Over the last little while, I have been introduced to the part of myself that’s underneath my conscious mind. It is a place of peace and serenity and I honestly find it hard to believe how I haven’t indulged in it before now.
As I have written previously on my mental health I have gradually been made aware of how I see the world and I have learned that sometimes I have a somewhat negative filter due to unfortunate life experiences, and it often seems to be trying to tell the same old negative story. It’s often trying to put innocuous events into the frame of that bad picture. I am aware of that now, but awareness doesn’t seem to prevent it. It seems to come from a place that overrides rational thought to an extent. So if I cannot prevent it I need to develop the skills to cope with it.
Meditation was the next step on my journey and it has honestly been very helpful. I meditate twice a day for 20 minute periods, and it results in my mind being in a state of waking restfulness for that period. It’s a different type of rest to sleep, and for someone like myself who finds himself often overwhelmed by the world around him, it has been deeply beneficial. It’s important to really emphasise how peaceful it is in that state, it’s a deep peace that’s there within us all underneath all the activity that constantly bubbles on the surface of our conscious mind. Getting there for 20 minutes before I do anything in my day really gives me a boost, and it feels like I drop into it mildly in other periods of my day also. The benefits of that rest seem to permeate throughout the day and I have noticed a reduction in stress and anxiety, and as a result, there has been a reduction in the occurrence of depressive episodes.
I need to make sure I hit home with this point of how effective it has been. This isn’t an exercise in vanity to try and propose myself as a new age spiritual guru having shared my insecurities with the world — this actually works. It just honestly feels like things don’t grab me and pull me down as easily and it’s without a doubt down to being in that waking restful state twice a day.
I tried the app Headspace for a while, but I didn’t see much benefit, that is a meditation based on focused concentration and it didn’t work for me, and I think it’s because focusing on a part of my body keeps me in my conscious mind. The method that is effective for me is Transcendental Meditation. Research on the topic will lead you to the official website tm.org where there are heaps of celebrity endorsements and the revelation of the fee for instruction. Immediately I thought, screw that, if it’s that useful why don’t they just put the tools you need to perform it on Youtube and give it for free, and the idea of a meditation technique having an organisation behind it didn’t sit well with me. The celebrity endorsement also just stank of a sort of sect who were trying to use the celebrity platforms to swindle Joe Soaps like myself out of their cash. So I forgot about it for a while. Then I came back to it, and repeatedly I saw endorsements from everyday people and celebrities who really seem like they have their feet on the ground, and I realised that if this is something that works for me it would be a really valuable way to spend that money, so I went for it.
The training is very simple, all they do is give you a mantra to repeat, perform a meditation together and then discuss how you feel after and offer advice over a number of weeks. I can see how someone could be sceptical, but you are given advice from a person who will have been meditating for decades, and you have access to that person for follow-ups after the training. Little things you aren’t sure of are made clear, and for me personally, investing the money ensured I continued the daily practice. By spending time with someone who has been mentored as a trainer of TM you will also be directly connected to an age-old tradition of meditating, the origins of which span back millennia. The practice has been passed down over the generations, to this teacher, and then to you.
If you wanted to experiment with the technique on your own, you can try giving yourself a mantra, just two or three random syllables that don’t mean a thing. Close your eyes and repeat it in your head until thoughts and the mantra disappear as you find yourself in a state of peace without any thought. Don’t fight your thoughts, let them pass through and observe them and their associated feelings without judgement. Focusing my mind on the repetition of the mantra seems to effortlessly bring me down or ‘transcend’ to that place of peace. Do it twice a day for twenty minutes, allowing your mind to be in a restful state for this time might be of real benefit to you if you are, like myself, a person who is often overwhelmed by stress. You’ll know when you’ve got into that subconscious restful state because it’s very blissfully peaceful and when you can access it regularly you’ll wonder how you went without it for so long.
If you find it’s something that seems to work then I would recommend going to someone who can offer personal advice and give you a Vedic mantra, via tm-ireland.org. That link is the Irish section of the website so navigate to the appropriate country for yourself. You don’t have to live like a monk if you take up meditating, you can perform the meditation and then do extreme things like go base jumping, compete in martial arts or audition for a death metal band if that’s your thing. You can use the energy it gives you to live your life however you want. You don’t have to prescribe to the religious ideals the meditation is connected to at all.
If you are sceptical of paying money to learn how to meditate, then you can still do your own research and do what you can in whatever method to get yourself down to that level of inner peace twice a day and I believe you will still get the benefit. I only focus on the Transcendental method as that is what is helping me. The main message I’d like to deliver from this is not just advocating the TM organisation and suggesting you give them your money, but that the level of peace you seek is inside you just waiting for you to drop into it, and you can get there by meditating, and if you struggle with mental health issues I would thoroughly recommend practicing whatever you can to allow yourself to fall into that state as the potential for healing is great.
Applying this to my specific situation, I think to get to this state where meditation works I had to go through the previous stages of building self-awareness and compassion. I am not sure meditation would have been as effective without first going through that process. I think in the state I am currently in, my ego is not as active and I am not seeking external validation as much, so my capacity to find validation and peace from within is much greater. I think in the state I was in, I certainly needed something a bit stronger than meditation to get me to a better place at the time, and in that case, anti-depressant medication was a huge benefit to give me a boost whilst changing lifestyle and environment, allowing the space for self-reflection. It’s important, however, to be aware that medication was only of temporary benefit and it got to a point where it had minimal effect on me.
To briefly summarise, I had to shift my lifestyle to allow myself to explore who I truly was, as I sort-of kept running into walls without knowing why. This change and process of self-exploration was deeply painful and isolating, and anti-depressant medication and therapy significantly helped during this period. Emerging from this experience I had a firmer sense of self, but there still was occasional pain, discomfort, unease, and loneliness. I would say the ratio of contentment to discomfort was 50/50.
Continuing from that point, transcendental meditation has brought me a significant level of peace and has shifted that ratio to something more like 80/20 to the comfort and contentment side of things. I think if I can keep that up, that will be fine for me, I would be highly skeptical of someone who says they’re 100/0 all the time anyway. I know what works for me won’t work for everyone, maybe in your situation the road will twist and turn in many different ways, but I just thought I would continue to share what I am doing and what is helping me, just incase it can guide anyone else even just a little bit. Be well, and take care of yourself.
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