After most of a lifetime practicing meditation, I decided to offer what I do to my clients - with considerable caution, I might say. The results were astonishing. I now offer it to all my clients. Most take it up and they progress remarkably well. In some cases, I am at a loss as to what else would help. For some clients, I have to make adjustments, and that comes with practice - 45 years of my own practice and over a decade of client work. I am a masters qualified senior accredited counsellor and supervisor in private practice for adults, children, couples and families.
A basic breathing method
I use a basic breathing method which the Buddhists call Anapanasati, although they would freely admit that it predates Buddhism, deriving from the Vedic tradition.
So what I am offering is both ancient and as global as Buddhism is.
What is different is the way I teach it. If you visit any Buddhist centre, you are expected to learn it osmotically. I have had some wonderful experiences in centres, but I can’t offer that in my rooms.
I am not a Buddhist, but I share their desire for peace in the world, and I can do that client by client. This article is about spreading the message wider. My clients are often busy with work, families etc, so they need something straightforward and simple. This breathing meditation is just that. But it does have one drawback. They have to actually take the time to do it.
So why should anyone devote daily space to this when there are so many other demands on their time and so many other ideas around claiming to help them?
The project
I spent a professional working life managing engineering projects. I had to deliver, and I did. If what I did didn’t work, the bridge would fall down or the boiler would blow up and everyone would know, and know whose fault it was. Not so obvious in therapy, but I apply the same level of dedication - and get the same results.
I tell my clients they are my projects while they choose to be with me, so we aim to get from where they are now to where they want to be, from anxiety to peace. It’s that simple. It’s finding the route that’s the challenge.
So, I provide a little tuition. I describe how the psyche works, how it can become distressed, how that can be relieved and how meditation can affect that.
For all of our lives, we have to navigate the world we find ourselves in with the psyche we have been given. That comprises the firmware we were born with and the software introjected by those around us, mostly in our developmental years. Not much of our own choice going on there.
If we were able to resolve all our daily problems every day, we would generally be happy and not seek help. But life is never that simple. Some of the bigger issues linger, either because they are too big, or because they trigger the trauma of unresolved previous impacts. A trauma is any emotional impact which is not yet processed, regardless of size and depth. If we had none, our mind would be clear, there would be no triggering and we would manage the vagaries of life and our own needs and urges seamlessly. However, we all carry traumas, ranging from the trivial to the catastrophic. So there is always some work to be done and some risk of overreacting or generally feeling anxious or depressed.
Trauma
Trauma is not really about the past. It’s the fear that the past will repeat itself in the future. And that fear is in the present. I want to feel at peace now and every other ‘now’. So I need to deal with the emotions of the ‘now’.
When we are triggered by an event impacting us or even when our minds are in idle mode, we need to find a safe mental place. We want to distract ourselves when the traumas come to haunt us. We need a reliable escape route from our oppressive thoughts. We normally reach out to someone or something and hope that they are there when we want them and it will work. We call a friend, play some music, have a drink, do some work, occupy ourselves with recreation etc. Those may not always be healthy and they may not always be available as they are generally beyond our control. That uncertainty, in itself, can create anxiety, and that could even go over into a panic attack. Even if the distraction stops us from falling into a fear loop at that time, it does not resolve the traumas. They are there the next day ready to haunt us again.
If we could find a means of managing these rogue emotions and at the same time release some of the embedded traumas, we could reduce their power over time, be less governed by negative stresses and gradually think more clearly. We need something internal that will always be available and totally reliable every time. If we could then work at this every day, we would progressively feel lighter and lighter. We would become continually less burdened, happier and, indeed, less vulnerable to further stresses. What can be better than that?
Such an approach would have a very special byproduct. When we learn that our source of relief is always there inside us, we are no longer dependent on others for that moment-to-moment security. We then become confident in who and what we are at a very basic level. And the more we do this exercise, the easier it is to navigate our way to that Perfect Core at the centre of our being from any situation in our sphere of activity. 1 We become confident in our own decision-making and can resist others’ influences if we choose. This method is a serious win/win. What is not to like?
