My Meditation Journey

I first attempted meditation back in my teens, and as with most things I attempted in my teens, it went badly. I'd heard about all of the amazing benefits that meditation was supposed to bestow on its participants and I thought "I could do with a bit of that". Surely, it had to be worth a try.

What I stumbled across was a guided meditation that appeared to be an adult version of Jackanory, read by someone who had the annoying voice that only NHS counsellors seem to have. You know, the one that's designed to calm the mind of the average office-based executive, yet infuriates everyone else because it sounds like you're being patronised.

Some years later, I decided to give it another shot. This time I happened upon the overtly religious style of meditation. Now, if I'm being honest, I have a big old soft spot of Buddhism and I have done since I was 14 and I first read about it. Having said that, all the bells and joss sticks got on my nerves and in my opinion, added nothing but annoyance to the experience. It wasn't 1967, I wasn’t a hippy, and I certainly didn't have any flowers in my hair!

Once again, I walked away from the practice having gained nothing from it.

Then, I had, what we'll refer to as a serious crumbling of my mental health. The internal struggles that I had been running from for years, all caught up with me. In the space of a week, I went from starting a new job, being all chipper and pleased with myself, to shutting down completely, not talking to my wife and falling asleep the moment I wasn't at work.

From the outside, it looked like work-related stress. It wasn't. The job was great, I loved it. The people were lovely and the challenges were great. When I was at work, in the moment, I was happy. But it was the commute.

An hour on a packed train into London, then another hour to get home was enough to send me spiralling.

Long story short, I went to see a doctor, and after asking me a LOT of questions, and being reassured that I wasn't planning on testing my own neck strength with my shoelaces, she sent me to counselling classes. They helped. They allowed me to put names to conditions, taught me how to slow, if not halt the spirals of depression and anxiety. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) training certainly had a place in my recovery, but it was limited.

You see, the NHS is designed to keep you alive, and it does that job extremely well in my opinion (all hail the NHS, HAIL). Yet, it does somewhere between little and nothing to teach you how to live a good life. Whilst the classes continued I felt great. Having left the London job and returned to my previous one, I'd removed the commute and thus the trigger. The 3 hours a week that I spent in a room with two counsellors and 8-10 equally broken people became a lifeline. A lifeline that sadly only lasted 8 weeks.

After that, I was on my own, and that's exactly how it felt.

It's a little like leaving school, you’ve been handed some certificates and sent out into the world. At that moment you think, "Hell yeah, I'm qualified and I know what life is all about, I'm an adult now". How long did that last for you? How long did it take you to realise that the world doesn't care that you went to school and know who the King of England was in 1463 (it was Edward IV if anyone was thinking of Googling it). No one is interested in what paperwork you have, all they want to know is if you can use Excel? Can you make a decent cup of tea? And, do you know what is on the third side of a triangle if FUEL and OXYGEN are on the other two sides? Because if you don't, apparently the world will catch fire and everyone will die!

I was thrown out into the world and no one cared that I’d been to my classes, they just wanted me to be “normal” again. It didn't take long for me to begin to see the same old struggles returning and I quickly realised that I had to find something to stop that from happening. You can spend as much time as you like looking, but the only options that present themselves are; your doctor prescribes you some drugs, and mindfulness practice. I don't like taking tablets, but I don't like losing control of my mind (it's all I have), so I plumped for option number 2. I found a guided meditation by Sam Harris. Initially, I came across it whilst watching interviews he had given on YouTube. Later he released it on his website, so I downloaded it and then proceeded to carry that meditation around with me, first on my MP3 player, and later when technology allowed, my phone. Everywhere I went, if there was a moment I could sneak it in, I listened to it. Sat waiting for my wife? Meditate. In the cinema waiting for a film to begin? Meditate. On the loo? Meditate. Little by little I began to notice that things were changing.

You see this meditation wasn't like the others I’d tried. It wasn't telling me a story about a golden beach and the lapping ocean, there were no trees with their falling leaves, there was only me and consciousness, and I had to find my own peace in that.

I did.

It lead me to read Sam's book Waking Up in 2014. That pointed me in the direction of Douglas Harding and others, it also sowed a seed regarding Stoicism as Sam uses Marcus Aurelius' Meditations as a reference point in an analogy and I made sure to order a copy so I could see what he was talking about.

I soon found myself meditating not only once a day, but many times. Perhaps only 30 seconds or a few minutes at a time, but my continuous check-ins with my own conscious state allowed me to sidestep and even laugh at the pains that used to drag me down. I'd found a level of self-control and serenity that I never truly believed existed. Along with the Stoic teachings that had begun to direct my actions, I found that my life improved beyond imagination.

Sure, there are times when things still build-up and get on top of me. When they do, I close my eyes and connect to myself ( I know that sounds a bit woo woo, but once you start meditating it makes a lot more sense). I concentrate on my problems, see how they manifest themselves within me, then I change their framing. In fact, the moment you notice that a thought or a feeling only exists within consciousness, it loses its power over you. Then, once you've acknowledged it, and return to the breath or whatever is your preferred focal point, it disappears. Next time it returns, and it will, you see it in a different light. You might even give it a little nod and a smile to yourself, “welcome back little anxiety”.

With a better connection to the self, comes a better understanding of your own faults and flaws. Stoicism provides me with ways of managing and dealing with those, sometimes instantly, at other times over long periods of time. And when I need some time to really mull things over I come to this place (see the picture above) and I sit. Hours at a time, I sit, and I meditate. I'm not a Buddhist but I appreciate both their fundamental teachings as well as their architecture. Having this only a few miles from my home allows me to have a "sanctuary" away from TV's, barking dogs and Amazon deliveries. A place where I can sit under a tree and be alone with my thoughts.

I accept that most people don't live within 5 miles of a Peace Pagoda, but in reality, you don't need to. In this green and pleasant land of ours, we have parks and fields all around us. Find one where you feel safe, take a seat either on a park bench, or like I do on a small piece of yoga mat that I take with me, and begin. I now tend to meditate in these places with my eyes partially open (because you never know what's going to happen, I once got bopped on the nose by a curious collie out on a walk and it scared the crap out of me). The moment you feel bored, you know you're getting somewhere and you need to do some more. What you're looking for is the moment when you accept your position and the world around you as it is, nothing needs to change because everything is as it should be. Sounds easy, doesn't it. It's not.

Good luck on your journey, it will take as long as it takes, but it will reward you in ways you currently can't even imagine.

Oh, and don’t take it all too seriously, make sure you find something to laugh at, if we can't enjoy life, what's the point?