Stress Management Techniques - My Experience of Mindfulness in Very Tough Times

A while ago my fortunes changed and I was not working and experiencing a very hard time financially with all the obvious pressures associated with that. I became exhausted and completely run down. I found it hard to control my thoughts.

I would often wake up in the early hours of the morning with extremely negative thoughts.

There was a voice (well several actually) that used to start up and accuse me of failing and being hopeless and unemployable. Because it was late and I was so exhausted I was in the grip of these voices and could hardly sleep.

By morning I was exhausted. And so the cycle repeated itself for a number of days. I realise that I had to do something - fast or I was going to be ill or worse...

Thankfully I was aware of mindfulness practise and doing it fairly regularly so I knew what to do - I just needed to do more of it and I especially needed to find a strategy that I could use more or less automatically in the early hours of the morning.

I did 3 things:

(1) Deep acceptance

During waking hours whenever it all got too much to bear, I would go outside and find a seat somewhere that I knew I wouldn't get distracted by anyone and I practised a deep acceptance exercise, which you can try:

# Check-in internally - what am I feeling now? (Do it very quickly and no thinking about it - we do not want the mind involved!)

# Go with the first feeling that comes up

# Say out loud (or loudly in your head "I accept that I am feeling angry / frightened /fearful /anxious / resentful / etc

# Say it over and over again several times like a mantra

# Say it with maximum intensity and focus

# Check-in again internally - what am I feeling now?

# Go with the first feeling that comes up

# Say out loud (or loudly in your head "I accept that I am feeling angry / frightened /fearful /anxious / resentful etc"

# Say it over and over again several times like a mantra

I found that if I stuck with this exercise after approximately 15 or 20 minutes I was completely calm and centred in a deep state of present moment awareness.

(2) Intense present moment awareness using an NLP technique

I am terrified of heights. There is a large and quite long suspension bridge over a mile wide estuary near where I live.

There are 2 thin support cables fixed on supporting struts mounted on top of the suspension cables. These are designed for workmen - wearing harnesses - to clip themselves on to the support cables as they walk up and on top of the main suspension cables that rise from about 300 feet above sea level to about 800 feet above sea level.

I know that if I had to - in an emergency, I could walk that cable - just. Even writing about it is bringing me out in a cold sweat!

So I did an exercise whereby I walked the length of the suspension cables - but on the bridge. However, in my mind and imaginatio
I did every step for real. I could feel the wind, see the drop below and feel the overwhelming panic and terror. I visualised and experienced in my senses every aspect of that walk, as though it was for real.

The only way I could ever make a walk like that in reality is with massive and intense present moment awareness. Walking very slowly, breathing deeply and steadily with a total focus on the action of each slow step.

And in my imaginary walk up the cable - as in reality I walked under it along the bridge - I anchored the intense feelings of present moment awareness as I coped with "walking" that cable.

After having completed this exercise and having anchored the feelings and states I was able to replay that experience at will and on demand.

Over a period of several hard weeks I "walked that cable" many, many times and each time I was brought into a deep and powerful sense of present moment awareness that would last for quite a while.

After a number of repetitions of this exercise, it became automatic and I dropped the visualisation and was just able to enter a deep state of present moment awareness fairly easily (and I still can).

(3) Intense present moment awareness using a simple repetitive phrase

I realised that to cope with my problems at night I needed something even simpler than the NLP exercise - something that I could do in a semi-conscious state.

This practise came to me when I was meditating and it came in response to a request for help I made to my higher, transcendent or expanded self. (In traditional expression you would call this prayer). I will explain far more about I mean by this and how it applies to us in a future article.

What came to me was a simple phrase that had meaning for me at the time, was easy to remember and repeat and with which I also had a kinesthetic (or physical) association as well.

The phrase was: "I choose the light - I walk in the light"

I used this - let's just call it a mantra for convenience - every night as I was falling asleep - constantly if I woke up in the night and I woke up every morning with that mantra going round and around in my head.

The point of it was that it stopped me thinking and it gave my thinking mind something to do and which shut it up. So I was able to stay mindful, present and completely relaxed.

From the moment I started doing this I never had another bad night's sleep. After a few weeks, as with the previous practise, it became automatic and a habit.