Hello,
My name is Adam Dietz and I have spent over 10 years training in Buddhist traditions that culminated in the Taoist tradition in Tai Chi.
I've been practicing Tai Chi Chuan for almost 15 years now and today I wanted to share a story of my experience with meditation and one particular way that it helped me deal with anxiety.
So I had been feeling quite proficient and confident with my practice for many years and my practice gave me the feeling that I could handle basically anything that came my way.
I would do Tai Chi every morning which was a confluence of all my meditation training all packed into Tai Chi and I would meditate every night as I was drifting off to sleep.
I felt like this was really life-changing in so many ways.
It gave me a deeper sense of self and so many tools to deal with anything that came up internal or external.
I felt like Tai Chi gave me a great sense of when to advance,
To use sincerity,
And when to retreat,
When to use humility.
But all that kind of came to a head one day,
One year I should say,
When the tragedy happened where my mother passed away.
My mother passed away was fairly sudden and to spare most of the details what really I think triggered some anxiety for me was being there at the end with her and seeing her after she had passed.
At first it was just a normal experience as far as grieving and mourning and sadness and coming together as a community but then I realized my body was not processing it very well at all and I began to have anxiety.
And over the course of months the anxiety increased.
I had a real sense of tension and tightness in my chest and as many of you know who experience anxiety things would spiral.
I was trying to manage with my practice but it just wasn't working like it usually did and it was just a vague background feeling of discomfort that sometimes would really increase to the point where I was having real trouble even driving and going across a bridge.
Finally one time in the middle of nowhere it all really came to a boil and I had to pull over.
I tried,
I stopped my car probably three or four times just not able to continue on worried that I would not be able to drive.
So finally I just was at a loss.
I pulled into a rest stop and figured well maybe I'm just tired maybe just some rest will help me.
So I began to drift off and I did my usual meditation practice that I tried to do before before going to sleep and at this time actually I just focused more and more and deepened my practice and really concentrated more than I had in a long time.
In this sense it was a sense of deepening that your mind was having this anxiety on the outside on the surface and that if I could deepen my consciousness deeper and deeper into my truest self I would feel better and slowly but surely it felt like the anxiety was drifting farther and farther out from my core to the point where I now felt like my inside was completely free and the anxiety was a very distant thing.
The reason why I'm sharing this story is because it is the most profound experience I've had with meditation practice and knock on wood I have not experienced such anxiety for three years now.
Now whenever it feels as though anxiety is coming back first of all it feels very distant and not as all encompassing as it once did.
Second if I feel like it's getting out of control I can simply close my eyes and take a deep breath just like a long blink and the experience of meditation comes back to me the experience of my deepest self comes back to me and the anxiety feels like it's just dissipating or it's so distant and not so consuming anymore.
So as we're beginning this journey together here I would like to encourage you to stay committed to your practice to continue to watch your breath to continue to allow your awareness to sink deeper and deeper into yourself to continue to make the effort to be centered and to do not give up to take the time that you need to care for yourself close your eyes listen to your breath notice your breath allow all things around you to settle.
The feeling that this should inspire is summed up very concisely in one passage that's from Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching that when we practice in this way it's like we our mind is a hand searching in muddy water a hand that's searching in muddy water if it's very active it will just continue to stir up turbidity we have to make an effort of effortlessness to keep our minds still to allow things to pass by to allow turbidity to settle just as we have to when our hand is searching in muddy water keep our hands still allow all turbidity to settle when we do this in the water like our mind it becomes clear it takes time but the turbidity dissipates when the clarity comes through then we feel ourselves again and when we have this clarity actually the light of our truest self Tao the way our true nature can shine through as well practice doesn't erase anxiety or erase grief or erase mourning but it does allow us a chance to return to center so again like to highly encourage you to take a moment here and there take a deep breath even in the hustle and bustle of whatever's going on for you close your eyes allow yourself to return to center and see the effects that it has of freeing up some inner space to deal with whatever comes your way
