Meditation Can Calm Extremes of Reactivity

Article from the Fall 2001 Contact Newsletter
By Ann Crickmer, MSW

Many people with MS have expressed a desire to form a meditation group. This interest has mushroomed since the book review of Mindful Meditation, by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, appeared in the Fall '99 issue of Contact.

Jon Kabat-Zinn was in Seattle in September to speak at the Mind, Body and Spirit conference sponsored by Evergreen Hospital. He is the founder and former director of the Stress Reduction Clinic atUniv. Mass Memorial Medical Center, and the author of:

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness.

Kabat-Zinn said that, from a meditation point of view, the whole society has Attention Deficit Disorder and "live at a distance from their bodies". We need to move into our bodies to see what effect it has on our disease. You have only moments to live so that you must make choices of what to let go of. Once you realize that now is the only moment you have, you relate differently to your life and body, leading to better balance in your life.

He defines "healing" as reclaiming the present moment: your thoughts and anxieties for the future are not in the moment. "Mindfulness" is paying attention, doing things on purpose, non-judgmentally in the present moment. It is "falling awake". Mindfulness is heartfulness. It's not on the way to something; it is the thing. Kabat-Zinn traced the Indoeuropean roots of the word rehabilitation to habiter which means to learn to live inside yourself. We must learn to sit in the "full catastrophe" of our life and "own" our moments.

Meditation encourages a reflective self-aware "presence" that is neither pleasure nor pain; it is in addition to them both. You strengthen that part of you that can "witness" your thoughts and discover that who you are is the right way for you to be. Feelings of unworthiness are often the source of problems we experience in our relationships, careers, creative endeavors, and in our spiritual unfolding. You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

When you lose the witnessing function due to brain damage, you re-identify with a long-past "conditioned" self: a self that was a compilation of the assumptions, expectations and responder to the survival needs of those around you when your life still depended on the care of others. That sense of self is ultimately alien to your body and its' own needs; false labels, judgments, and opinions are mental fictions that initiate suffering - the source of which is often misunderstood to be a reaction to MS, family or work events.

Typical changes that are seen resulting from meditation practice are slowing of heart rate, slowing of respiratory rate, a decrease in blood pressure and improvements in circulation. It is a way of engaging the relaxation response and a way of decreasing chronic, nervous driving of the cardiovascular and digestive systems.

Andrew Weil, M.D. states that breathwork, which is a part of meditation practice, has a remarkable ability to influence - even reprogram - the nervous system. It helps to mediate the fear response which may, inappropriately, be triggered by damage to the brain due to MS. This is the "over" reactivity to events that many families living with MS have to face.

Meditation encourages you to become more aware of your body's physiological (over) responsiveness to (misperceived) danger. The rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds in your mind can help to integrate the two hemispheres of the brain as they begin to resonate to a single rhythm, leading to a sense of clarity and heightened awareness. The mind becomes sharper, more lucid, synthesizing much more rapidly than normal. Emotions are easier to understand and process. The conscious and unconscious levels of the mind interface and integrate more easily. An expanded, more complete, and integrated state of consciousness comes into existence.

The MSA is co-sponsoring a Meditation Series specifically for people with MS and their significant others. The weekly group will be guided by Jerry Hanna, the Executive Director of the Center for Spiritual Development in Seattle. Hanna has had a committed meditation practice for 30 years, and has a specific interest in meditation healing for people with neurological disorders. There is an autoimmune response to the experience of disabling circumstances; meditation mediates this damage by influencing the link between personality and the autoimmune state and by affecting them both. What we have learned from post-traumatic stress research is that meditation can help reduce the intrusiveness of the traumatic imagery of the experience of having lived in a continuous state of fearfulness, with persistent elevated levels of cortisol for years, beyond the end of that phase in one's life. People who have experienced childhood neglect, abuse or trauma at any age are at a higher risk for the MS symptom of a high degree of emotional reactivity when MS damage affects the emotional processing system in the brain.

