My accidental meditation journey

My search for healing landed me in a practice I used to roll my eyes at.

photo by Spider Meka

As I’m sure this is true for most of us, my coping methods have evolved since my young adulthood.

In college, I shut myself off emotionally, got a little bitchy, and drank lots of cheap beer and vodka.

In my twenties, I found the gym, and I was obsessive about it. My intensity took me out of my head and into my body. My endorphins were pumped, my metabolism high, and I could eat as much of anything I wanted and was in the best shape of my life, which didn’t hurt my confidence back then… except that I drank lots of martinis and long island iced teas.

And I suffered from panic attacks.

For which I found therapy (and took Prozac for a short period of time). I learned a lot about myself through these sessions.

While I learned to manage my anxiety, I continued to make superficial choices. I thought I knew my friends and colleagues well, but then at some point I realized I really didn’t. I only knew what they did for work, where they lived, what car they drove, where they went on vacation, where they liked to eat, who they liked to talk about, and the names of their kids and nannies. Everyone around me, including myself, had on a mask of some sort, an identity based on how well we were all doing and who we knew.

At 29, I had a baby. This put a crack in my mask. Because I wanted to be the best mom that I could be.

At 30, I started yoga.

BREATH MEDITATION

As my yoga teacher walked around the studio, he pointed at me and said, “someone needs to teach her how to breathe.”

I believe he was speaking to his two assistants who were also walking around the room helping us with our postures, hinting for one of them to take me on. I was falling over in trikonasana (triangle pose).

While it was wild that he’d say that out loud in class, I felt some level of relief being called out because I felt I already knew that. It was validating.

Up to that point, I had been telling my doctors that I didn’t think I was breathing correctly. I’d look at them, waiting for some direction or insight, but they only stared back at me blankly. They had no idea what I was talking about or how to respond. After all, breathing’s an autonomic function.

I thought maybe I was weird for asking.

Then I met a holistic doctor who, at the end of our initial visit, completely unprompted, said: “I want you to make an appointment with Bee. She’ll teach you how to breathe.”

I smiled as my spine grew an inch taller from this validation.

My first meditation was conscious breathing.

I first learned to do this lying down with one hand on my belly and the other on my chest to sense which parts of my torso were rising and falling. The simple, long, deep breath was not easy for me to learn. I was stubborn, deeply set in my poor habits. Bee had her work cut out for her.

Once I got past whatever it was that made it so hard for me and got in the practice of breathing correctly throughout the day, I lost something that the gym couldn’t help me lose: my anxiety.

COOKING MEDITATION

Then I learned to cook.

Prompted by my daughter’s illness and the complete ineffectiveness of (and injury from) antibiotics to make her better (she got worse from them), I turned to foods for healing, as suggested by our family doctor, and mostly out of desperation for my daughter’s wellness.

Learning to cook became much more than just putting healthy ingredients together.

My Ayurvedic chef turned cooking into a powerful, daily morning ritual. Every morning, I made meals for the entire day for myself and my family.

Before anything came out of the refrigerator, I turned on Deva Premal (a musical artist who sings Sanskrit mantras), lit a beeswax candle, and whispered a prayer:

Divine Mother, Heavenly Father
Free me from the obstacles of illusion and
Lead me to thy shores of fulfillment.
Tell me what to do, where to go, who to talk to, and what to say.
May we all be healed, loved, and fed,
And may peace dwell in our hearts and on this planet.

This pre-cooking ritual set my mind to the frequency of peace… which would become the secret ingredient to every meal prepared by my hands.

Then I pulled out the food ingredients, prepped, mis-en-place, and cooked with all the attention and love I can offer.

No rushing, no heavy thoughts, no to-dos, no news or talk radio in the background. Just me, the food, Deva, and my breath.

The macrobiotic and whole foods chef I originally worked with would remind me to breathe as I prepped my veggies. My Ayurvedic chef would remind me to slow down, tickle my produce as I washed them. She was so playful. I’ve carried both these practices forward with me to this present day.

I started this two-hour cooking meditation early enough to be done by the time my children woke up to get ready for school. A hot breakfast was served every morning, ready when they walked into the kitchen, and a hot lunch was packed for school.

Our meals came with a prayer:

In this food, I see clearly the entire Universe supporting my existence. Thank you for this meal.

Then the clean-up.

The late Vietnamese Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said,

Wash the dishes to wash the dishes.

So that I did, with conscious breath.

While I’ve always had a dishwasher, I rarely used it. Hand dishwashing became a powerful practice in slowing down, mindfulness, and living meditation.

In the beginning of my cooking practice, I expressed a concern to my doctor: this entire cooking and eating thing takes up so much time… with meals served 3x a day, not to mention the time it takes to put together a weekly meal plan and visit the Farmer’s Market and grocery store. I’m afraid I won’t have time for anything else!

But that’s life. He said.
What is? I asked.
Said he: That which nourishes. Everything else is busyness.

I won’t go into the details of all the places in my head that this simple conversation took me other than that it changed my relationship with just about everything.

The effects of this cooking practice was profound. We became a healthy family, and we didn’t have a sick doctor’s visit for nearly ten years. Our first “sick” visit to a western doctor was when my tween daughter and I noticed a knot growing on one side of her chest over a couple of months. I thought the worst, and in she went. It turned out to be a breast bud - she was coming of age!

I believe that our food practice gave my children - and me - the right kind of energy and nourishment that supported concentration, curiosity, and courage (to be themselves).

To feel nourished in every cell of your body is to feel safe. To feel safe is to be able to harness the unknown.

MANTRA MEDITATION

I belonged to a non-denominational church to expose my children to a spiritual community. I was the person who volunteered for things I deeply care about, to strengthen my commitment to them, and to gain direct access to, and forge connections with those communities. Which is why, for instance, I became a room parent for both my children’s classes.

