A while ago I hit rock bottom. My life went from being structured and controllable to being a disaster. I hated my job, my girlfriend dumped me, I couldn't handle the demands from the company I had next to my main job…
I was losing that control. My health deteriorated as well. I started getting hypersensitive towards different smells, I got dizzy, my pulse was all over the place.. and I got all sort of skin conditions.
I bet you won't get surprised when I tell you that my doctor pointed towards stress. According to him, what I was experiencing was the accumulated effect of stress I've had these past years. And these things don't simply go away easily.
I've always had ups and downs in my life… perhaps overdoing my thinking a bit. Always wanting everything to be perfectly executed which ended up in stress and anxiety. The stresses I've had all my life did often go away by themselves.
If they were intense I tended to reach out to a basic meditation practice to get a relief, because I somehow knew that it could help. But still, the notion of meditation was totally unclear to me. At the end of the day, when things got better, I never reflected whether it was the meditation helping me or the natural healing process. I soon went back doing the same stressful things and letting go of the meditation practice.
And back I was on the hamster wheel again with the stress buildup. So I guess meditation and ease of mind were only interesting to me when things got rough. I saw it as a pill, a temporary tool.
Laying on my couch one day, in fetus position thinking I was doomed, I stumbled upon Mindvalley which was a turnover point for me. There I came across The M Word. The program appealed to me in an instant as it has a modern approach to meditation. The goal of the program is to unwrap the notion of meditation.
I saw it as a disclosure program for what meditation actually is and what it can do for you. Emily Fletcher does this in an elegant way. She shows you how you can easily incorporate it into the modern daily life and how you can make it a habit.
Meditating is not all about sitting in lotus position and stop thinking for hours as I learned. There are several components in Emily's meditation routine such as mindfulness, gratitude and visualization practice.
These are really powerful and the effects are backed up by science. One of the visualization exercises involves feeling love and inducing this feeling to the environment around you. I personally had difficulties with this. The feeling of pure love is something I haven't reflected upon in years.
So this is an area I'm keen on exploring, which makes the practice even more exciting. Nevertheless, I saw Emily as a sweet mom holding my hand during the whole time while guiding me through the meditation maze, I once was lost in.
The effects of meditation are different for everyone. For me, the main takeaway from The M Word is knowing that there are no right and wrongs in meditation. This definitely boosted my confidence. It sort of made me kinder towards my take on the practice. You know the sense of control I mentioned earlier?
I've always wanted that control in my life… don't know why. Probably lots of psychological explanations available for me to dig into. But now, knowing what I know from Emily Fletcher´s teachings, I feel like I'm in a free zone when meditating. Nothing I can do, say, think or feel can hold me back.
I don't need that control anymore. Imagine having access to this free zone every day, where nothing holds you back, where you can recharge your thoughts and be that greater version of you. For me, this has been long awaited.
So what happened after The M Word you say? I quit my job and found a position at a smaller company which primarily works with saving lives, which I love! And guess what, it's crazy.. my pulse is getting more steady, the dizziness is gone and my skin is better. And for the relationship part. I'm getting there. I've now taken a step towards understanding and loving myself. From there on I believe things will get even better.
Don't be surprised when you reach the end of the program and feel like you're starting to wake up from a lifelong sleep. Or that you're starting to get a sense of direction in your life. It happened to me, and I can't wait to take this feeling further and explore the depth of my spiritual life and overall capacity.
Thank you, Emily Fletcher and The M Word for having a big role in my awakening.