Why Panic Attacks Happen (And How to Find Calm)

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Hello. I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms. And last night, I got an email and she

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said about the way she now has panic attacks and anxiety and the way it suddenly started

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manifesting in her life,

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getting near middle age. I hope she doesn't mind me saying that. Still quite a bit younger than me. and

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I just wanted to do a podcast today about it because it reminded me of my story and what

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happened to me just a few months ago and my ignorance about 10 years ago about what panic attacks were.

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So that's what today's episode is about. And I'm going to give you some hints and tips and how what

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to do when you do have a panic attack and how Buddhist and Eastern philosophy and that kind of teaching

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would tell us how we use mindfulness and meditation all that. But just before that, I'm not a trained professional

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and that's important. Anxiety, panic attacks and serious stress should not be taken lightly

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and take this podcast as literally a little bit of value to add to it, but go and get

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professional help. Please don't take this as professional advice. It's just the way Buddhist and Eastern traditions

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and those kind of things. And what I've learned to do with mine and how I deal with mine, it

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may not work with you. But just before that, I want to thank these awesome people for making the podcast

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possible. Adi and Verne chess mark

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keula adele asia brian and this set Thank you, guys. You are

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all awesome and and so so many arrows that donate over time and support monthly. And

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I've even got a few people joining on my stillness on the stillness in the storm Steven Webb Facebook page

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now as supporters. So just thank you to everybody. It really does make a difference. But having I'm going to

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go right back into it because we've got a lot to cover in this podcast, and my attention span is

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about maximum about 30 seconds. So trying to do a 20-minute podcast is it's not easy.

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So I was really touched by this email. So this is why I'm doing this podcast today. But wait, what?

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I'm someone that has been sorting myself out for how many years? I've been meditating, I've been doing mindfulness, I

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read books, I practice all these things and yet I had a similar thing happened to me for the first

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time in my life just I don't know, what five six months ago. So I was at Victoria Gardens. I

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was with a friend and I had to head back into town and pick up a poppy. That's all I

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had to do. So with my enthusiasm, I drove back into town in my allegedly wheelchair and I come across

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a guy that was selling poppies at the bottom of one of the streets and I went over to him

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and I said, do you take a phone payment or a card payment? And he said, no, I don't.

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And I realised at that moment, I did not have any change. So that's a perfectly normal transaction thing

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to do. And for some reason I was so embarrassed about it. So I thanked him and I went around

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the corner and I was on the way to a supermarket where I knew I could get a poppy. And

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I just felt overwhelmed. I felt terrified. I felt like the whole of Truro could see me. I felt like

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everybody I drove past was looking at me. My breathing started to go heavy. My heart started beating. I was

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hot and yet it was quite cold. And I had I just stopped on the pavement and I pretended I

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was on the phone. I messaged my friend and said, I don't know not sure what's happening. I can't go

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and buy a poppy. That's all I had to do. And I just did not know how to do it.

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I knew how to do it. I just did not I was so terrified of doing it. With all the

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anxiety, just the thought of going into a supermarket and having that same transaction, no, sorry, we need

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change or something terrified me and it, you know, I'm paralysed anyway, so I know what it's like but it

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completely paralysed me Yet when I was younger, I used to go out and drink. I used to go out

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and do different things. I'm on the city council. I can talk in front of groups of people. I've spoke

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to large dinner parties. I've done the toast of an evening. I've spoken from alone to people

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And yet, here I was. I couldn't go and buy a simple poppy I was terrified. So I drove home

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immediately. And, yeah,

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that that feeling of complete uselessness didn't go away for a

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good few hours.

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And here I am after all this work and I know all these things, I have all these tools and

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all under my belt, but why me? I'll tell you why. Because I'm just a page ahead.

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I'm just a chapter ahead. That's all. So I haven't had it since. Maybe

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partly because I understand it a little bit. I know how the body and the mind works. It doesn't mean

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I'm immune against the effects of the body and how it happens. But just understanding it

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means that I may be able to see the signs next time and and address it a little bit quicker

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or listen to it a little bit quicker and things like that. So

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it comes down to why

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would be our panic attack, why wouldn't we have all these things happen to us when we're younger, when we've

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got this ignorant confidence and all that. And then suddenly we started getting them, you know, 30 plus,

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40 plus years old. And suddenly, we're frightened of mixing lots of people. We're fine Well I think it's because

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when we get older, we start to go deeper. We start our spiritual journey. We have children. We grow more

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compassion. We grow more understanding. And if you have a child, you have to feel what that child's feeling

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we We develop empathy And then the grown-up version of empathy is compassion. And

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then as you grow, you become deeper and you feel things more. You suddenly become aware of the world around

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you rather than just all about you. So when I would walk into a party or a pub or something

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at the age of, I don't know, 18

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my thought was where do I get a cigarette or where do I get the pint and just sit down

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and, you know, I didn't really think about what everybody else was doing, I was in my own little world

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Whereas now when I go into these places, a pubs terrify me. I was in one for 10 minutes the

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other day and it was too loud. I said to him can we just go over and get the meal

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because no, I don't want to drink I can't stand it's too loud for me too many people for me

