Meditation; My New High
My journey with meditation began around 30 years ago. I was in my early twenties, full of energy, working for a design agency where pressure and deadlines were a daily thing. My boss and I were real kindred spirits, when it came to my birthday he gifted me a box set of cassette tapes called The Higher Self by Deepak Chopra, someone little known to me at the time. I was absolutely mesmerised and captivated by the content, by its depth and wondrous meaning, transfixed by the beautiful dulcet tones of Deepak Chopra. It was from there my curiosity really began and I embarked upon my journey with meditation.
Deepak Chopra
Fast forward almost 30 years to 2024, I’m teaching a moving meditation practice and spending around three hours a day in meditation and sacred sound. It’s only been in the last three or four years that I’ve been able to really feel into it, to add depth and layers to the meditative hours and to really crave it every day. It’s now become as routine as brushing my teeth. It’s most definitely the healthiest and cheapest habit I’ve ever formed that’s for sure! It frames the start and end of the day, sometimes a little bit in between, it’s my way of connecting to myself and connecting to a higher power which I happen to call God.
My routine is simple. In the morning, I rise at 5:00am and meditate with a group of people from the Vortex Centre for Wellbeing in Lanark, founded by Jim McFadyen. The mission; to help, to heal, to live an intentional life. We’ve been doing the morning meditations as a collective for the last four months and I can’t quite put in to words yet how transformational it has been. The shift is quite significant. I’ve always been a real night owl and not particularly a morning person. The thought of getting up at 5 o’clock to me is like waking in the middle of the night, but now…. I can’t wait to get up in the morning, I often feel a calling to wake. Starting the day connecting to myself, to my Vortex tribe and most importantly to God. I have an hour or so in meditation followed by another hour before everyone in my household gets up. As a mother of two boys having some headspace makes me better at my job of being a mother, more balanced and rarely feeling the rising anger we are all too quick to latch on to. The Vortex movement is gathering real pace. Watching the meditation group unfold and how we are all transforming our lives one day at a time, it feels like such an honour to be part of. Forever grateful to my brother Jim, he has shown me what it means to really know God; to really know me.
Come the evening time I’m preparing myself the night before for the day ahead. I can hear Jim’s mantra in my head “the best day ever starts the night before” a favourite quote in the Vortex circle. I spend an hour in guided or silent meditation, fairly new to me. My biggest challenge right now is sitting in complete silence and quieting the mind. I’ve always allowed sound to form my practice so this is a new part of the journey yet to unfold for me. The morning offers this sacred silence, before the world rises! Rumi says, “the morning breeze has a secret to tell, don’t go back to sleep” There is something quite incredible about that quiet energy of the early morning, before anything has stirred… Silence is golden right enough.
Training with master Lee Holden has led me to explore many Taoist meditations. This last 4 years has been an immersive journey. One I am particularly fond of is The Inner Smile where we smile into our body, bringing the smiling energy in to each organ in the body! Try it out, raise the corner of the mouth and bring a soft smile to the face, imagine you’re bringing that smile into the heart, with each breath fill the heart with your smiling energy! Try holding onto your smile for as long as possible. You can then move through each major organ, lungs, kidneys, heart, liver, stomach/spleen. Breathe long slow and deep as you pull the smiling energy into the body. You can really feel the chemistry within you change and transform. The power of a genuine smile (known as a Duchenne btw).
Other resources I tap into, there are many but here’s a few… A general tool and great start point is Insight Timer, an app with thousands of meditations, from beginner to advanced. A free app, but you can subscribe for more content. You can get very specific, a really useful resource and go to. I’m still a fan of Deepak Chopra. His teachings on quantum healing never fail to amaze me! For me the tone of voice has to resonate otherwise it can be difficult to connect or even listen to the words! Dr Joe Dispenza is also a firm favourite, a very distinctive tone, incredibly powerful meditations with the principle of healing through thoughts alone underpinning his work. I also tune in to Abraham Hicks’ whose teachings are based on the idea that your thoughts create what happens in the physical world. I enjoy their affirmations hugely! And of course not forgetting meditation in nature sounds, allowing the backdrop of nature to wash over you, powerful in the mornings as the birds begin to sing their songs.
As you can see there are many ways to access meditation. The benefits are tenfold, from better balanced emotions to increased energy levels, to increased immunity. It is our way to recharge, to press pause. We wouldn’t dream of leaving our mobiles with little battery left, so why not think of ourselves in the same way. By turning and tuning our thoughts inwards we can shape our inner landscape, prepare the ground for a more gratifying and fulfilling existence on this earth!
My message is simple Try Meditation, start off simply, just a few minutes every day. Or come along to one of my classes where I guide you through a Qi Gong moving meditation into a resting meditation with sound healing accompanying my spoken word.
“One conscious breath in and out is a meditation.” Eckhart Tolle
