What I've Learned from my recent Panic Attack

5 Lessons behind my Latest Panic Attack

Mar 04, 2022

It’s 10pm here in Slovenia, Europe. One hours ago I had one of the most intense panic attacks in the last 3 years — similar to what you have described in the newsletter.
You’re not alone. These are difficult times — for us all, no matter what we do and where we are. I feel it too: the last half a year I’ve been walking on the edge of burnout, I’m too hard on myself and sometimes I crash. And when I do crash (like today) I feel exactly the same as you do in your low moments.
Due to your demands, this answer might not reach you, but I just wanted to say thank you for sharing — I’m sure that I’m not the only one who found relief reading this newsletter — and I offer you back my support! We’re in this together!
Jani

That was my response to Aubrey Marcus’s last week’s newsletter entitled “What have you done with my Aubrey?” where he described his most recent “panic attack” he suffered.

In this article, I’ll explore the 5 things I’ve learned from my recent “panic attack” last Wednesday night.

Move through the panic attacks by surrendering
My panic attack was “cleansing of the soul”
Don’t experiment with diet when you’re under a lot of physical strain
I can endure anything
The Joy and Gratitude for being alive and well

My recent “panic attack”

As you might have noticed, I put panic attack in quotations since that’s the word that is the closest to what I experienced last Wednesday. But at the same time, it wasn’t quite truly a “panic attack”.

What You Need to Know About Waking Up with a Panic Attack

As Aubrey writes in the newsletter I mentioned above:

“Terms like ‘Heart attack’, ‘Panic attack’, it all just reinforces the hostile bellicosity of the world that we have created.” So instead he calls what happened to him that night an “emergency psychic intervention”.

I strongly agree with that.

So last Wednesday night I had one of the most severe “panic attacks” in the last 3 years. It was really bad. My heart was racing as crazyI had severe brain fog. I was dizzy and I didn’t know if I was going to faint or collapse. I had a lot of anxiety and depressive thoughts. As I lied down, I felt so tired that I thought that I wouldn’t be able to get back up. I didn’t know if I should call my parents to take me to the ER or if I was going to get better. I was sure that I was about to burn out and that I won’t be able to get out of it by myself and that I needed medical assistance.

But as I slowly let go of “control” and gave myself permission to feel what was happening, I slowly moved through the panic attack and slowly came out of it.

Once I came out to the side, here’s what I learned.

1. Move through the panic attacks by surrendering

I heard Erick Godsey — psychologist, author, podcaster and one of the personalities that I look up to — once say that:

“Behind panic attacks there are things that want to be expressed and demand that they come out”.

We live in a fast-paced world with never-ending demands and stress. Many of us were never taught to express our emotions, and when we don’t express emotions, we hold onto them and repress them and carry them around with os, stored in our organs, muscles, tissues and other parts of our bodies and our psyche.

“What you resist, persists–and will grow in size.”
Carl Jung

When we slow down, our bodies and our psyche get a chance to release all of the things that we have been accumulating. But there’s a problem: the longer we hold onto and store those emotions and stress, the bigger and heavier they will get. That means that once we release them, the emotional and stress detox symptoms will be much more intense.

When you’re in that mode of emotional and stress cleansing and detoxing, the best way to overcome it is by going through it. It’s as the famous quotes says:

“The only way out is through.”

Let go of control and give yourself permission to feel what is happening. Let the thoughts run as they want to. Breathe slowly and deeply. Talk to yourself positively and believe that it will pass.

Yes, it’s painful — I experienced it myself. There’s a lot of anxiety, fear, depressive thoughts, pain, doubts and uncertainties. But I guarantee you that as you let go, surrender and just feel, you’ll slowly start to feel a relief and you’ll eventually move through the panic attack.

2. My panic attack was “cleansing of the soul”

Talking to my therapist earlier this week, he pointed out that the panic attack that I suffered could have been some sort of “cleansing of the soul”.

My panic attack last Wednesday was partly an emotional detox and cathartic release. The days prior to that, I was working intensively on my recent article called 9 Biggest Lessons I’ve learned on my Burnout Journey to celebrate my birthday on February 24th, which was on Tuesday last week — the day after my panic attack.

Conquering Burnout

9 Biggest Lessons I've learned on my Burnout Journey

Today, February the 24th, is my birthday and I wanted to prepare and offer you something more “special” — something different. So here it is, a longer blogpost about my biggest lessons that I’ve learned on my burnout journey so far. Here’s an overview of the 9 biggest lessons from my burnout journey…

3 years ago · 2 likes · 4 comments · Jani Konjedic

I was really enjoying writing and putting together the article, but at the same time I wasn’t aware that it was emotionally very demanding. Writing about my struggles associated with my burnout, about the fears, trauma, pain and discomfort, disappointments and health problems that my burnout brough, was very therapeutic — which is good — but at the same time it required additional work to process the emotions and stored trauma.

So I now believe that my panic attack was a sort of “cleansing of the soul”: it was a way that my body and psyche released things that I “worked on” and processed during my writing of the article.

