When I was 19 years old, I had my first real, life-pausing panic attack. I was living in my first apartment with my best friend from high school. I worked two jobs, as I have for much of my life, to make ends meet in that awful little cave. The cave was on the second floor, right above the apartment managers. They didn’t trust a pair of teenagers on their own for the first time. How could they, we were teenagers on our own for the first time. I was beyond broke, even with two jobs, so I did not have a car. I walked and relied on the bus for most transit. My night job required me to bum a ride from a coworker, my roommate, or friends that could be in the area, as the bus that went to my house didn’t go that far, that late. The “reason” for this panic attack was that I had missed the bus after my morning job, by only moments, to get to my night job. Because of the day of the week, there wouldn’t be another bus going all the way to my night job for over an hour. I went back into my day job and used the phone (this was before cell phones were really a thing) and called out due to transportation issues. The manager there already didn’t much like me, so I was hanging by a thread. I caught the next bus home, and as I was walking from the bus stop the half mile to my apartment, my mind could not stop racing. The blender, as I call it, was on overdrive- catastrophic thoughts spinning around, until finally about a block from home, I broke. I was crying hysterically, couldn’t breathe, could barely keep walking in the state I was in. My chest hurt. I called my mom as soon as I got in, since she’s in the medical field. I was positive that I was having the heart attack I’d joked about for years. The joke was that I wouldn’t make it out of my teens, that I’d give myself a heart attack before then. I had dreams of not making it to 20 years old. I was on borrowed time anyway, right? Fuck it. Rock it ‘til the wheels fall off! And here they were, falling off, and I’m sobbing to my mom that I think I’m dying. She talked me down, and told me she would talk to me later that evening. I felt like death. I was having muscle spasms and was still laboring to breathe naturally. I wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t dying, but I did my best to calm down and think about what I was going to do. I never was able to stop the panic attacks completely from happening. But I have a much better handle on them now that I’m in my 40s. 

A long time ago, I read somewhere that anxiety is living in the future, depression is living in the past. I’m not talking diagnoses here, but the feelings of anxiety and depression. Side note: If you think you have disorders regarding either of those conditions, I urge you to seek medical advice as soon as possible. Medical providers have made my struggles with both anxiety and depression more manageable. 

Anxiety or worry are often created by focusing on what is going to happen, what hasn’t happened yet, catastrophic feelings of worst-case scenarios swirling around the old brain bucket. Sadness often arises from feelings of what could have been, should have been, loss, lack, and even sometimes jealousy of how things transpired for someone else or how you were wronged in some way. Neither of these states are living in the NOW. The right here and right now. Mindfulness is one way to combat the feelings of “not yet”, or “passed me by”. 

I started my mindfulness and spirituality journey when I was 13 or 14 years old. I started reading books on earth religious traditions like the Celts, Druids, and Pagans of Europe. I studied these traditions for several years, until I got busy and had to focus on daily life for a while. This “break” is where the panic attacks started. In my early 20’s I found books and teachers of Eastern philosophies like, Tao, Tibetan Buddhism, and Japanese Buddhism. Here, I found my way to Jodo Shinshu Buddhism of Japan. Throughout all of these traditions, awareness, mindfulness, clarity, some form of meditation or chanting are commonplace. I believe that many of these words we use to describe the spiritual practices, are effectively a different method of the same ideas. Zen schools meditate- sometimes chanting, sometimes silent. There are Zen lineages that practice walking meditation as well. Jodo Shinshu Buddhists don’t focus on meditation so much as group chanting. Pagans from many cultures chant, dance, pray, and focus their minds on certain tasks or thoughts. There are thousands of years of history in humanity where some form of mindfulness, chanting, meditation, or prayer are part of spirituality or devotion. Even in the Abrahamic faith traditions there is chanting, singing, or group prayer of some kind. I genuinely believe that our modern world has stripped much of this spiritual connection from us as a collective. 

I was listening to an audiobook recently about Transcendental Meditation. They conducted an experiment years ago to see if collective meditation had an effect on the world around us. The idea was that everyone in the experiment meditate at home or work/school, at an appointed time to see what happened. They did this every day for a period of time. What the studies showed is that even for several days after the meditations, there was a reduction of violence and crime in the areas surrounding the meditators. That’s a pretty powerful finding, where a collective resonance on peace could amplify to others who were not even remotely involved with the exercise. We have within us, the power to change the world, we just don’t realize it. Focusing on the here and now, feels really short sighted for someone like me. I’m naturally skeptical and data driven in almost all things. But focusing on now doesn’t mean forget to plan for later. It simply means to not get bogged down in later, or before, and forget that life is Happening Now. It isn’t happening 5 minutes ago. That’s in the past. It’s not happening in 5 minutes. That hasn’t gotten here yet. Your life, my life, our lives are happening RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. 

Right now, I am writing this blog post. It is later than I had anticipated and had planned for. But earlier this week, happening now happened. In a previous life, I’d have been really hard on myself for “slacking” on my responsibility, had I found myself in the place I am now with this writing. I’d have taken time away from my family or the class I’ve been taking, to crank this out days ago, had I focused on a strict deadline for myself. I believe that both of these scenarios would have been a detriment to the content of this post, truthfully. Had I not completed my class, I may have had a different perspective on this post, or had written something else entirely. I found meaning and joy in that course, as well as the exercises it contained. I have a clarity in perspective that I didn’t have a couple days ago. I had a mediation on Thursday that really opened my heart and mind in ways I find difficult to explain. And because I focused a lot of energy into that course, even though I’ve been meditating for more than two decades in some form or fashion, I am now a certified meditation teacher. It feels good to have completed the course and had the experience. But something had to shift for my focus to be on that. Writing this blog was part of that trade-off. I have one more certification that I am currently working on, but that will take a bit more time to wrap up. In the fall, I plan to take another meditation course, certifying myself in some other techniques that I hope to master. All of this to say that 1) I have allowed myself the grace and space to recognize that in the now I am writing, which I love more than many things, as well as understanding sometimes I cannot have the diligence I would like, and that’s ok, and 2) personal growth is not a linear process, and I have found much of my own growth through mindfulness, spirituality, and shitloads of trial and error. Finally, 3) you, my readers, are not going to care if my blog post is an hour later to be delivered, than it was last week. Right? Right. Nobody is going to hate me for that.

For those keeping track, I made it past 19 years old. None of my panic attacks killed me, though I felt like they might, and there have been many (many, many) over the last few decades. I can attribute that to a myriad of things, people, circumstances, and just plain luck. I’m grateful for that. To have fizzled out at such a young age, I’d have missed some of the best and absolute worst days of my life. I am looking forward to more of both, while I’m experiencing the right now, right here. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you find value in me sharing my experiences.