This is a story of the power of mind, mindfulness, and all the things we already know but don’t remember.

It was only the other day that I spent the morning with a lovely man (70) who thought he was having a heart attack. Earlier in the week he had called to ask if we could start some meditation sessions as he had just been told that he going to drop dead anytime by his GP.

Obviously he was not in a great way. He had Traci cardia that was scaring him, and was having trouble breathing, as a bonus he was replaying all of life past stresses, grief and loss.

He had phoned me to cancel the session saying he had to go the GP later that day, as we spoke, I noticed talking was helping to calm him down.

After talking on the phone for almost an hour I asked if he would like me to come and sit with him tell the doctors appointment. He was sure that would help.

Let’s skip to the end, he died. Meditation killed him.

No he didn’t, he is fine. J

The effects of the simplest meditation on this man who had never before tried anything like this, were astonishing, he changed from the pale (in-shock) colour, to normal pink. His breathing settled and he was truly able to let go of the hamster wheel of fear.

But as much as I would love it to be the case that meditation fixed him, it was also the human understanding of his fears and grief.

Later that day I bumped into him after he had been the Doctors, and he had been given Beta Blockers. He was trying to be positive, but the effect the GP was to put him back into pure fear.

I now come to my point, I have worked with PTSD soldiers, people with Autism and athletes. It is not possible to scare someone better. I cannot understand how there can be such disconnection between what actually works and what doesn’t. We have a system that ignores the simplest form of pain relief, the placebo of positivity and contact with understanding people.

Yes, some medication may work. But so can meditation. As has been proved in various studies. This is not news. Helping people to focus on the positive and listening to them, is not news. The fact that Yoga (a holistic, and non-judgemental art) is better for Teenagers then competitive P.E is not news.

But the fact that we have hit such a low point that we have forgotten to offer time to each other, is news. It is Big News. We are social animals, we require being heard to exist. The biggest killer here, is loneliness.

We are able to fix this without the need for expensive drugs (that only cover up the symptoms), we just need to create connections to our fellow humans. Scary I know. But there is no better place or time to start to care for others then now!