Reprinted from Unity Magazine

Healthy Body, Fearful Mind

By Barry Neil Kaufman

At twenty-seven years old, Lorraine had become afraid to leave her house. Although talented, sophisticated and attractive, she hid from the world, scared to be far from home when one of her frequent panic attacks would envelop her. Therapists had labeled her problem with a fanciful term - agoraphobia.

She had endured endless physical examinations and had searched her body for any frailty which might result in her early demise. She focused her attention on her heart, fearing a life threatening heart attack might be more probable if her heart rate increased. To protect herself, she not only monitored her pulse and blood pressure but also tried to make sure she did not walk too fast, speak too fast or climb stairs too fast. Although every noninvasive study revealed a strong and healthy heart, Lorraine dared not test those findings.

When this young woman came to spend the day with me, she requested tensely that our dialogue sessions be done sitting rather than walking, which had been my preference. We agreed to an easy compromise - slow walking.

The exploration of her agoraphobia hinged on her concern about her heart and her fear of death in a lonely, unforgiving place like an office, a department store or the sidewalk of a busy city street. Staying home insulated her from that possibility. Ultimately, she chose dying as the most pertinent issue to explore and identified concerns about the location of death as a secondary problem.

Discovering a Vision of "Living"

Searching further, Lorraine found a belief which had been underlying this cycle of fear. She believed death to be final, with no possibility of additional experiences. In addition, and most polarizing for her, she envisioned herself transformed into useless dust. Therefore, only life as she now knew it had meaning and she had to protect each moment for living. When I asked her to define living, Lorraine laughed, then said, "Not what I am doing, certainly. Living is daring to be me. Living is enjoying our walk and my ability to think. Living is not being afraid of not living."

For the first time in hours, she laughed, wondering why she had not thought about all this before. Armed with her new vision of "living," she wanted to reconsider the "useless dust" idea. Within minutes, she decided, to her own amusement, that dust could be a medium of another dimension of life or simply perfect in its dust like quality. "Dust could have a very special role in the universe," she declared with a smile. Lorraine had changed her vision.

As we continued the session, I noticed how she had increased the pace of our walking. She talked about how she used to jog but had not done so in years because of her fears.

"Would you want to try to jog now?" I asked.

Her mouth dropped open. She answered, "No," at first, then converted her response slyly into a qualified "Yes." She contemplated an increase in her pulse rate, then agreed to run if I ran with her.

Like slow motion dancers, we began our run together with measured steps, continuing our dialogue as the wind whipped through our hair. Her pulse climbed to over one hundred, then to one hundred and twenty, then to one hundred and five. Lorraine began to laugh and cry at the same time. "I'm not dead!" she shouted. "I'm very much alive. And if I die now, what a wonderful last minute" She didn't die. She grabbed my hand firmly, insisted on running for another ten minutes and continued laughing and crying all the way.

Lorraine changed her life that day. Now no longer agoraphobic or panicked, she has become an exercise buff and resumed a career she had previously short-circuited. No vision of ourselves or the universe has been cast in cement. Whenever we want, in response to personal difficulties, we can reconsider our viewpoints and conclusions and change them. However, we do not require a problem as a stimulus to reorder priorities and make our daily living experience more of what we truly want. We can decide now! By changing our vision and our beliefs, we will dissolve the habits and/or phobias produced by them. Most important, we don't have to judge our illusions even as we try to change them.

"Try This Challenge on for Size"

Sometimes, when greeting a surprising turn of events or an unanticipated difficulty, I imagine a rather jolly and playful universe peering down at me and saying: "Okay, you think you have it together; well, my friend, try this challenge on for size." I could never accurately predict how I might deal with an upcoming dilemma, but I hope that my conviction about the value of happiness will continue to give me the strength and clarity to be; at the very least, loving and useful in the face of any circumstance. The following situation would have overwhelmed me years ago before I learned to live the empowering attitude of happiness, love and acceptance.

My oldest daughter leaned toward me, squeezing my hands tightly while pleading silently for help through the riveting gaze of her dark brown eyes. This episode of arrhythmia, one of hundreds, had continued now for almost thirty-three hours. Although she was sitting, her heart raced at almost one hundred and eighty beats a minute in a dizzying dance of changing rhythms and missed beats. Pain radiated from the center of her chest into her arms. Her fingers tingled with a fluctuating numbness. She panted, taking shallow breaths, fighting the sensation of suffocating to the point of exhaustion.