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And I think it's because we pick up on energies of people. And I don't mean this in a woo-woo

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kind of energies and auras of people, But there is an energy people have and there's an energy of a

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place house and the energy of the people around us. And here here you are in a busy car and

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busy traffic and well, I don't have the car is busy busy traffic or you're in a supermarket and you've

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got so many so much stuff going on and The body just reacts Just like it would have done

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100 200 300 000 years ago to reacting to a bear in the forest that You know, instant anxiety

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run like hell. Whereas now we're in a car, we're in a traffic jam. We're worried about all these different

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things. And we got our child with us and we got other things going on, just like me. It was

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nothing to do with a poppy It was to do with my me being overwhelmed by my emotions. And

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I think that's what so we have all these emotions coming up like a two-year-old has and say what do

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I do with them? And a child doesn't know anything else. So they got to let off steam. They got

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to have a tantrum. They're terrible tunes All those things which is so badly misnamed. It's not terrible tunes it

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should be understood that it's just a human having all these emotions, but they don't know what to do with

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them. And that's really what a panic attack is. And my ignorance, when I witnessed by um I hope

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she doesn't mind my camera's mom had a panic attack. It's about 10 years ago now. And she thought she's

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having a heart attack. Her hands went numb. She could barely stand up um I called an ambulance. They come

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out quite quickly as opposed to today different story in the Uk um And she

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was on the floor. She had to put her legs up. And the paramedic said you know, we've tested everything.

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It's probably a panic attack. And I was like, ah, you'll be all right it's fine I I was like

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totally dismissing it. My god, how was I?

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You know, some years later, after more more more work, I ended up having one. It's so strange.

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And so where was I go with the story? So we can be really ignorant and these panic attacks can

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be really, really serious. And they can mask just like a heart attack and things like that. The paramedics did

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take her in and she was all clear it was all fine. But we are so ignorant to how much

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feelings can overwhelm us. You know, we do know now that stress will take away the feelings in the

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hands and feet just in case you have to fight that bear and just in case it cuts the hands

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or something or you cut your feet running away from it. That's the best thing it can do. But we

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don't know these things because we're not educated or we don't understand them. So this is where

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I think the Buddhism and Eastern philosophy can really come in and help us to

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understand. So when feelings arise, just like I talk about the funnel, they come out of the point

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of origin and you have a thought and you know, a feeling, and it grows, it grows, it grows, we

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can intercept it and go, well, wait a minute, why am I feeling anxious? What is happening now? And then

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we can choose not to do anything with it. So first is to understand that the experience, though deeply troubling,

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carries with it a profound opportunity for growth.

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You know? And this growth with insight.

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Zen Buddhism teaches us about impermanence of all things. Anika is called. You know? And it invites us to

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observe our experiences without attachment or aversion. So observe that, message that anxiety has given

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us and just

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don't be attached to it or don't try to push it away. It's like the four-year-old coming in and going

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I gotta tell you something I gotta tell you something. And we're like, no, go away. We don't want to

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hear it. Or we're like, okay, tell me everything. This is really, really bad. Keep telling me. And he's like,

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yeah, I just lost my train, my toy train. So that attachment to it, like it's really bad or that

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aversion push it away. Either way, that four-year-old's going to really try to get your attention. It's either going to

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be make it worse when you push it away or it's going to make it worse by listening too much

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So it's that balance between when these your anxiety, when that protector comes up

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ah, hi again. You're here to help me. This is what's happening at the moment. It's all fine. Everybody else

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in the other cars, everybody else is not really paying any attention. They don't know what's going on. They don't

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know how my heart is beating and things like that. You know? So when the panic attack approaches, rather than

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trying to push it away or cling, you get a sense of control. You might gently observe it. Notice the

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sensations, the thoughts, the emotions, labeling them good or bad. This isn't easy. And

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I wouldn't label good and bad, thinking about it. Although I've just said that. I would label them as healthy

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or unhealthy or, you know, do I need that in this moment or do I not need that? Because the

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minute we say good or bad, when we call them bad, we're then trying to push them away again. But

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it's a practice of compassion towards yourself. And really it is an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity for real

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compassion towards yourself. Some self-love Because all these voices are coming and going. They're not permanent. And,

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you know, you can use the practice of mindfulness to develop what's called bodhachitta And where the mind's

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enlightened, where it seeks the well-being of everybody. So I'm aware of what's happening and I'm

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aware that other people have these things. I'm not alone in this. And you can breathe in the you can

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picture it as I'm breathing in the anxiety and I'm breathing out the love and understanding.

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Breathing in calm, breathing out relaxed, like I do in my meditations.

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And just that breathing and all that and focusing your breath on just doing that can really help. And there's

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a practice called tongue learn that as you breathe in this painful, transforming,

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pain that you've got this opportunity to breathe it in and then you breathe out just compassion and love. Because

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so many of us are going through these things. I'm not here to diminish or to reduce anybody's

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anxiety or anything like that. I'm just saying you're not alone. You

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know, it's the way our bodies have evolved. You know, we're not a culmination of just what we've done in

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our life. We're a combination of billions of years. We're a combination of 90 billion humans that have come before

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us that have all evolved all these different things. We are the story of all of that.

