'Have you tried meditation before?' asks Sue from the pink chenille armchair opposite me.
'Yes,' I say from the mauve sofa, 'but it doesn't work. My mind's too busy.' I tap the side of my head. 'It's like a madhouse in there.'
Sue smiles. 'Isn't everyone's?'
Sue and I are sitting in her Shepherd's Bush flat and nice as she seems, I'm still pretty peeved with Dr Ling for sending me here. I may work for a holistic Heath and Well-being website but all I want is the pharmaceutical equivalent of a giant sledgehammer to knock the panic attacks into oblivion.
'Close your eyes and make sure your back is straight,' says Sue. I suppress an irritated sigh and decide to go along with it, mainly because I don't want to hurt Sue's feelings.
'Breathing deeply, work downwards from your head, relaxing each part of your body,' says Sue. 'Your forehead, your cheekbones, your jaw...' Sue reminds me of Ma Larkin from the Darling Buds of May, all floral and blowsy as if she's just gusted in from 1950's Kent and is about to bustle into the kitchen and bring out a massive pork pie with a side serving of Piccalilli.
'Your neck, your shoulders, your chest...let all the tension drain away,' says Sue.
What was the name of the actress who played Ma Larkin? Pam somebody. I fish around in my mind but the only Pams I can dredge up are Pam Ayres who was on Radio 4 yesterday, and Pam Anderson.
'Your knees, your calves, your ankles...,' says Sue.
Whatever happened to Pam Anderson? Must Google her when I get home.
'Now take several more deep breaths,' says Sue, 'consciously noticing the space between each one.'
I abandon the search for more Pams and do as Sue says, breathing deeply and trying to linger in the gap between each breath. In. Pause. Out. Pause. In. Pause. Out. Pause. It's actually quite soothing.
'Whenever you notice your mind wandering, come back to that space,' says Sue.
I take a few more breaths and feel a slight slowing in the incessant, inane mind chatter. Random facts, pointless fretting about flaking skin, my frankly quite strange fixation with Dede, the Indonesian fisherman - it all starts to fall away.
In. Pause. Out. Pause. In. Pause. Out. Pause. It's about now that I feel a sort of click, a shifting downs of gears and a sensation of...
'You can open your eyes now.' I can hear Sue's voice from far away, as if from end of a tunnel. But I don't want to open my eyes. I want to stay here.
'It stopped,' I say when I've finally dragged myself back to Sue's sitting room. 'My mind just stopped.' I shake my head, amazed. 'It was extraordinary...' I pause. There simply aren't any words to describe what I've just experienced.
'Thank you,' I say to Sue a little later, as we stand on her porch together.
'Just five minutes each day,' says Sue. 'Try it and see if it makes a difference.'
'I will,' I say. You'd have to be crackers to get a taste of that feeling and not want to try it again.
I give Sue a hug, which she returns with just the type of hug Ma Larkin would have given - a big, warm, Kentish embrace, which feels like haystacks, apple orchards and homemade sponge pudding all rolled into one. As we pull apart it comes to me. Pam Ferris.
I head off, smiling into the spring sunshine. At the corner I pass beneath a cherry tree and a froth of pink blossom flutters down like confetti around me while above, the sky stretches out like a freshly painted canvas, big and blue and beautiful.
Watch out next Friday for our new fiction series: 'Diary of Shakti Ananda, yoga teacher and Light worker from West London.'