"I can't bear the thought of going to the hospital again", she whispered tearfully, "but I can't stand this anymore." She had held off, enduring sensations similar to those experienced during a heart attack while hoping this episode would pass. However, she acknowledged what the cardiologists had insisted, that once the wild rhythms begin, emergency room medical assistance provides the only real source of help.

Yet such "corrections" of the arrhythmia were fleeting. Many times, hours after she endured the hospital trauma associated with rectifying the problem, the rhythm would break again, leaving her more exhausted than ever to face another devastating episode of runaway heartbeats. On occasion, medical intervention had created a heart block which has had dangerous, almost deadly, consequences.

Staying Present, Giving Support

I released one of my hands from the vise of my daughter's grip and stroked her face gently. I stayed present, loving her. just two weeks before, we had celebrated her twentieth birthday. She had cried that night, wondering whether she would be able to complete her last year in college because of her escalating disability and whether she would live long enough to have a family, work with children and realize any other of her young dreams. We talked for hours as she tried to make sense out of her situation and use it to learn and grow. With the help of questions, she searched for her own answers and understanding. On rare occasions, she would laugh, deciding to be happy with the universe and her body anyway. But now, in the midst of this episode, she had lost some of her footing despite her valiant struggle to maintain bodily control.

"What do you think, Popi?" she asked. "Should I go to the hospital?"

"Do whatever you think is best. If you want to go to the hospital, that's fine," I said softly. We both knew emergency room intervention had its risks. Twice in the last eighteen months, her blood pressure plunged dangerously and the chambers of her heart malfunctioned as a result of the unpredictable side effects of intravenous medication administered on an emergency basis in a hospital. "We're sort of standing between a rock and a hard place. I could tell you what I think, Bryn, but maybe, what's more important is what you think. What do you want to do? Whatever you decide, I'll be there with you."

She pushed out a half smile. "I want to do it myself, Popi, but I can't. They said I can't." The cardiologists viewed her condition as congenital and believed the arrhythmia to be under the control of her autonomic nervous system. Thus, they theorized, no act of will could change the arrhythmia once it had begun. "Do I believe them?" she asked herself aloud. "Yes," she answered.

"Why do you believe them?" I questioned.

"Because I've never been able to do it myself"

"Okay, let's say in the past that's been true. Why does that mean you can't do it now?"

"It doesn't. It just means I couldn't do it yesterday. I guess t could try again, but I've tried so many times before." She shook her head. "This will never work unless I really think I can do it."

"Can you?" I asked.

"I want to believe I can. There I go again, doubting myself rather than being happy and trusting me." She stopped speaking, struggling to pull in enough air. "Okay. I can. I will. I guess I'll get the stethoscope."

Anticipating Only the Good

She giggled for the first time in two days as she adjusted the instrument in her ears and placed the listening cup over her heart. I held her hands as she closed her eyes and concentrated. Ten seconds passed; then twenty, then a minute. Her eyes opened limply. "It's still going wild. Nothing's changing."

"Bryn, as you listen, what are you thinking?"

She sighed. "How one wild beat follows another. Even when it beats regularly for one or two beats, I kind of listen for the next series of crazy beats."

Suddenly, she realized she had conditioned herself to always anticipate the arrhythmias rather than to visualize a smooth, regular rhythm. "Maybe I could wait for the next regular beat, anticipate the next regular beat and then visualize one regular beat followed by another." She sighed noisily. "Okay, I'm going to try that.

She nodded, closed her eyes and continued to monitor her heartbeats. Her hands gripped mine tightly, then abruptly began to quiver. A funny gurgling sound came from her throat. I held my breath, staring at her, not knowing what was happening. The quivering increased and increased, but her face appeared paradoxically serene. Then, quite suddenly, she opened her eyes as an avalanche of tears cascaded down her face. "I did it. Oh my God, I did it." She placed the stethoscope in my ears. What I heard was the most amazing music ... a steady, even rhythm of heartbeats.

For Bryn, this event would be one victory among many more to come as she dared to challenge the seemingly impossible; for me, it offered opportunities to make my love and support for her tangible and, hopefully, useful ... one day at a time.

I think not of "what if," but of "what is." And so, each day, I celebrate her continuing life and her passion to live so fully....

In the darkness we can find light. In the confusion of seemingly senseless events, we can find meaning. In the absence of a dear one, we can continue to find happiness, love and peace of mind. We are the belief makers. Our ability to design and influence personal and shared experiences knows no bounds. In such a user-friendly universe, nothing is impossible.