So according to this article by New Scientist, meditation makes some people worse it seems. Makes people feel more anxious, depressed, or even causes a panic attack.
I disagree with the context of this piece. And this is coming from someone who went to a Buddhist centre to meditate at 28 years old, and had to leave because of the onset of a panic attack.
Thankfully, I’d had enough exposure to meditation many years before, plus the guidance and reassurance from someone a lot more experienced in this form to know that the cause itself was not the meditation.
The article unfortunately seems to be a simplistic glossing over, and misunderstanding of what meditation is. It also shows a significant lack of understanding of what mental health and suppressed emotion is too.
The meditation didn’t cause my panic attack. Meditation allows you to be still enough to see what’s really going on inside; what you have been carrying, trying to escape from, trying to suppress, and exacerbating with avoidance behaviour which actually gives the emotion nowhere to go and no means of being integrated.
The cause of my panic attack was a combination of a predisposition to anxiety, mixed with various emotional traumas from earlier life and mainly from my 20’s, and the regular abuse committed on my mind with alcohol and drugs as I tried to run away from my thoughts and how I felt. That was the suppression, the escapism, the total lack of acquaintance with what feeling and thinking really was.
Putting the cause of that panic attack down to meditating is the equivalent of blaming the finding of a live bomb on the excavators of the site. Forget the war that was responsible for utilising the bomb, the motives of the people who used it, the undealt with difficulty of the party or parties at war.
Meditation is like excavation at times, it’s the work of clearing the debris that blocks you from your true self, from reality, what’s really happening to and for you.
This can range from completely diabolical emotional trauma to simple nervousness or irritability, uncomfortableness or distraction.
So yes, there should be some responsibility with the way Meditation is ‘dispensed’ for these reasons. However all the true roots of the meditative styles have always maintained that the journey you take should be accompanied by experienced practitioners and also the ‘Sangha’ or ‘community. This is vital for people who are struggling.
At the same time, we are not, or should not be trying to run away from the problems that lurk, If we want true resolution of them. What is there inside us has to be confronted sooner or later if we are to have some kind of lasting positive recovery. We can avoid it, side step it or leave it until later, and gain some momentum certainly. And yes sometimes this is the best and safest first move. But those issues that remain improperly dealt with will always come back and drive our behaviours once again, and sure enough will result in a pain that requires attention.
Meditation, at least some forms of it, brings issues to the surface and actually shows us what it is we need to resolve. This can involve painful experiences unfortunately.
Feeling into the pain, acknowledging it, courageously looking at it as it arises is the process whereby we release.
Gladly the article ends with the paragraph
“This doesn’t mean people should stop trying the technique, she says, but instead should opt for guided meditation sessions, led by a teacher or an app with a recorded narration, which she believes is safer. “The current study could stop people participating in something which can be of benefit in the right context,”
There is however something valid about what this article is hinting at. Meditation, coming under the umbrella of Spirituality these days, does require at least some regulation and standards. Who exactly do we listen to? Who had the experience? Who is giving incorrect advice?
Maybe this mode of what can be seen as personalised guesswork is more of a response to the dogmatic, institutionalised religions that we feel have failed us with their restrictive, sometimes even judgmental approach.
Meditation and mindfulness is simply a tool for attaining inner harmony, but that doesn’t mean the path is easy and peaceful. It can be treacherous because life and how it impacts is can be treacherous. Navigating life’s suffering is something we can engage or avoid. Both make us feel better, the latter only temporarily and with worse consequences later on. Meditation gives us the means to meet the unpredictable aspects of life with at least some more solid footing and balance, and maybe some peace of mind.
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