Stillness – Meditation and Anxiety

I have blogged before about meditation and its beneficial effects on the treatment and control of anxiety. In these posts I have mainly concentrated on Mindfulness Meditation, which is very powerful and still the single thing I would recommend to all anxiety sufferers.

Recently I came across "Stillness Meditation" which looks very interesting.  There is a book, which is sadly out of print, called "In Stillness Conquer Fear". It is about a woman’s (the author) struggle to overcome agoraphobia and her eventual release (cure!) through a disciplined meditation practice.

This meditation practice, to which I believe the author of the aforementioned book, Pauline Mckinnon, gave the name "Stillness Meditation", is very simple. Although I should say that despite the fact that it is simple you still, paradoxically, need to practice regularly in order to achieve stillness. Like all things, you improve with practice.

So how do you do it? Basically you find a posture which is comfortable but not too comfortable. It is actually said to be good training for the mind to have slight discomfort. A straight-backed chair is perfect. You then sit and allow the tension in your body to leave. You may pass your mind’s eye over your body to see if you can find tension. Tension in the face is especially important. Then you allow thoughts to come and go, without giving them your attention, just let them go and your mind will find stillness and moments of emptiness.

Pauline Mckinnon said that a daily practice of this basically cured her agoraphobia over a two year period, with great advances made in just eight weeks! Certainly deep mental and physical relaxation is only really glossed over by the normal CBT model for anxiety and agoraphobia treatment.

I don’t want to promise cures, but I know that meditation, when practiced consistently, can make an amazing positive change on your life. And through really relaxing the mind can allow healing. I don’t yet have conclusive proof that stillness meditation works on its own as a cure, but I know that those people who persevere with it will benefit.