This is my book The Synergy Game. I am serialising it here a chapter a week. Each chapter will be available for everyone to read because, after all, that’s why I’ve written it, to help others, to share what has helped me to rebuild my life. I will be adding extra insights, sharing my poetry and adding audio to a section below for paying members.
Chapter 3 - My Journey to Stillness: How Meditation Became My Sanctuary and Guide
“Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity”
Lao Tzu
Meditation saved me from going mad and losing my mind completely.
That sounds incredibly dramatic, but it's what happened.
There’s already been so much written and videoed and said about meditation. So what I'm going to talk about here is particularly how it helped me, and also the exact journey I’ve taken to learn to make my meditation a practice that I do daily and is a part of my life.
I started meditating as a regular practice in 2018. At first, I went onto YouTube and looked for guided meditations because that seemed the easiest way to start, so I started with some positive type meditations, some that would help me to move on from the big change I’d made in my life, and the consequences of the decision that I’d made.
I had a feeling that meditation would help me navigate these changes. I’d heard a lot about the benefits. The benefits of being still, the benefits of sitting and going within. But for me, this had to be learned.
I was the sort of person that was always occupied. I didn’t generally just sit and do nothing. I had a book, or I was doing something with my hands, I’ve always been creative, knitting, sewing, drawing, painting, some kind of art project, or watching TV, and even then I would often sit with some knitting or jewellery making pieces while watching, so I wasn’t really used to just sitting and doing nothing.
At first, the guided meditations helped me because I knew how long they were going to take, and it kept my mind focused. I think it was training my mind, it was training my brain to just be focused on one thing.
On my website, I have some guided meditations that I've made, and I’ve listed some of my favourite YouTube meditation channels that really helped me when I started this journey.
The second stage of my meditation journey was that I sort of got to the point where the guided meditations had served their purpose and I was now able to concentrate and focus more, so the next progress in my meditation journey was to listen to some music. (Again, on my website on the Music page, I have some awesome playlists I have curated that you can use for meditation.)
I would sit with music, and I think at first I would sit for maybe ten minutes, but then gradually it went up to between twenty and thirty minutes and now I usually meditate for around thirty minutes, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on what's going on in my life and what I need.
One thing that really helped me a couple of years ago was that I went on a meditation course when I was living in Thailand. The course was in Bangkok, and it was a ten-day course to help develop psychic awareness through, over ten days, a series of twenty-five meditations.
It was actually one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because sitting for that long and really looking within made me face some pretty deep things, childhood trauma, how I really felt about my parents, my relationship with my husband that was coming to an end although I didn’t know it consciously at the time, and I also learned a lot about myself and how I viewed things.
It not only deepened my meditation practice, but it also taught me how to go deeper in meditation and how to connect better with spirit, with my guides.
It was probably one of the best courses I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a few. I learned how to get into a deeper meditative state.
There are different brainwave states. According to clarkebioscience.com, "Alpha brainwaves relate to creativity and daydreaming, Beta waves are produced in the middle of deep thinking, Delta/Theta waves can be found during deep sleep, and Gamma waves are associated with problem solving, happiness, and compassion."
The deeper we can go the more we can access our subconscious and stop our thinking logical brain. This gives us access to a higher self, purer thoughts and basically what is best for us. And not what we think is best for us, but what is actually best for us, for our soul, our purpose and our path. This is where we manifest, heal and find answers to problems.
Once I moved back to France, I was able to meditate without music, just in stillness. I live in a very quiet place, and I live alone, so there are no noises I need to block out. I can sit in my yoga room on my meditation cushion and just be, still, silent, and listening.
This is when my meditation became even more a part of who I am. It's my time in the day when I connect and go within and check with my higher self to see if what is going on in my life is ok. If it's not to see how I can fix it.
If there are things I don't understand, I can either gain wisdom and understanding or get to a place where I can accept that it is not in my best interests to know, or to find out at this present time. It’s best for me to trust that I will get the knowledge when it’s the right time for me.
For instance, this morning I wanted to understand why I hadn't been sleeping properly. I knew if I was still enough and humble enough to listen, I would get the answer. I often get in my own way as I like to fix things. I like to have answers and I don’t like waiting long for the answers to come.
Meditation has humbled me, and I've realised that I don't always have the answers and I can't always fix everything that I want to, that sometimes it’s best to let things break and it's actually better for me in the long run.
So I sat quietly this morning and asked why I was feeling anxious and not sleeping very well. The answer I got was that I was finding it hard to let go at a deeper level and that it was time for me to start thinking about forgiveness. More on that in a later chapter.
It's like Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. Meditation helped me to see beyond what I actually knew, what I could see, helped me see what was invisible to my physical eyes, and to know myself deeply, to see inside. It shut off my logical thinking and allowed my higher self to take over.
This way I could get answers and gain insights into things that were going on that my stressed out and devastated mind could not process.
I didn't know how to live or exist when my marriage broke up. To think of everything I now had to do by myself, learn how to do, and just the simple act of living on my own when I had been part of a couple for almost thirty-four of my fifty-three years seemed like an impossible task.
In meditation, I was able to get strength and to get a respite from my mind which was just whirling non-stop with questions and what-ifs. For those thirty minutes a day, there was quiet, there was calm, there was a semblance of peace.
It was in meditation that I was able to gain clarity and step away from the situation and look at it from a different perspective. Every day I would ask for guidance from my higher self, from Spirit. All I asked for was to be shown what was best for me. How I could best live. And each day I came away from my meditation with just enough strength to face that day. Until it got better and better and I got stronger and stronger knowing that if there was something I didn't understand or that I had to decide on I could sit for a while and let the answer come to me.
I started using my meditation practice to visualise too. To imagine the life I wanted to live again, the things I wanted to accomplish.
When my mind is still, I can do this and it gives me direction and clarity for the way I want to go, for how I want my day to look. Doing this gave my days focus. Instead of just wandering day to day, getting through the week, the month and the year, I set goals and used my meditation time to see them done and accomplished.
It changed my mindset and is what I do now and one of the ways I have rebuilt my life to be successful in every way.
Now meditation is a practice I do daily that is part of my routine. It's how I have been able to come to terms with the loss in my life, the injustice and the cruelty, because I've discovered something that made all the difference.
It's that we are all connected. I'm not separate. I'm not alone. I'm protected and guided. I'm connected to every other living thing, and also that all the wisdom, all the answers I need, are there for me if I just listen.
My meditation practice now has changed quite a lot from when I started. It’s even changed from a year ago. I’ve come to realise that it grows with you. It gives you what you need.
At one time I needed peace and respite from my pain, now I need to still my busy mind and find balance each day. My life is busy with the new path I have taken, new ideas and projects I’m working on.
I use part of my meditation practice now to visualise how I want things to unfold, in my personal and professional life. If I have questions I ask, and when I’m able to be still and listen, I get the answers. Not always the ones I’m expecting, but always ones that are best for me and my purpose, my goals. Sometimes I sit in silence and sometimes I use an app with binaural meditation music.
It's amazing how things go together and how the next tool I use just fits perfectly with my meditation practice.
All the learning how to be still and focus prepared me for the next practice I would learn was essential to my healing journey.
The synergy was starting to fall into place.
Previous Chapter - Embracing Gratitude: From Daily Ritual to Lifeline
Next Chapter - Yoga - My Path to Strength: Finding My Power, Peace, and Purpose on the Mat
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