Healing mechanism
Further, the method is not pathology-specific. It does not matter what the issues are, even if they are predominantly external. It will still work because it’s our own inner healing mechanism which is doing the work from the centre of our being. The practice is merely re-invigorating that natural process.
Whilst the word meditation covers a plethora of methods, and mindfulness is even less well defined, there are some principles which work and some which are not so helpful. The ‘go to’ thought needs to be inside of us. It needs to be a readily detectable physical sensation and not a mental concept. Small wonder that our breathing has been the function of choice for millennia. But it is just an awareness of it that we seek. If we try to force it, we are involving the conscious mind, which is the entity which is carrying the stress just now.
By accepting the miraculous bodily process of breathing which has never failed us in all our lives so far, we discover the security and stability our stressed minds desperately need at any moment. A sensor in our brains constantly detects the oxygen level in our blood and drives the chest muscles to increase or decrease our breathing rate. We simply observe what our breathing is doing. Just that. No more. We are passing control from our clever conscious at the surface to the wise subconscious inside.
When we become aware of our breathing, it naturally settles and we feel a little calmer. If the object of therapy is to feel more calm, we have found a reliable way to achieve that, at least momentarily. If we make the meditation a routine, then we are training the mind to go to that place at any time. It is emotional physiotherapy. We just keep feeling better and better for as long as we do it. Notwithstanding that, it is important to remember that the objective of meditation is not to calm now. It is long-term emotional healing. That will entail visiting traumas, albeit in a controlled way. As such, we cannot expect to experience peace in any given session. We just keep doing it. I see my clients over months, so I can track improvements in time and at close quarters.
The universal rule says: when I notice I am thinking, I go to the breathing. I suggest, with eyes closed: that when I notice I am daydreaming, I become aware of what my breathing is doing. Absolutely nothing more. There are no marks for doing ‘better meditation’. Whatever happens in that state diffuses into the mind and reappears in our daily life. While we are doing this, we are not getting stuck in negative thoughts. Further, we are reprogramming the mind not to get obsessed with our stresses by giving it a subconscious ‘get out clause’. That way, the time we have been stuck in our ‘do loops’ of fear is now spent connecting with the psyche’s own remarkable healing process. It’s a win/win.
Whilst there are therapies which might access this inner healing, the beauty of the meditation is that the client will do this, normally for 20 minutes, every day, and not just when they see the therapist. Further, they can do it forever, long after they have left therapy, with ever-increasing benefits throughout their lives.
Mantra meditation
I offer a mantra-type meditation too, in which we go to a set sound or words instead of breathing. We can do that at any time of day or night when the breathing method may be more difficult to access. By reverting to a safe word inside whenever we feel stressed, we will resolve our issues at any time they arise. We can start to manage the intensity and duration of oppressive thoughts. Not only that, but our minds will learn how to manage these triggered emotions automatically in future, so the traumas underlying them become tamed. We will be achieving our peace goal using a reliable ‘intraction’ process as opposed to the less reliable distraction one. Some clients use this method as their main source of therapy.
That is the self-evident logic of meditation. Why are we not all doing a practice which reduces stress and trauma and brings peace to ourselves and, thereby, to those around us? Our Western minds think something has to be difficult and require effort to be effective. But the method is effortless. It reverts to the wise inner being who knows how to heal when the consciousness has run out of ideas. For the most part, the body heals itself. In the same way, the mind heals itself, but we need to give it the space every day to do that. We have forgotten that in our over-busy worlds. Let’s all meditate and bring peace to ourselves and then to the world.
References
1 Waite D. (June 2015). Circle Diagram. Therapy Today: BACP, Lutterworth
Biography
David Waite is a Masters qualified Senior Accredited Counsellor and Supervisor in Private Practice for adults, children, couples and families in Manchester, England.
Author: ‘So Now I Get It, The Miracle of Soul Centred Counselling’.
©David Waite at EnjoyLifeCounselling.co.uk
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