About 16 months ago I suffered a very traumatizing meditation experience that frightened me so bad to this day I am still living with the trauma. I have done research and reached out to several people in attempts to try and get some understanding of what may have happened during my experience but every solution offered has left me even more confused. I now suffer from anxiety which I've never had before along with other psychological trauma that I am having a hard time shaking. I'm desperate for help. I have too much to lose if I do not get better. To make a long story short...16 months ago when I was meditating, I was not trained and had no professional teacher guiding me. It was my 3rd time meditating and I forced my mind into a blank space while listening to shamanic meditation music I found on YouTube. After what seemed about 10 minutes of a self hypnosis it felt as if something flew in me or I fell in a hole and I jump up startled. I could feel all the blood rushing in my head and body and after I calmed down several hours later I was left traumatized. While I was calming down I felt a wave of energy rush down my legs and settle in my calves. Sounds weird but true. 2 days later while asleep I was awakened by a rush on energy that came from my calves and traveled up my legs and through my body and it left me feeling anxiety. I was extremely terrified. Over the past 16 months all of those issues are still there just not as frequent. I have tried, meditation, praying, detoxing etc in attempts to restore my peace....nothing has worked. Ever since this incident my calves feel heavy and the energy will occasionally travel up my body and give me anxiety. The nerves are constantly jumping and tingling in my calves and its getting worse. I wonder if I need to I need to rebalance my energy and why it is so heavy in my calves. Help if you can. If anyone wants to contact me to take this off the forum please send me a message and you can ask any questions and I will share more in attempts to help myself. Thanks
Can you share some of what you have tried (and what was the effect) since you last brought this issue to the forum? It would be a little easier to help you if we know.
Although I have done energy work with positive results, you might not get much information along those lines on a buddhist meditation forum. So if that is the kind of treatment you are considering, you might be better off looking elsewhere. However, one thing I'm wondering is have you looked at physical causes and treatments? You keep talking about the heaviness in your calves which seems to be the origination of this anxiety. Have you tried doing stretches for calves and your whole body? If so, what is the result?
I agree with others that if you are looking for meditation techniques to cure this issue, perhaps a teacher or a counselor would be a better resource. However, I want to share that I read Pema Chodron's book
The Wisdom of No Escape and the meditation technique she teaches at the beginning she teaches in this book really helped me a lot with stress, tension, anger, and anxiety. (The abridged version of this book is
Awakening Loving-Kindness and it drops 4 chapters which really kind of lost the plot, so you can get this if you want to save some money.) She instructs to follow just the outbreath, and the instruction is to do it with "gentleness, precision, and letting go." I highly recommend to at least read this book anyway, because she discusses at length the importance of loving-kindness and especially toward yourself, and what she writes about it is just such a kindness. Honestly, Pema Chodron is such a great writer that I find all of her writings to be soothing just for reading them.
(P.S. This is a little silly, but if you decide to purchase WoNE, or any other Pema Chodron book, I recommend buying the "Shambhala Library" edition hardcover, if available, even though its more money. It's just such a nice book that fits nicely and comfortably in your hand. It makes it easy to read while in bed, on the bus.)