Mind
Getting Out of Your Head
When I was growing up, like many people I got convinced that the goal of life was to get more stuff and status. Fast forward a couple of decades and I thought I’d hit the jackpot when I moved into my beautiful new villa in Bali.
I slipped into the swimming pool to watch the sunset over the rice paddies, gin and tonic in hand, finally ready to relax now that I’d made it. And I had a profound revelation: I still wasn’t happy.
Yes, it dawned on me that, despite the material trinkets and a few life achievements, my old insecurities still persisted, a sense of lack and inadequacy and the feeling that I just didn’t really quite belong.
There was clearly something seriously wrong with my approach.
In fact, my search for external fulfilment had been doomed to failure from the very start - for a couple of very good evolutionary reasons, it turned out that stuff and status were never going to be able to satisfy me. The game was actually rigged, with Mother Nature having programmed my brain to always adapt to whatever I got. That meant that, after a nice initial buzz, any shiny new toy or title would soon be re-categorised as the new normal and I’d return to my default factory settings: dissatisfied and wanting more. Yes, MN wanted to keep me all competitive and insecure as a way of ensuring that I was motivated to pass my genes down to the next generation.
Then I came across meditation, and it offered an exit ramp off this hamster wheel. It started with stopping believing everything I thought. So I began practicing daily and subsequently went on to study a variety of techniques in India, Burma, Nepal, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. I eventually took the plunge to train as a teacher and am now accredited by the University of California.
The great news is that meditation can work for you too - and it’s actually much easier than you might think! There’s nothing inherently mystical or magical about it, just a series of straight forward, practical exercises to calm your mind and make you happier. Plus there are a range of techniques to suit everyone, including ones focused on movement and breathing rather than just sitting still.
And, best of all, the more manic your brain is to start with, then the more you stand to gain!
I offer private individual and group classes, in-person and online, so why not give it a try?