I had been hearing about the merits of meditation and mindfulness for ages. It seemed like everywhere I went, there were mentions of this new “magic technique.”
It wasn’t until recently, however, that I finally started meditating DAILY.
My journey began a few years ago when I was frustrated with my levels of stress and anxiety. My husband indulged me and went along with me to some “temple” about an hour from our place. The meditation itself was easy enough – they even permitted lying down at this place – but I almost fell asleep. It also had this weird musty, library feeling to it and there was too much talk about the third “seeing eye” and planar something for my comfort. After that failed attempt, six months later, we stumbled onto a place where I liked to go and meditate in person near my house: Dawn Mountain. They had a very welcoming environment and not too much preaching.
That got me started on meditating weekly. Every Sunday they would tell us (in what felt like an admonishment to me): Meditation is most useful when you have a DAILY practice. I would go off inspired, determined that this would be the week I would kick that off, and then as the week got going, find it was Sunday once again, and I had still not meditated.
After a post-baby mental health crisis and feeling my moods being off, I stumbled across a book called Bliss More that taught me that I did not need to be perfect about HOW I meditated. I signed up for a 30-day challenge with my husband and that helped me start meditating. However, I still found that about a month later, once I “felt better,” I had stopped meditating again.
Recently, however, as I felt anxiety creeping in again, along with daily stress, I started meditating again, with the help of a new tool, Insight Timer. This has really helped me, seeing my daily streaks and the impact on my mood. Having friends and my husband doing it with me has helped too. I have now been meditating daily for 45 days and I feel like it has really been a keystone habit for me.
Along with that, I journal and write daily. All of these have really helped me feel more calm and centered and able to handle the inevitable challenges that arise in a day as an entrepreneur, mom, and human on this planet.
Follow us here and subscribe here for all the latest news on how you can keep Thriving.
Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.