4-28-02, Sunday Journal
HANDLING PANIC ATTACKS
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
Noticed
an increase in number of people having panic attacks? Maybe people have always
had them but are just now calling them "panic attacks." But I think
not. I am convinced they are increasing. One of my most intelligent and aware
friends recently told me he had gone through a hell of panic attacks for years.
He's so competent and successful it shocked me.
Once I had them while I was taking Halcion for sleep. I quit the Halcion and
they ceased. No telling how many people's medications are inducing them.
The other time I had them, a psychiatrist and my own study helped me find the
trigger. One thought in particular helped me cancel them and here's the way I
described it in my 1989 journal:
"Panic attacks come from old floating fears that have gained phobic power
due to repression. We keep pushing them down and any fear not faced gains phobic
power. The source is often an old memory or a set of comparable memories, like
multiple cases of abuse by the same person in situations where we felt trapped
and unable to cry out for help. The healing power for me was bringing those old
memories into conscious awareness without judgment. The ‘without judgment'
part is the key. As long as we are judging our self or others, we are still in
the experience, still in the blender. We must step outside the blender and look
at what is there. We may need professional help to do this but I have learned
that the more I practice bringing pain into conscious awareness without
judgment, the better I am at it. Until we get out of the blender we will
continue to be chopped up. We can learn how to step out of it through the simple
mental exercise of seeing it, feeling it, then becoming the observer and
stepping outside to look in at it."
Almost all of our progress in handling emotional problems comes from developing
rituals and routines that work for us. Doctors call their course of treatment a
"protocol." These self-rituals we develop that work for us are our
protocols. Try this protocol on your panic attacks.
PUT THE "GRIN" IN CHAGRIN
When I had a band and we lived together on weekends, we wrote a bunch of crazy,
mournful songs and taped them. Songs like "Oh My Spinktrum, Oh My
Bowel," and "The Sorrowful Way." We called ourselves "The
Chagrineers." I still crack up when I hear those old tapes we made in this
wacky period of my life.
The experience taught me something valuable. Something that may have saved my
sanity at times (some would dispute that its been saved!).
"Chagrin," means "a feeling of embarrassment and annoyance
because one has failed or been disappointed." Notice that the word itself
contains the word "grin."
Who hasn't failed? Who hasn't been disappointed? Can you think of a better way
to handle the feelings of failure and disappointment than a grin?
Right before my mother died I took her to a roadside produce stand she really
loved. After I paid for my things, I walked out to the car to wait for her. In a
few minutes she walked out, and started walking in the opposite direction of the
car. After about ten steps she froze, peeped back over her shoulder to see if I
had seen her mistake, and the most beautiful, sheepish smile crossed her face.
Every time I experience chagrin, I remember that sweet grin. It has kept me from
taking failure, disappointment, mistakes and myself too seriously.
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