At the church, I volunteered with the welcoming committee. My job was to be with the newcomers after service and fold them into the community.

I asked a newcomer about his weekend, and he said that it was always amazing; that he started Saturday mornings leading a 4:30 am meditation practice, setting him up for a powerful weekend.

I couldn’t imagine getting up that early. Especially on weekends.

What do you do at 4:30?

He went on to describe what this 2.5 hour practice entailed. It included a lot of mantra.

I asked him to say one:

Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam Siri Wahe Guru

I was enthralled. First of all, I love languages, so I was drawn in from that. Secondly, I had been curious meditation and wanted to learn more about the power of sound current (because Deva Premal’s music was so transformative for me), and there he was, a teacher in both.

I started going to his 4:30 am sadhana (aka personal spiritual practice) once a week. Then twice. Then 3 times. Then when I learned to do it myself, I got up to practice every morning at home. Eventually I took teacher training and started leading and teaching sadhana.

Mantra Meditation repeats sacred sounds (sounds with frequencies that facilitate elevated self-talk) over and over again, coding over the negative self-talk that so many of us repeat over and over again daily and making us crazy anxious, helpless and irritable.

These sounds are called bij (seed) mantras that, when chanted, plants higher frequency into every cell of our body. This frequency heals, transforms, and opens up access to compassion, joy, equanimity, authentic and deliberate spontaneity, and courage.

This particular 2.5 hour practice, which is normally practiced from around 4:30 to 7 am (before sunrise), entails a 15-minute Song of the Soul mantra meditation followed by yoga, savasana (the lie-down at the end of the physical yoga practice), and then one hour of mantra meditation (consisting of 7 different mantras). This practice is called the Aquarian Sadhana, practiced to help strengthen our mental and spiritual states, to transcend the chaos, upheaval, and overwhelm brought on by the transition that we are currently living through, from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age…

• Where instead of God being outside of us, it (God, the Universe, Infinite Intelligence, Divine Wisdom) is now inside of us.

• Where vertical (limited & privileged) access to opportunity collapses to become horizontal (open & equal), helped by the technological age, and as we learn to harness the gifts of technology.

• Where competition and the patriarchal approach to success no longer works, and instead collaboration and deeper connection to the creative, feminine aspects in each of us is required for us to thrive.

This practice completely rewired my mind.

The bliss we temporarily feel, when we’re lucky, at the end of a deep yoga or meditation session, I was able to access and hold it throughout the day, every day. I became a different person.

My need for 9 hours of sleep dropped down to five.

I learned to breathe consciously throughout the day and start my morning off with a mindset that saw the best in others, stay out of drama, and make decisions that were most in line with my deepest values. I learned to be present.

I still made - or rather, make - mistakes (lots of them), but different ones than before. Rather than making the more unconscious, self-destructive ones, I now make “mistakes” that provide me with feedback on the risks that I take.

EVOLUTION - finding middle ground

As my life evolved, so did my practices. I was ready to experiment with more flexibility.

While my morning practice is non-negotiable, what I practice is; it varies based on my life.

I began to travel more, which meant I began to eat out more. I am no longer vegetarian, and I will enjoy a glass of wine and dessert from time to time.

This has challenged my energy, and I’m playing around with it to find the balance.

While living a sattvic (pure, harmonious) life granted me lightness and a profound sense of peace, I am deciding to live a slightly more rajasic (active, passionate) one, which, alas, comes with more aches and irritation.

My need for sleep is now 7 hours. I’d like it to be 6.

As I talk to my body about this (yes, I do that. And you don’t?), I am now naturally waking up between 3:30 - 3:45 am, putting me at around 5.5 hours. This is a bit earlier than what I had in mind, but I’m rolling with it right now.

Since I started the morning practice (in 2005), my night owl self learned to cherish mornings. They are so quiet. It’s a lot easier to focus and tune inward before the sunrise. No one bothers you in those hours. Only you bother you, which means you get to learn a lot about yourself.

By 10 am, while much of the world is still getting started with their coffees at their desks, my day is mostly freed up for other things like play and paying attention to the needs of others.

These days, my meditation is a combination of breath and mantra. I do practice moving meditation, which may be yoga, tai chi, or qigong, but I put them in a separate category.

There’s something about being still that challenges the nervous system and the ego in a different way than a run, brisk walk, writing, cooking, yoga asana, tai chi, or anything else we might use as meditation.

Being still calls on us to pay neutral attention to our wandering mind, to the tantrums, and to our compulsion to run through the to-do list, scroll, and get busy. To sit through all that chatter and stay unreactive to it is to conquer the mind, to cultivate agency, or free will.

MY CURRENT MEDITATION

Currently, my favorite meditation is an unguided one where I first place my hands at my heart center and connect with the feelings of gratitude.

I bring my attention to the space between my thoughts, and the pauses at the top and bottom of my breath. These spaces are the source of all things possible, like a seed, “empty”, but fully coded with potentiality based on our choosing.

I take my gratitude into that space and go silent. Thoughts come through, and I let them move through like clouds moving with the wind.

This is a practice in patience, unconditional love, and acceptance.

I sit in meditation until I feel differently from when I started. This keeps me actively involved in my meditation, rather than falling into rote habit, barely present.

Then I get up to move my body, to get my energy moving, to break physical blocks.

The rest of my morning entails writing, sweating, taking a shower (both hot & cold), enjoying my morning drink (an adaptogenic hot cocktail made from mushrooms, raw cacao, and almond milk) and language learning (Korean & Spanish).

After that, I get to step into the world FULL.

I get to enjoy my relationships with the rest of the world. I get to decide what’s important to me and how to serve, love my life, and those in it, the best that I can.

It’s a work in progress.

Love, Savitree