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Meditation - a remedy for overwhelm? - 25th November 2020
Have you ever considered learning to meditate? Maybe you've held back because you think it won't work for you? I used to feel the same but now have a completely different perspective! If you experience 'head clutter' then I strongly recommend that you give it a go.
When I succumbed to adrenal exhaustion in 2015 I knew I needed a multi-pronged approach to my recovery. My symptoms in the beginning were that of complete and utter overwhelm. My mind was either racing or full of fog. I felt panicky at the slightest challenge and quite out of control most of the time as regards my emotions. It was scary.
A friend of mine who suffered with anxiety had experienced huge benefits as a result of learning and practicing meditation. Hence, I began to seriously consider this as an option.
It took me a long while to find what I needed!
First off I attended an in-person class. This did allow me to discover the benefits of meditation but I struggled to practice at home and found the classes to be quite restrictive in the way we did the meditations. We were expected to sit on the floor on a special meditation stool and to be honest I found it hard to relax in that position! After a while I gave it up because attending involved a 45 minute round trip in the car. Also because I felt I needed to learn a form of meditation I could use at home.
I tried to meditate by myself but found it quite hard. I then went for a taster session run by Buddhist outreach. The public room they were using was cold and stark with very bright fluorescent lighting and we were expected to sing a Buddhist hymn despite the teacher saying we weren't there to convert to Buddhism. That felt quite weird, so I didn't go back a second time.
I then did a series of classes with a teacher via Zoom and got some benefit from this, thank goodness! After this I was more able to meditate at home. However, my real breakthrough came in July 2019 when I attended a retreat for women run by Nancy Swisher. Part of the retreat practice was meditation, but Nancy referred to it as "accessing stillness". I liked this, somehow it took the pressure off. It felt so much more accessible and less demanding to simply access stillness. Of course we were actually meditating! That's when I realised meditation can be easier than I had ever thought.
How meditation has helped me
I know that if I feel stressed, meditation helps me feel much calmer. My frantic mind is being trained to quieten down. I feel more relaxed in my body than I did before and I also have access to a lot more mental clarity. Meditation has also helped me tap into my inner wisdom, my intuition. I used to think I had no intuition. What was really going on was that my mind was making so much "noise" it was impossible to hear my intuition. Now I have made space for the stillness I am getting much more valuable insight about what to do and how to do it. This in itself reduces stress and all those thoughts that go round and round in circles.
Try my introduction to meditation - delivered via audio recordings
Meditation is a great antidote to what I refer to as 'head clutter' and so it seemed logical that I should offer some kind of meditation training to clients.
Initially I offered this via six Zoom sessions but realised that the timings were difficult for people to attend live. Hence the latest version is delivered to you by email with all the content in audio recordings with my voice as guide. In each of the six emails you will have an explanation of an aspect of meditation followed by a short guided meditation. The last email in the series has a downloadable PDF with all the course notes so you can continue to meditate with confidence on your own.
The next course starts on Monday 7th December 2020 and the cost is just £16
If you would like to take part or have any questions, please drop me an email.
Keywords: meditation, overwhelm, head-clutter
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