The biggest was my fear of burnout. As I talked about in my article 9 Biggest Lessons I’ve learned on my Burnout Journey, burnout from 2017 left me with some fears and trauma of burnout. There are days — like last Wednesday, the day of panic attack — when I fear and I’m very afraid that I’ve reached the edge, that my well-being will continue to get worse and that I will burnout once again.

During the panic attack, the strongest emotion was fear — fear that I’m about to burnout. But once I moved through that fear, I could sense it leaving my body, mind and psyche and I don’t feel it as much now as I used to. So it could really be that I worked on and proceeded my fear of burnout with my writing and my psyche was able to let go of it.

What I try to say here is that even though we think of panic attacks and other similar intense “aches” — be it an emotional detox, a cathartic release, an anxiety disorder, a depressive episode, etc — as something “bad”, maybe there’s a lesson in it — not always, but usually that’s the case with many things. It’s up to us to reframe the situation to find out the lessons.

3. Don’t experiment with diet when you’re under a lot of physical strain

I think the other reason behind my panic attack were some underlying digestive issues.

Like I wrote and talked about in my recent article mentioned above, one of my biggest stressors and causes for my burnout are problems with my digestion and food intolerances. I have a very sensitive gut and my gut health got to the point that now the connection between digestion problems and burnout is so obvious. When I’m feeling burned out, I can make a very strong connection and correlation between eating something that didn’t agree with me and my symptoms of burnout. And when my body digests the food that has been causing me problems and I poop it out, I feel a noticeable shift in my burnout symptoms.

Because of that reason I was hoping that the panic attack I was experiencing was occuring due to some underlying digestive issues. Another reason was that the circumstances were similar to my most severe panic attack before that which happened in May of 2019.

That panic attack happened partly because I was experimenting with my diet when I was under a lot of physical strain. At that time, I was just starting to train again, I drank a bit too much caffeine and I introduced too much new food in a short period of time. I remember that I ate a lot of potatoes right after my training session, which was a huge shock for my digestive system. The second day after eating the potatoes — the day that the panic attack occurred — was the hardest and was very similar to my recent panic attack: severe fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, mental pressures, strong anxiety and depression. I also remember that I felt better and panic attack ended when I pooped out the potatoes and they left my system.

One of my comforting thoughts and hopes last Wednesday night was that the panic attack — like that in May of 2019 — was partly caused by digestive distress. On Monday I ate some rice right after my workout after a long time — and the rice didn’t agree with me. On Wednesday I felt bad and weak for the second day in a row and I suspected that it was due to digestion problems caused by rice.

Another reason for believing this is that Wednesday night at around 9pm I went to poop, I eliminated the rice from my system and I felt much better afterwards and panic attack slowly ended.

I learned the lesson and going forward I’m going to experiment with new foods when I’m not under lots of physical strain, so my digestion has more room to properly digest the food and not give me so much problems.

4. I can endure anything

My biggest lessons came the day after my panic attack. As I woke up the next morning — which happened to be my 26th birthday — I felt a deep sense of strength and boost in self-confidence. I was like:

“If I could survive this panic attack, I can endure anything!”

The malaise the night before was so severe and I was in such a negative and dark place, that coming thorough and out of it was a huge win for me.

The panic attack gave me a confirmation that I’m strong, that I’m improving, that I’m growing and developing mentaly and as a person and that I can overcome any challenge I will face on my life path.

There are some important milestone moments in our lives that change you for the better and looking back we can view them as a turning point in our lives. It might as well be that this recent panic attack was such a moment for me.

5. The Joy and Gratitude for being alive and well

I experienced a very high moment the next day during the training session in the gym.

As I was feeling better physically and I wanted to celebrate my birthday the best way, I went to the gym and trained. I did some Deadlifts, I felt strong and weights moved well, which was fulfilling in itself. During the last accessory exercises, the song Stand up for the champions came up and I felt like a winner. I put myself in the “Winner pose”, let myself feel victorious and noticed how I tear rolled down my eyes. I cried some tears of joy.

Just 16 hours earlier I had one of the most intense panic attacks in my life and I thought I was dying. I thought I was going to burn out and ended up “celebrating” my birthday in the hospital.

But there I was: alive and feeling good.
I was feeling so happy and proud of myself that I endured the panic attack. I was so joyous for having done a good workout. I was so deeply grateful that I was alive and feeling good.

If have panic attacks and struggle to find solutions to them, my advice to you would be:

1. Let go of control and surrender to the experience.

Slow down. Breathe slowly and deeply. Give yourself permission to feel what is happening. Let the thoughts run as they want to. Give yourself positive reinforcement that “This too shall pass”, even if you don’t believe it at the moment.

2. Look for the lessons behind the panic attack.

What is your body, mind or psyche trying to tell you? What might be the lesson that you can learn and implement to your life going forward?

That’s it for this article. I would love to hear your opinions, questions or suggestions for the following articles.