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And luckily, we've got this anxiety and we've got these other things that warn us about these fear and things

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like that. Because if we didn't have them, we wouldn't have survived as long as we have.

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And like I say, if there's if there's a group of you in a forest and you've got that really

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positive person that doesn't worry about anything, never gets anxious, and the other person that is quite anxious and worries

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about everything And there's a loud noise suddenly in that forest. And the person that's really happy says, don't worry

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about it. It's fine we just carry on. Carry on playing music, keep drinking, put the fire a bit higher.

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Well, if that loud noise was something you should pay attention to, you're all dead. On the other hand, that

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person that does have the anxiety, is in tune with their anxiety says no put the fire out. Shut up,

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everybody. Stop. Let's find know what this is. They've just saved the day. So it's not a bad thing to

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have these um voices inside of us. We're just not aware of them when we're younger. So the fact that

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we get to an age of 30, 40, 50, 60, And not all not everybody gets it, but this is

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about the waking up. You know, we grow up. The waking up is realising we have these feelings and realising

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that we don't have to do anything with it, but they're valuable to us. It's very much important that we

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do listen, but we don't give too much weight to it. And if you resist it, it's going to keep

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coming up. The more you resist it, the more you push it away, the more that anxiety is going to

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get your attention. And I did a guided meditation. I released it last week.

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And it's called, Your Anxiety, Your Companion. And it's about making anxiety your friend

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because it is your friend it should protect her It's your friend. It's the it's a it's a little being

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inside of you, one of your little voices that is just going, hey, something might be wrong. And then you

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go, ah, okay. Thank you for that. I've took note of everything that's going on and we're okay.

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And

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then when you say thank you and recognise anxiety very often it I go ah okay No worries. I'll let

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it just die back down again. Sometimes, they're a little more persistent. And another thing you can do with it

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is just almost invite it and play with it and have a dialogue with it. And it might not speak

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in um spoken language. It might speak in different ways and manifest in different ways in your body because it

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doesn't have a voice doesn't have a mouth, so to speak. All these emotions evolved when humans weren't talking to

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each other. We use our mouths for communication. We didn't have that for millions of years. We used our mouths

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for other things. You know, primarily eating or chewing on stuff, I suppose um So

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I'm just trying to think of all the things we can use our mouth for now uh Don't even go

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there um So it evolved in a very different time. And it's still evolving today, but we don't

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recognise it in our lifetime evolving because it involves it evolves over millions and millions of years. And we are

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where we are we've got what we got. And resist the um eager to fix it. Your anxiety doesn't need

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fixing it's It might be a little over sadness It might be a little eager it's not broken. Yeah. It's

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just a tap that when you turn it on it flows a little too quick sometimes um so that's not

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really a brilliant analogy, but it would do and I think you'll understand and like I said at the beginning,

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I'm not a professional, but if I was to sum this up,

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recognise that your anxiety is a friend.

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And it's there to protect you. It's there to help you. And the fact that you're getting it now

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is because you're going deeper. It's because you're caring more. It's because you're on the spiritual journey to less suffering.

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And in order to have less suffering, we have to have deeper insight. And you have to go there to

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do something with it. You cannot feel the pain unless you go there to feel the pain. And that's

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why as we develop empathy and compassion on a real genuine spiritual level, that's why we

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end up feeling things much deeper. We end up having better experiences, we end up experiencing joy more, we end

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up suffering less, we end up more alone in the world because there's less people on this path and the

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whole spiritual journey is about suffering less and you will suffer less the minute you realise that your anxiety or

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these voices are there to protect us they're helpers they're guide us. They're not there to take control over you.

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And you can even say to yourself the mantra I sometimes feel anxious, but I am not anxious.

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And

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I know you're not anxious, because if you're anxious, that's what you would be all your life. It comes and

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goes, right? So therefore, you sometimes feel anxious. You're not anxious. It's the same as depression. When someone says, I

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am depressed, I'm like, are you? You're a body? You can't change that. You cannot wake up to our morning

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and become a rabbit. I'm sure there's people trying in the world nowadays, but I'm sure yeah

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crazy world sometimes. Anyway, my mind wanders again, But you cannot change your body so you are a human,

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okay? You

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cannot argue with that.

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But that doesn't come and go. But what does come and go is how you're feeling. A feeling of depression,

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a feeling of anxiety, a feeling of excitement, a feeling of joy, they all come and go. Because you are

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not any of them. They're just experiences. I

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hope that makes sense and I hope this helps. And if you can support this podcast, that would be absolutely

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amazing and awesome. Go to StevenWebb.uk. Otherwise, just head over to Inner Peace

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Meditations podcast. Search around Google search for anywhere or go to StevenWebb.uk and there'll be a link to it on

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there for your favourite platform. There's the last one I uploaded was how to make anxiety your companion.

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And I hope that helps. But, yeah, if it is really bad and it is really persistent, please seek professional

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help. I'm not a professional and I'm just a page ahead. That's all. And sometimes I'm not even that.

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Take care and I love you.