are causing them distress. Such visualization can be an easily applicable means of furthering relaxation.
Apart with the notions of letting go and acceptance, meditation for anxiety is best engaged in without any particular agenda. Also, it is probably wisest to not repeatedly assess how meditation is going or expend effort in doing 'good' meditation. That in many ways stifles a process that is an expression of freedom, openness and limitlessness. Done without unnecessary contrivance and encumbrance, what starts out as meditation for anxiety can become a way of life. That is perhaps when we come to see that meditation really isn't!
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