Mindfulness in claustrophobia

                    The jade jaguar throne in the middle of a pyramid in Chichen Itza Mexico 

                                            https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmannix/

When I went to Mexico with a friend in my 20s I refused to go into the pyramid to see the jade jaguar throne because in my imagination all I could see was what it would feel like not to be able to get out again because of the queue. When I was first conveyed into a doughnut-shaped scanner in my 30s I was persuaded to do it without a tranquillizer and despite the operators best attempts to talk me through it I left before it was finished. I even had a problem wearing a hat while skiing because of the feeling of pressure, of being restricted. So when I had to passively go head-first into an MRI machine for a cancer biopsy, I knew I would have to do something differently. 

I had plenty of anticipatory anxiety. I was so hyper-alert that I should remember every second of the journey across London. But of course I wasn't there, on the bus (not the tube), I was mentally in a dark place where I couldn't get out because sitting up wasn't possible without hitting my forehead on the ceiling just above my nose. I imagined trying to shuffle my way out of the machine feet first while panicking. I imagined all the horrible feelings and the consequences of complying with them, and I imagined the horrible consequences of not complying with them. It seemed to me at that point that one of those options was much much more attractive than the other. I think if I'd had to wait in the waiting room I wouldn't have been there when they called my name, but luckily I was a bit late and they hustled me in immediately. 

So there I was, artfully arranged, effectively strapped in, about to be conveyed passively head first into a machine that sounded like a car being squashed into a metre cube of metal and I was going to be in there for twenty whole minutes. And that was just the first time. I had to do something different fast. 

So despite not really believing I could, I tried presence. In theory at least, I had read that it is possible not to allow oneself to think about the future or the past, and to remain with the feelings of the present, and that this was an effective way to manage anxiety. I had some practice of a group analysis technique requiring you to be in the group 'without memory or expectation', and I knew I could do that. So I gave it a go. I focussed on the sensations in my body right now, and when my imagination took me to other places I gently brought it back to the reality. 

It won't surprise you to discover that it worked. It was strange and in a way fascinating for me to find that I could in fact bring my mind back. That I had control over it, if only in these particular circumstances. That the sensations of fluttering in my chest, tension in my jaw and legs and shoulders, palpitations, sweats, twitches, the irregular thumping of the machine, the strange half-light, all of it, were just that, sensations. They suddenly didn't mean what I had assumed they meant - that I was in danger and needed to urgently escape. They simply meant that my body was doing what it was doing and that was the end of that. By about 10 minutes in I started to hear the music I had brought with me as recommended. And as it was music from Indiana Jones being amusingly heroic it actually made me laugh a bit. 

Now it wasn't all fun. It wasn't something I particularly want to repeat. But when I had to go in again to check they'd biopsied the right bit of me I wasn't nearly so afraid. I was quite looking forward to hearing more John Williams music. 

So now I had direct experience of mindfulness being a great tool for disengaging me from my anxiety. For me, being put through an MRI scanner is why I continued with my mindfulness practice. But given that it was so easy to do it, and so effective in the immediate term, I had to wonder whether it wasn't just some superficial trick. Some kind of self-hypnosis, suggestibility or placebo effect that would stop working after a bit. 

Five years later I can tell you for sure that it isn't like that. 

Now I've spent most of the days since then doing some mindfulness practice I have experienced greater ease in getting into the present and out of my anxiety; greater connection with nature and with other people; I'm kinder to myself and more forgiving of other people; I am more contented than ever before; I look after my body much much better, not through fear, but through love and appreciation of this life I have been given, not because I deserved it, but because deserve is not a thing when you simply see what life is. 

Simple is the word. As my capacity to be here now has grown I have lost so much of the complexity, the neurosis, the demands, the complications of my life, and gained so much of the richness and beauty of it simply by letting go. And by embracing and appreciating what is actually here. 

For me having cancer was in at least this one major way one of the best things that ever happened to me. So my wish for you is that you too will be blessed by life pushing you into a corner that you can't get out of without changing your perspective. 

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