Leaning into a panic episode ?

I’ve read and heard that you can “lean into” a panic attack and stop it.

I’ve heard that if you meet it head on, it’s like calling out a bully and it disarms it and stops it.

Does anyone know what that would look like or feel like?

I’ve been thinking about this and I can’t see what that would be like.

It sounds kind of scary, much like standing up to a bully, but it’s intriguing me and sounds empowering if I could figure it out.

I would try the following steps:

1) I feel . . .
2) I feel this way because . . .
3) I want to feel . . .
4) I'll distract myself by . . .

Repeat 1, 3, and 4

I don't really know or have an answer, but I like what Ella said. Maybe try googling too.

If there is a way to do this and prevent it i would love to know!

Thanks for sharing this

Well... I don't know. To my mind, there's a difference between "leaning into" & "standing up to". Yes, I believe you may be able to lean into a panic attack... to encounter it... to sit within the vortex as another member wrote here on PC a day or two ago.

You can perhaps lean into a panic attack, breathe into it, perhaps even smile to it with as much compassion & lovingkindness as you can muster. You might even place a hand over your heart as a sign of acceptance for it. As the 11th century Tibetan Buddhist yogini Machig Labdron said: "In other traditions demons are expelled externally. But in my tradition demons are accepted with compassion."

At least to my way of thinking, standing up to a panic attack the way one might stand up to a bully is a different image. To me, that implies force & rigidity. Perhaps something like that might work for some people. I personally think it sounds scary too. It would not be a technique I would be interested in or would ever try to use.

I'd like to know about this too!

In a way this reminds me kinda of exposure therapy.

So.

I talked with my t about this at our last session and told him that I didn’t understand the concept of it.

His thoughts were that you lean into it and in essence, accept it and embrace it. At that point, you can separate yourself from it and “look” at it. From that vantage point you can walk yourself out of it.

Now that might not be exactly what he said but it’s what I got from it.

Not meet it head on, like a bully, but accept it and welcome it and rescue it.

I kind of saw it as seeing myself caught in a current in a river, and another part of me being on the bank, throwing a life line to the part of me caught in the current.

I don’t know if that makes sense or not or if it’s something that I can aspire to do, but it sounds inviting!