A patient of mine who suffers from anxiety neurosis from time to time..there are times when he thinks he is almost normal asked me yesterday how to be peaceful. I wanted to teach him a technique that would help , and I asked him to focus on his breathing. He stopped me and said , no, not now , I 'll do it at home, just give me the instructions and whatever zikr . I told him..yes I can do that and you can then go home and try it and nothing happens, it does not help. Why would that be he asked. I replied, when you do it with me, I am taking you through the moves and there are verbal and also non verbal things that get communicated.When you go back and do it at home, you will not get the non verbal parts because I will not be there to communicate them to you.
He then agreed to go through the practice which I told him would take less than 5 minutes.
So we both focused on our breath, and I had told him to close his eyes so he could focus better. And on observing the breath, you will find it becomes slower and calmer..and then I added a simple zikr which translate as Lord, You are Peace. He did that also , and, then I added another simple prayer, Lord, expand my chest ..in Arabic that would be Rabbishruli Sadri...So we did this for 5 minutes...
Perhaps because I learn by doing , which means my mode of learning is kinesthetic,,,believe me most people learn best by doing...I had insisted on this way of teaching him....
We 'll see how it goes ...but from my experience it really helps the patients who practice it after learning it from me.....
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3 comments:
Pardon me for being ignorant. Is the breathing techniques same as in yoga? Or is specially thought in psychiatry?
Breathing exercises are part of many spiritual traditions as well as many calming techniques. In Yoga they have Pranayama but I would not say what I taught the guy was any form of breathing technigue , it is the practise of Presence or Awareness. Becoming aware and observing anything changes it..that is a Quantum Physics finding actually,,once you start observing something , even an atom, it changes....So our breath changes when we observe it ,,go ahead and try it out...
Presence is an exceptionally powerful tool in Islamic sprituality ..we have this word for it
Khusyu.....whatever you do, be khusyu., whether it is cooking writing attending to your patient, praying.....be present , be khusyu
I very much agree that it is much better to learn deeper things with a teacher than on your own. In fact, there are many things you absolutely cannont learn on your own.
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