I commented earlier that during this season of Lent I planned to do some re-visiting per say of devotional sources I already had vs buying something new such as a book. That was going well until about a week ago when I stumbled on this book by Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopal Priest, titled The Heart of Centering Prayer. Though I am only about half way through the book, I am glad I decided to purchase a hard copy of it as I can see it will most certainly be a book I find myself wanting to refer back to again and again.
When I began having panic attacks, which I realize I can now say was decades ago, I was lucky enough to be diagnosed by Dr. Henry Emmons M.D. who at the time was studying under Jon Kabat Zin, a well known writer and practitioner in the field of Mindfulness Meditation. Though I did not have many visits with Dr. Emmons because he was pursuing further education, I know that his additional training was significant in my own mental health journey.
After trying quite a few different psychotherapists, I finally found the right fit thanks to a recommendation by Dr. Emmons. Mary, the therapist I saw has since retired, but worked with me for over eight years at Anxiety Treatment Resources in Edina, Minnesota. From our first visit I made it clear that I was not looking for someone who would just listen to me. I wanted to be challenged. I wanted panic attacks to go away and was determined to do whatever I could to make that happen.
I still remember Mary telling me that one of the first things I had to do was learn to accept them. I ardently told her that that was not going to happen. I was never going to just accept them! Instead of “accepting” my panic attacks, we decided that a better way for me to understand Acceptance Commitment Therapy might be to use the phrase “just let it be there.” That was and still continues a difficult thing for me to do, but from experience I now know that fighting panic attacks and trying to make them go away only fuels them.
With that bit of background about myself, I am going to show you a little thing I wrote on the margin of this book that keeps coming back to me.
The chapter was referring the what Buddhist refer to the state of Enlightenment, I believe. In the margins I wrote, “original self – in God’s image – Holy Spirit within us”. There is no question mark, but it was a question–a question I have been pondering for years now. Could the Buddhist concept of an Enlightened Mind refer to finding the Holy Spirit within us as Christians?
As I read this book–The Heart of Centering Prayer–I am considering that possible connection again. Though Bourgeault does not make that connection (at least not yet for what I have read) she does speak strongly about how in the Christian practice of Centering Prayer it is not as much about a place we go but a place we come from.
One of my motivations for re-visiting some things from my past is that we have a trip to Ireland planned in June. In my experience, plane rides and panic attacks pretty much go together. Unfortunately, I fall away from some of the tools I have found helpful for dealing with panic attacks when things are running pretty smooth. The problem with that is that I forget to practice using the tools, which makes them less effective. Hence, I am re-visiting some of my therapeutic training in hopes that I can better deal with the panic attacks when they arise, which I am quite sure they will do.
So…this is getting to be a longer post than I intended, but I wanted to get back to why I titled the post the way I did. What happens when we live from the Holy Spirit within us? How does that frame of reference or belonging change the way we see things? I think I might have one example.
In my Centering Prayer practice this morning I noticed a little shift come over me. As I said above one of my motivations for being more diligent about practicing Mindfulness Meditation (one of my therapy tools) and relating them to my Christian spiritual practices through Centering Prayer is that I knew I “needed” to practice them for our upcoming trip. The shift came when I had the realization that I not only “needed” to do it but “wanted” to do it. There is a clinging attached to “needing”, which is not the goal in either Mindfulness Meditation or Centering Prayer. Changing that word to “wanting” somehow lets more love enter.
Can living from the Holy Spirit within me help me be more loving to others and myself? I think the answer is, yes. I need to work on that and “just let it be there” too.
