I meditated for 100 days straight – it changed my life

How to hear the whispers of your soul loud and clear.

I have been feeling some existentialist pangs recently as I go through this period of transition my life. The big roles that devoured so much of my energy and focus have dropped away.

So I’m left asking the big questions: What really matters? What’s it all for anyway? What do I really want?

I was talking to another friend recently going through the same thing and he said: ‘Oh my god. Don’t go there. Just distract yourself as much as you can.’

That’s one way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love distracting myself. But when whatever is distracting me stops grabbing my attention - then what?

For me, I get left with that empty feeling.

Another friend gently asked - ‘Are you still meditating?’

100 days of meditating transformed my life

I first started meditating in 1997 when I wrote an article about it improving my sex life for a magazine called New Woman.

Cringe.

But that started me off on a flirtation with meditation that’s been ongoing for almost 30 years.

Four years ago, I recommitted to a daily meditation practice for 100 days when I took a course with Nick Scaramanga, a zen Buddhist teacher who lived near me in Sussex.  

Committing to meditate for 100 days straight unleashed a whole string of life events – from moving on to a canal boat and making the big leap and moving to Alnwick to starting a book festival and writing a book. It’s amazing what can happen when you commit to close your eyes and focus on your breathing for 30 minutes a day!

I’ve found that if I can get beyond that initial instinct of fight or flight when all my thoughts loom large and threaten to pull me under into the hell of noticing my fears and nonsense, I’m half way there. Slowly, over time, the fear dissipates as I realise that not only can I cope with all the nonsense but I can step back from it and create some space in the inner drama.

In the space, you hear the whispers of your soul.

Which leaves you able to hear loud and clear what you really want to do, what really matters.

It’s like being a really noisy party and you suddenly escape out on to the porch for a breath of cold air and look up and see the stars. 

But recently, I’ve found myself back in the noisy party with a patchy meditation practice.

Probably because since moving to Alnwick, I’ve been enjoying the party – new people, new adventures, new everything.

A perfect and brilliant distraction.

But right now, I think I need to step out on the porch for a while.

I am recommitting to a daily practice of meditation.

30 minutes a day for 100 days.

Anyone want to join me?

Here’s an excerpt from the interview with Nick Scaramanga. (You can read the whole interview in Metro here)  

How does meditation impact your health in positive ways?

Studies show that just 30 minutes of meditation a day will boost your health, empathy, joy, intelligence and creativity, as well as reduce your stress, anxiety and depression. It also helps us develop concentration, focus and a deeper awareness of how things really are in our lives; switching us from auto-pilot mode to being fully engaged creators of our own health, happiness and fulfilment.

When I first started meditating, I found it so hard. I became aware of all my dark thoughts and emotions and I just wanted to run away.

Meditation is learning to sit and observe your thoughts and feelings versus engaging with them. I’m sure you still have dark thoughts and emotions, but you have simply learned that just as those thoughts and feeling arise, they drift away too. They come and they go.

By meditating regularly, we learn that we don’t have to react or respond to every thought and emotion. It allows you to step back from the cacophony of noise in your head, and simply accept your thoughts and feelings, but not react to them.

If you really want to learn about meditation, it’s better to just to do it and experience it. I recommend that people set an intention to meditate for 100 days for 30 minutes a day. Journal after each session and see for yourself what happens – both to your health and your life.

When I committed to meditating for 100 days it helped me stop living in my head and start being more present and life became clearer.

Why does that happen?

When we live in our heads, we’re often brooding about the past or fantasising about the future and creating a million stories in our head and we miss the fact that we are sitting here right now in a room when in fact, most of the time, all is well. Learning to meditate helps ground you in the present moment and allows you to notice the thoughts versus getting hooked by their projections.

Why can meditation have such a profound effect?

It turns a lot of Western thinking on its head. Our Western thinking is often about chasing material possessions or chasing success or trying to find things outside of ourselves that will make us feel happier inside. Zen meditation invites you to look within and stop chasing happiness and rather accept life exactly how it is. It is deliberately and consciously choosing to bring your awareness into the present moment reality without judgement. You allow noises, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations to flow through you and around you. Every day for 30 minutes you are training your mind to stop trying to grasp and hold on, or reject and push away certain experiences and that in time, will impact the way you live your life.

How does that work?

Rather than craving something that you think will make you feel better or rejecting something you don’t like, you practice observing your desires, thoughts and feelings as they ebb and flow. You are learning to regulate your nervous system. You are noticing your triggers without being emotionally attached to them. You stop demanding that the present looks a certain way. Think about squeezing your fist tightly and then letting go. That’s what it can feel like. You let go of the tension, you stop resisting the ‘what is.’

When we’re constantly resisting, it creates stress in the body. This results in the release of the fight or flight hormones adrenaline and cortisol. This adversely affect the telomeres, which are the protective sheets around your cells. This visibly causes ageing, and cellular destruction, which makes you less physically able to carry out your daily day to day life in ease and comfort.

Nick Scaramanga www.zenskills.com