The Body Knew What the Mind Tried to Reason Away

About twenty years ago, I was standing at the stove at home, making dinner.

My younger son was sitting in his highchair by the kitchen table, and my older son was playing in the living room. It was an entirely ordinary afternoon in our lives. Nothing had happened. There was no visible danger.

And then, without warning, I was overcome by the absolute certainty that I was dying.

This was not a vague suspicion or a passing sense of unease. I knew I was dying. My body seemed to take over, and everything inside me said that something terrible was happening.

I called my mother and asked her to send an ambulance. I also asked her to send my father to my house immediately. The thought that seized me was that I did not want my sons to be left alone for a long time in the house with me lying dead on the kitchen floor.

A few minutes later, my father arrived.

But there was no ambulance.

My mother is a nurse, and she had understood what was happening long before I did. I was having a panic attack.

I still went to see a doctor. He took my experience seriously and arranged a range of tests to make sure that there was no physical illness behind it. I had a brain scan and an electrocardiogram, and possible medical explanations were carefully investigated.

The conclusion was that I was exceptionally healthy.

And yet I had experienced myself as dying.

Since that afternoon, there have been more panic attacks. That day gave me a task for the future: learning to live with an anxiety disorder.

And much of the time, I have managed it well.

I now know that a panic attack is not dangerous. I recognise the symptoms and know that they will pass. For many years, my main way of dealing with anxiety was to use reason against it. I tried to think my way out of panic.

My heart is beating rapidly, but that does not mean I am having a heart attack.

My breathing has changed, it’s hard to swallow, but I am not suffocating.

I feel as though I am in mortal danger, but I am not in mortal danger.

This approach worked to a point. Anxiety became more manageable and has not had an overwhelming effect on my life. But it certainly takes energy. I have worked, raised my children, travelled, studied, taken on responsibilities and done countless things despite it.

But the anxiety never disappeared completely.

Gradually, I began to wonder whether part of the reason was that I was still giving thought, and especially rational thought, too much authority.

I had treated anxiety as a misunderstanding between mind and body that needed correcting. But what if my body was not misunderstanding anything? What if it was sometimes warning me that what my mind tried to reason away was not good for me?

I was often in circumstances that were not good for me. The pressure was too great. There were too many tasks and the working days were often long. Family responsibilities waited at home. Later, mould was discovered in the building where I worked. I was tired but kept going. My body sent signals, while my mind always found reasons to continue.

I had responsibilities.

The work mattered, and I loved it (still do).

Other people depended on me.

It would all work out.

I just needed to be more organised, more hardworking, more disciplined or stronger…

Somehow, I began wondering whether this persistent anxiety, this tenacious companion, was a sign that my body had simply had enough of these arguments.

At some level I knew those circumstances were not good for me. And I knew that a human being cannot indefinitely reason her way past exhaustion, sensory strain and excessive demands. But still I kept going.

Then I began to wonder whether anxiety might be an invitation to use my attention differently: to enter into a friendly conversation with my body instead of an argument.

Perhaps I needed to recognise signs that my nervous system was under too much strain. That my body needed something it was not getting. Rest. Safety. Movement. Nourishment. Nature. Quiet. Connection. Predictability. Or simply fewer demands.

This is where my experience of anxiety meets the philosophy of HomeBeing.

HomeBeing begins with the understanding that we are not detached minds travelling through the world inside bodies. We are embodied beings in constant relationship with our surroundings. The body reads light, noise, temperature, smell, air quality, spatial pressure, clutter, speed and the possibilities for rest and movement. It responds to workload, relationships, responsibility and the demands that both society and we ourselves place upon us.

Much of this happens before we can put the experience into words or form it into a thought.

We can therefore tell ourselves that everything is fine while the body is shouting that it is not.

This does not mean that anxiety is always a direct or reliable description of reality. Nor does it mean that an anxiety disorder can be cured simply by changing the environment. Anxiety is complex, and people may need therapy, medication, support and professional care. I know I do.

But I began experimenting with how to meet my body, rather than always treating it as an intruder to be silenced.

I began to wonder what it was trying to tell me, and to listen for answers.

How do I feel in this space?

What happens in my body when I enter my workplace or my home?

Where am I able to let down my guard?

Where do I feel tense?

Which conditions keep my nervous system constantly alert?

What am I trying to endure through rational thought alone?

We live in a culture that rewards us for ignoring the body. We admire people who work despite exhaustion, continue despite pain and meet every obligation even when their nervous systems have reached their limits.

We learn to interpret the body’s signals as weakness, discomfort or an obstacle to effort, productivity and advancement.

But the body is not an accessory that the mind must drag through life.

It is part of how we perceive, think and learn.

We do not always understand its language. It does not speak in fully formed sentences. It speaks through tension, exhaustion, heartbeat, restlessness, pain, breathlessness and the urge to escape.

We can misinterpret these messages. But we should not automatically ignore them.

HomeBeing emerged partly from the realisation that wellbeing does not arise solely in the mind: wellbeing is not a thought. It emerges through the interaction of body, mind, environment, other people and the conditions in which we live. We cannot simply think ourselves into or out of wellbeing.

Our surroundings, our home alone, cannot protect us from every pressure in life. But home can be a place where the body does not constantly have to perform or give way to the demands we place on ourselves. It can offer rest, movement, familiarity, beauty, play, nature and safety. A place where we can practise listening to the body instead of overpowering it with arguments.

I still use rational thought when anxiety appears. It helps me remember that I am not dying and that the panic will pass.

But now I also try to pay attention to my body and ask a different question.

Not only, “How can I think my way out of this?”

But also:

“What does my body know that I have not yet allowed myself to understand or accept?”