Meditation cured my anxiety!
In this episode I share my journey with meditation and why I think EVERYONE needs to start meditating today!
Meditation is an essential spiritual practice. But for some people it feels too hard, or you might not feel any benefits from sitting in silence. But did you know that meditation can be so much more than this.
I started practicing yoga when I was 12 years old, so for many years this was my form of meditation. In my early twenties I loved attending meditation groups and would always feel so blissed out from the vibes in coming together as a group and meditating.
After I finished high school I studied Community Services, Mental Health, AOD, and Counselling. I got a job straight away with Mind Australia, which was in mental health and I was very passionate about this industry, the helping industry. I had 'lived' experiences with mental health with my family as well as my own experiences with depression as a teenager. I felt like I could really understand my clients and what they were going through.
While working with many different people, with many different diagnosis', I struggled the most with clients with anxiety, because I didn't really get why they were experiencing anxiety. Being intuitive I felt like I was connected with my future in a positive way.
Depression is not letting go of the past, and anxiety is a fear of the future. If you remain in the present moment you often find you don't have much to worry about. So I would teach my clients mindfulness practices. It was in this time that I attempted to create a meditation practice for myself, I knew there were so many benefits of meditation, and I always wanted to do the best thing for my well-being.
What I thought was meditation was sitting in silence, completely clearing my mind. And yes this is a form of meditation, but this actually a really difficult way to start meditating. But I didn't know this at the time, and I'm sure a lot of people would think of this form of meditation and may not realize that there are other ways to meditate that may be more beneficial and worthwhile for them. But I would try to meditate like this in the morning. I would get ready for work and then sit up right on my bed and attempt to clear mind, and honestly I found this really challenging and frustrating. I kept at this for months and didn't feel it get any easier. I could not clear my mind, and couldn't stop thinking about what I needed to get done in the day! I was told it would get easier but it didn't for me.
It wasn't until I became a mother that I experienced anxiety! Creating a human that I was completely responsible for created so much anxiety within myself. When my son was 4 months old he was diagnosed with a cows milk protein intolerance. When he was around 2 weeks old he would cry in pain continuously for hours and hours. As a first time mum without much support, I thought this was what babies did. It was incredibly stressful and I began experiencing intense anxiety over my baby crying. This experience brought forth many other journey's around food, health, ethics and spirituality that I will share in another episode.
I started doing some guided meditations during this time and felt the benefits from this. I did these meditations at night before bed and I found this would work better for my personality type. I also incorporated a mindfulness practice, for me, mine was making a cup of tea mindfully.
When my daughter was about 6 months old, I came home to find that my house had been broken into. I felt completely vulnerable and powerless, holding my baby and not knowing if I was interrupting the person breaking in, or if I was in immediate danger. I felt like I was in immediate danger, and the whole experience was very traumatizing for me. They had destroyed the house, and taken the few expensive items that I had, including a hard drive that had photos of my daughters birth that I could never get again. After this experience I started to show symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My anxiety went through the roof and everything seemed to be a trigger for me. This anxiety was crippling, and I could finally empathize with the clients I worked with that suffered this disorder.
I could not function in any sense. I couldn't go food shopping, I couldn't keep on top of the house work, couldn't create healthy meals, I was very stressed. My beautiful friend Rani, who has been on the podcast suggested I get some professional help. I would love to get the counselor I saw on the podcast, she introduced particular types of meditations that helped me cure my anxiety, and it worked! I had to do this meditation everyday for 30 days straight and it rewired my brain and released the stress and anxious responses. She also told me that 20 minutes of meditation equaled to 4 hours of sleep and for a single mum with two kids under two I was sold! Also if you do it before bed and fall asleep, the meditation will still be accessed by your sub-conscious.
I continued to explore different guided meditations. I meditated to clear my Chakras, to get grounded, to clear my energy, any thing that you want to achieve, you can do it through a guided meditation. Do not underestimate the power of meditation, even guided meditations, especially ones created by someone with a degree in neuroscience!
I understand that it is hard to achieve a flawless meditation practice when you are a mother. It may take a bit of experimenting on what works for you. For me, the best time of the day is before bed, and I lay down in bed and often fall asleep, and it is usually a guided meditation.
There are many different ways to meditate, including guided, mantra meditations, walking meditations, dance meditation, yoga, body scan.
Check out my Youtube video on 'How to meditate' for a fun way to get some ideas flowing on how you can create a daily meditation practice.
My favourite guided meditation that I do nearly every night is by Lynn Ames for Clearing, grounding and protecting
Subscribe to my channel for my own guided meditations.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFL-WTcvQIfhm0YMzyIyIRQ
Meditating regularly helps strengthen your intuition. I receive most of the information for my own psychic readings through meditation.
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