Q: Lately I have been having panic attacks. I’ve had anxieties as long as I can remember and I feel I’ve trained my nervous system this way. I wish I could let go more and relax, like a child in her mother’s arms. Can you help me with what to do when this panic comes up in daily life, when I’m at work or with other people? It scares me.
John: Your nervous system in distress is like your child. As that’s occurring you are like your child’s deeply quieted mother and, as that, your distressed child looks to you and listens to you. Your distressed nervous system is really calling out to a different level of you than what you are being in your nervous system, which created the distress in the first place.
What creates the distress in your nervous system isn’t the pressureful circumstance that you’re in. It isn’t the lack in your self. It’s what you’re being in that, you being the same as what you’re experiencing instead of being what is just a little bit deeper than you’re experiencing. Then, instead of you being distressing to your nervous system, you are a little bit like ointment to it.
Q: What would that look like? I often feel as if I’m trying at that point to be a little bit deeper, but it’s still quite hard for me not to believe what I’m experiencing so strongly.
John: It’s a little bit like you being what sounds like “mmmmm” in the midst of what is “ouch”, instead of you being “ouch” in what is “ouch”. Despite what is “ouch”, find even the tiniest little bit of “mmmmm”. If you’re open to find it, it’s there.
Q: I can do that.