Healing is about dissolving barriers and patterns of alienation which prevent us from receiving the life support which is in nature and in loving friendship. Meditation cultures the understanding that if we gain willingness to receive healing, we give in like kind. It changes the framework of issues: it enables increased awareness of the size and integrity of the community of life in which this body-mind shows itself, and is expressed in increased awareness of our feelings and compassion for self and others.

Meditation aids a focus on what you are concerned about with your MS diagnosis, not MS in the abstract. It is about "healing" your relationship with the disease and your eventual death. It is intended to reduce stress in this area, and the emotional reactivity to life events MS people experience. Hanna emphasizes the importance of a community of practice, and a willingness to share experiences and support one another. Meditation practice is especially important for people with attention, concentration and focus symptoms, and can be considered a way to exercise the brain.

Meditation Group Experiences

1) "I have had MS for more than 20 years. My neurologist says that my new MRI shows that my MS has been arrested. I have also noted improvements in my ability to handle stress and I have been more open to what life presents to me. I just finished my SSDI application, and my thinking was more consistent, precise and concise than it was 8 months ago.

2) "I was closed for a very long time, but now I am at a different place where I have opened up to others. I knew that place existed, but I could never get there. I finally got out of the way, and now I realize that other people want to be with me. This is the way I always wanted my life to be. I also find that the energy in group practice is more powerful than when I meditate alone" [historically, had an avoidant attachment pattern]

3) "I find that I respond now: I don't just react. I feel a freedom from over-involvement. I seem able to collect my thoughts better now that I am not so anxious. I am letting others help me!" [an independent observer noted her written material to be newly coherent, well put-together, succinct and clear]

4) "Meditation provides an expansion of one's life field: it makes it easier to be in relationship free of self-concern. It affects the degree to which you are willing to be helped as specific changes occur and new needs arise. How are people responding to you? The way the world responds to you is a reflection of what you're willing to be present to and accept. An increased willingness to utilize a support system is a huge change."

5) "My symptoms were significantly worse when I was 'at war' with my body. During practice I focus on areas of my body where I feel stress, and am able to accept my sensations of emotion. Meditation soothes me: sometimes I spontaneously enter this state now in response to stress." [historically, neglectful/abusive parents. She is not integrating her dissociated body with her very high-functioning intellect]

6) "I even practice now when I'm waiting in the doctor's office. I just close my eyes and focus on my breathing. I've found that slowing down I feel things more vividly: 'doing' desensitizes me to my feelings." [control subject, does not have MS]

7) "I was a stress-a-holic, but I'm learning to 'relax into life'. Life isn't attacking me, I'm going with it: it's not something I have to panic about, because I am learning a way to calm myself down. I have always been a worrier, but now I'm not so strung out."

8) "I have spent my life with people with substance abuse problems, but I've met someone who isn't like that - he is loving and caring and makes me feel good. I'm frightened though: I don't know how to be with someone who loves me for myself."

9) "I chair several groups and have had people tell me recently that I bring peace to our contentious meetings. I'm not getting my "knickers in a knot". I feel like my life is more balanced. Is this connected to the fact that I feel more discomfort in my body during meditation?"

10) "My MS stopped getting worse years ago, although I've noticed I can think clear as a result of my recent practice. The symptoms of this disease are not the end of the world. For me, the purpose of meditation is to get closer to the next phase in life: what can we do with all the possibilities out there?"

11) "I've just started the group and I feel very encouraged that you say that I can't make a mistake! I've always been so critical of myself."

12) "I am enjoying a deeper level of connection with my counseling patients since I've been practicing 'being' in the theta state. Developing anti-reactivity in myself is an asset in controlling my counter-transference reactions to patients with disinhibition - it reduces my narcissistic vulnerability, and allows me to be more empathic with patients. Meditation limits the duration of traumatic imagery for me. I continue the practice to learn to 'mute' the intensity and pervasiveness of the imagery when it is activated."

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