Being Present

In a previous blog I wrote about the benefits of contemplative practices, especially meditation. Here I would like to tell you about one person’s journey with meditation.

Kristina first came to see me as a psychotherapy client. She was suffering from anxiety and was having a very difficult time getting a hold of it in any useful way. Her anxiety was bad enough that she was often vomiting, sometimes daily and at the time she first came to see me, several times a day. A thorough history taking revealed that this had been an issue for her since she was a child. As exploration continued through therapy, we discovered that her anxiety had a long history of being embedded in a traumatic experience.

Initially, I was most concerned with getting her to calm her nervous system. She had several physical disorders and was on a great deal of medication and we both wished to help her with her anxiety without adding more medication.

I asked Kristina to try an experiment. I asked her to set a timer for 10 minutes every morning and to sit quietly while following her breath. She agreed to try it. When she returned the next week she reported a bit defiantly that she hadn’t done the sitting everyday, just 5 days. I simply responded with, “Great. How did it go for you?” She shrugged and said OK. Maybe she was feeling a bit calmer. I asked her if she was willing to continue the experiment to which she agreed.

We continued with this pattern for a few more weeks. Kristina reporting that she wasn’t able to sit quietly everyday and was managing about 5 days a week. She began to report that she wasn’t quite so tired at the end of the day. She was making better choices about how much “work” she did around the house which seemed to reduce her pain levels. She was pacing herself more carefully and was beginning to enjoy some leisure activities she had let lapse. Kristina also reported that her relationships with her husband and son were improving. She wasn’t so short with them and they weren’t so snarky with her either. They were enjoying each others company more when they were together in the evening. She was pleased with all of these improvements and had continued the “sitting” practice through the weeks.

One day after about 4 or 5 weeks, I realized I hadn’t asked her a very important question. Finally I asked her how her vomiting was as it had been so prominent when we first began psychotherapy. Her eyes got big and she looked at me like I had put on a scary clown mask. After a moment she reported that she had stopped vomiting about two days into the start of her “sitting” and hadn’t done any since then. The relevance of this had slipped by both of us!! It was at that moment that we both became lifetime converts to the practice of meditation or quiet sitting, as in Kristina’s case.

The experience with Kristina confirmed that this would be a life long practice and that I wanted to bring the benefits to as many people as possible. That was when I started the certification process to become a mindfulness teacher.

Kristina was so profoundly affected by the realization of the impact on her life that she committed to daily practice. When her husband needed space to work out of their home, she adamantly refused to give him her “sitting space”. She protected her practice and her practice space and expanded to more than 10 minutes at a sitting. For the time she remained in treatment she never returned to those high levels of anxiety or vomiting, in fact reporting continued improvement in her quality of life.

We were both sold, and we hope you reaped benefits that fit in your life as well.