The Natural "Calm" Self
I’m confident that the help we are looking for can be found within ourselves. Our own awareness can become our aid. I’m not talking about simply observing what is happening at face value. I’m talking about a moving mind — the way our awareness moves through our thoughts, feelings, memories, surroundings and experiences, and how we interpret what we experience internally.
You are your own person. You have your own mind, your own awareness and your own way of experiencing the world. Having PATM does not make you less of a person, nor does it mean that your entire identity should become centred around the condition. There can be a much deeper layer underneath it.
For some of us, there may be a massive form of anxiety that existed long before PATM presented itself. It may have been built gradually through earlier experiences, trauma, fear, uncertainty, instability or periods when the mind learned to remain constantly alert. In that sense, PATM may feel like an evolution of something that was already happening within us, rather than the beginning of everything.
This is why I believe calm is so important.
Calm is not simply the absence of symptoms. It is a different state of relating to our own minds. When the mind is calm, awareness can move more naturally. We can observe a thought without immediately becoming consumed by it. We can notice a sensation without automatically interpreting it as danger. We can experience something happening around us without allowing our entire awareness to become trapped inside it.
When anxiety becomes overwhelming, the mind can become narrowed and restricted. Attention may become fixed on ourselves, our surroundings, other people's reactions or what might happen next. The more we monitor, analyse and anticipate, the harder it can become to simply exist in the present moment. The mind can begin reacting to its own interpretations as though they are immediate threats.
Calm creates space.
It allows us to step back from the constant movement of fear and observe what is actually happening within us. It gives the mind an opportunity to move rather than remain stuck in one place. Instead of fighting every thought, sensation or reaction, we can learn to notice it, allow it to pass and return our awareness to the present.
This doesn't mean blaming ourselves or suggesting that everything is "just in our head." The experiences are very real and very physical. Rather, it means recognising that the mind and body are deeply connected, and that long-standing anxiety can influence how we experience ourselves and the environment around us.
For me, the important point is that having PATM does not mean we have lost ourselves. Beneath the fear, monitoring and uncertainty, there is still the same person — the person with their own awareness, personality, thoughts, abilities and life.
Perhaps the aim is not to spend our lives trying to control every reaction or prove what every reaction means. Perhaps part of healing is learning to become comfortable within our own awareness again.
The calmer the mind becomes, the more freely awareness can move.
And when awareness is no longer completely dominated by fear, we may begin to experience something that was there all along: ourselves.