"Stay with the breath. Try not to let your thoughts wander...," says Andrew, the meditation guide with the old-school Arran jumper and sensible walking shoes.
I am sitting cross-legged with a dozen or so other first time meditators on a maroon carpet in a hotel conference suite somewhere on Edgware road. It's my boss's fault that I'm here.
When I foolishly mentioned Dr Ling's advice to help with the panic attacks, she pounced on me like a bullfrog and said I had to attend Andrew's "mind-blowing weekend workshop" - which I would then feature in a Meditation Special the following week.
I'm still feeling pretty resentful.
"Just follow the breath. Do not let it out of your sight," says Andrew from the podium.
Immediately I have a mental image of me, dressed in a black cloak and balaclava, creeping down a dark corridor, stalking my own breath. This thought slides seamlessly into a random fact I recently read about the walls of London sewers being coated in saturated fat and naturally that thought spirals into wondering what's the best way to dispose of leftover fat.
"When thoughts arise, just let them be," says Andrew in his Scottish lilt.
The thought of Wilson bolts into my mind, but of course I can't just let it be. I've not returned his call for the obvious reason that if he thinks he can come running whenever he discovers his girlfriend's cheating on him, he's wrong.
The next 5 minutes are devoted to lavish fantasies about bumping into Wilson, my serene yet upbeat presence (that's regular meditation for you) making him instantly forget the cuckolding girlfriend so that he falls in love with me instead.
"However much your mind wanders, always come back to the breath," says Andrew which reminds me of something I recently read about how the air that I inhale today will have once been in the lungs of a Namibian goat herder, or a South Korean housewife - or a Scottish crofter.
After I've drawn up a list of all the people, the contents of whose lungs I'm not that keen to inhale, I move onto Andrew's home life. He's wearing a wedding ring, so I picture a strawberry blonde woman with freckles not unlike Virginia McKenna in 'Ring of Bright Water', only she'll be called Finella.
Together Andrew and Finella have two ruddy-faced red haired children, perennially clad in chunky knits. They all live in a remote Highland croft, nice and quiet so Andrew can practice his meditation. Of course, Finella is very house-proud and does a lot of home baking. In fact I can just see her at the flour-dusted wooden table (hewn by Andrew from the timbers of an old fishing boat), making eccles cakes...
Are eccles cakes even Scottish? Maybe Dundee cake might be a better choice, that's definitely Scottish. Or shortbread - in a nice tartan tin...
The sound of a gong reverberates through the conference suite.
"Now how was that for everyone?" says Andrew.
To be continued next Friday...