Anxiety

[Ripe]

Funny that this thread is initiated right now.
For more than twenty years I have suffered anxiety attacks.
When something out of the ordinary shakes my life I will start feeling a wave of heat coming up from my legs to my chest. These waves will also locate themselves in my scrotum. It's not like goosebumps but more something interior. All worse case scenarios will then play repeatedly in my head.
For twenty years I have tried to take control of these waves, but of course unsuccessfully. I would say to myself "please, please, waves, do not come" and they would immediately come. I would then try to ignore them, without success.
I have never taken medication because I saw what my father suffered with his sleeping pills.
I came to the conclusion that my healthy life style and living in a paradise island are the reasons why I kept myself sane. And after completing the happiness mooc course at Edx I found that gratitude, awe, laughter and play had a major contributing role in that, even without knowing it.
Anyway, you all can easily imagine what the bomb, separation and upcoming divorce have done to my anxiety.
I don't sleep well for over two years.
So I decided to try something different: mindfulness meditation.
I have now started acknowledging and accepting these anxiety waves as they are, without trying to change them.
Even the other day I went for a walk and the day was so lovely that I decided to move a bit from the track and do this new meditation I had on my ipod. It's called "Soften, soothe, allow: Working with emotions in the body". It makes you think about an anxiety source and accept it. It then tells you to touch the body area where you feel the emotion. When I did this I felt such a surcharge of energy that I started crying like a baby.
Slowly, slowly, I have noticed progress in these attacks. Accepting that they are there is just the beginning. Maybe I will never get rid of them, but they will not control me has they have so far.
So, besides attending an IC, this is how I have decided to act: through meditation.
Even yesterday I left some suggestions for insomnia in Fo's thread..
Sorry for highjacking the thread like this. Everybody is talking about medication and I am bragging about some obscure practice which I started doing less than one year ago.
I will leave some quotes from Tara Brach, a psychologist, for those of you who care to read:

•“Where attention goes, energy flows”
•“When the pressure arises it's because there’s is fear. It’s a clue that we have to pay attention to the fear. That means there is some insecurity, maybe I fall short, I won’t get what I want, maybe I am not cut out for this. If we bring kindness and presence to the fear - because the fear needs attention - then things relaxes and we can go back to cultivating without that kind of tension.”
•“What we can’t embrace with love, controls us... We have to pay attention to what needs attention within us. The parts of us that are fearful need attention.”
•Instead of numbing out or ignoring the feeling, start bringing attention to the fear and listening to it and asking “What do you need from me? How do you want me to be with you?” I just need to acknowledge that you are afraid, and I need to feel in some way that you care about me. Then starting to offer that fear mindfulness - I see that you're there - and kindness - creates a space where we can let go a little bit. Emotions are designed to come and go. It’s 1.5 minutes for an emotion to play itself through your body unless your thoughts keep generating the material for the emotion. In mindfulness we bring a direct attention to what’s there.”