Sometimes, even after years of meditating and other pratices to calm my nervous system, I still have bouts of anxiety and feel stressed and out of control. The other day I was sitting in Queenstown, the sun was shining, I was well rested, I had both my kids home, my husband was happily in the garden and life felt unhurried, however, I found myself experiencing my old patterns of anxiety and self doubt. I started to think why on earth am I training to be a teacher and meditating twice a day when I can’t even control my own emotions and thoughts.
After reflecting and listening to a podcast from an amazing teacher – Georgia Vavasour - what struck me was this: Meditation was, in fact, doing exactly what it was supposed to. I could feel. I could feel and name emotions moving through me and could sense where they lived in mybody. Rather than pushing my feelings away or becoming consumed by them, I could simply be aware of them. With that awareness came a sense of space and the opportunity to reflect rather than react.
As I stayed with the experience, I also began to see what was playing out beneath the surface. I realised two things. First, my nervous system still needs work and I still have a deeply ingrained want to be in control – but that this is starting to loosen.
Second, I realised I was trying to control my experience by shaping how I wanted things to unfold around me, rather than allowing life to be as it was and trusting that I could surrender to the natural flow of life instead of trying to force what is already unfolding. In fact, I found that in the moments that I did release control, there was often a wonderful experience to be found on the other side of it.
One of the greatest gifts meditation has given me is the ability to experience the full spectrum of being human. After years of being afraid of feeling anything that was less than pleasant, I learned to shift my perspective. We can have thoughts, feel emotions, notice the sensations in our bodies and, at the very same time, step back and witness it all unfolding with curiosity. We can recognise that these experiences don’t define who we are; they are simply experiences we are having as we move through the world as imperfect human beings.
Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions are real, and they deserve to be acknowledged. But they don’t have to define us, nor do we have to live unconsciously according to them. With awareness, we create a little space between ourselves and our experience. And in that space, we gain something incredibly valuable: the freedom to respond with more flexibility, compassion, and measured choice.
This renewed insight reassured me that teaching from a place of trial and error and on the ground lived experience, is exactly as it should be. Yes, these practices have indeed given me something profoundly valuable, even if my own expectations, or those of others, sometimes suggest otherwise. Disappointing to some but I do not in fact now walk around like a peaceful monk with all the answers to life. Yet my life does feel incredibly more rich.
If you, too, are looking for a way to live with more depth, meaning, and compassion where there is more space between the inevitable myriad of emotions and a steadier, more balanced perspective for yourself, then I invite you to join a beginner’s meditation course. I won’t just teach you how to sit in a meditation practice, we will also explore the science behind why meditation actually works and I will help you work out how to build meditation into your daily life and how to make it a consistent practice that enriches your life and those of others.
