Post date: Jul 24, 2016 5:48:43 AM
I have claustrophobia. The first time I experienced it was about 7 years ago at a beauty shop while I was getting a facial massage with my sister, a bride to be. The beautician covered my eyes and mouth with two pieces of thin cloth and then she was going to put a mud mask on my face. As soon as she finished with the cloth, I felt funny inside and it was hard to breathe. It felt like I had been trapped and I really needed to escape or move; I couldn’t be still, not to mention relaxed. I didn’t know what I was having at that moment, but I just knew I couldn’t continue, so I asked her to stop and I got up and waited for my sister to finish. Later, I learned that it was claustrophobia and ever since I have been experiencing it once in a while. For example, in a cable car at an amusement park, in a closed vehicle during an automatic car wash, in a dentist office when they tried to cover my mouth with that darn blue rubber thing. All of them were very unpleasant yet mild enough for me to handle each time. Now I know what I have, I have been trying to avoid triggers as much as possible and also trying to keep practicing yoga and meditation, which both help a lot.
Then it came back again during my recent return trip from Korea. But this one was a special one that I want to remember. I was on a plane coming back to Seattle. I was watching a movie and suddenly I felt clearly that I was in the air, thousands feet off the ground, flying in the air in a closed airplane. I tried to ignore the feeling and go back to the movie but I couldn’t do it. I chewed gum and walked around hoping that would distract me, which it didn’t. So I came back to the seat and closed my eyes. Then I noticed that my senses started to become so alert like an octopus stretching its legs out to all directions. They were too alert; it felt like a scene from the recent Superman movie, where he could hear and see everything around him in excruciating detail. Well, I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to deal with my sight, but it was as if I could hear every single noise in the airplane: the flight attendants’ busy hands and feet, babies crying, people talking, somebody dropping a pen, etc. I felt the clothes I was wearing, the seat I was sitting on, and how my feet are touching the floor. Then I started to smell everything around me. Eventually my mind started playing tricks on me about how the air was not fresh, there was no way I could go out to get fresh air, but most of all, I was trapped in this small airplane. I felt like all my senses were going out externally and I could explode. I even imagined myself banging on the airplane door yelling to let me out.
Luckily, I had enough sense not to lose my mind so I tried to imagine something pleasant and happy for me. I thought about the Shrine of Baha’u’llah, the most Holy place of my Faith. It always helps me to think about that place where it gives me peace. It helped me calm down a bit so I could think properly. Then suddenly the word, Pratyahara (discipline of senses) came to my mind. I felt like I was at a fork in the road. One path was to let my senses go out wild and unruly so eventually I go mad. The other path was to control those senses and draw inward, at that moment, to my breath. Of course, I didn’t want to go mad, so I chose to focus on my breath. I slowly paid attention to my nose, chest, ribs and belly. I could feel my torso moving. In the beginning, it felt tight in my chest but slowly I was able to relax. Then all the noises around me seemed to disappear and I could hear only my breath. I could forget about the smell in the airplane. Eventually I was able to come back to myself with each breath in and out.
I joke with myself that I became a princess on a pea. I am able to be aware of things happening in my body and mind far better now than before I practiced yoga. Now it is my homework how not to be fragile like an egg shell in the street; how to sense all the things around me yet not be overwhelmed by them whether they are pleasant or not; how to accept the things I can’t change yet focus on what I can. I know pratyahara (discipline of senses) has deeper meanings than just feeling senses physically and then focusing on the breath. But it was a great experience for me to actually feel how my senses can reach out externally to the point that I feel anxious and how I was able to gain control over them slowly. As I recall my experience in the airplane, though it was very physical, maybe it is a glimpse of what is like to practice pratyahara.
“If a man’s reason succumbs to the pull of his senses he is lost. On the other hand, if there is rhythmic control of breath, the senses instead of running after external objects of desire turn inwards, and man is set free from their tyranny. This is the fifth stage of Yoga, namely, pratyahara, where the senses are brought under control.” –B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga p.45