I’ve lived my life with a certain level of anxiety present on and off. Not an overwhelming amount. In fact, I didn’t really label it or recognize it as anxiety until a few years ago.
With the onset of the pandemic, I began to experience a more intense level of anxiety. I had an undercurrent of anxiety with me most of the time, but occasionally it would spike to a level that was just shy of a panic attack. I felt pressure in my chest and nauseous. Then there were the burning and tingling sensations in my hands, arms, shoulders, legs, feet, and even my tongue. When it was at its worst, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and hide from everything. I wanted to push it away. I resisted it and feared it, which just made it worse.
In the preceding years, I had spent a lot of time listening to talks by Pema Chödrön. She gives a lot of talks on fear and how meditation can help us in working with anxiety and other strong emotions. One of the techniques she teaches is described by the acronym R.A.I.N. The steps are as follows:
- R = Recognize what is happening.
- A = Allow the experience to be there as it is. Instead of trying to push it away, just know that the anxiety is here again. “There you are again” might be the attitude.
- I = Investigate what is happening in your body. Get curious about where it is in the body and what it feels like.