Yes! And I can confirm I’ve dealt with some serious Give-Up-On-Life adversities, so try and trust me! 😆
Meditate! There’s nothing to ‘learn’ other than letting it happen, getting to understand how to go into that space where life’s seas become still. It’s the best commitment I’ve ever made and has been profoundly life changing in the most unremarkable, every day, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way. That’s what I move th most: Profound change and it’s felt effortless. Though I’ve committed to something important and life giving. I’ve been practicing (fully) for two years and this is the year I’ve really felt this deep transformation. Forget the ‘sit in a lotus position and chant Om’ approach because you’ll be working too hard to try and eliminate the noise. You’ll be trying too hard to meditate! Let the noise in. Let your brain rattle. It will eventually learn to undo these habits as you understand how to detach from consciousness.
I started out by doing Yoga Nidra/Shavasana listening to a lady on Spotify named Caroline Wirthl. I did guided meditations with Jon Kabat Zinn on Spotify and YT. I listen to a guy now called Rafael Reiter. Mostly I meditate on my own now.
I do Dr Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing as well as box breathing.
And I read or listen to a lot of Christian/Buddhist podcasts and audiobooks. I like a guy named Adyashanti a lot. He’s just got a cool, loving, human, Zen philosophy and he’s funny too. Relaxing to listen to. I feel like a better more gracious human when I listen to him. His teachings have helped me massively!
Three years ago, I suffered cardiac arrest and lived (thankfully) only to then lose my brother, my best friend ever in life, suddenly. Three months after that, I’d learned that my then husband had been sexually abusing our daughter for 5 years… this is after a ten year period of physical illness, stillbirth, family cancer, family drug addiction… life just throwing its reality at me. Life is full of suffering that comes to challenge us. So how do we find hope and purpose and meaning through clenched jaws and fists? That was my question. I still ask but I’m learning. I have some good tools. Everyone has them. We just need to be shown how to use them and how to navigate this physical existence full of noise and ego using our spiritual map.
Raphael Reiter is the meditation guy I tune into and he quotes Stoic philosophy a lot. One of those quotes is something along the lines of ‘To live itself is an act of courage.’ How true.
As heavy as my post is, I truly find living a deeply meaningful and beautiful experience and crucially, my interaction with people is so much more loving and simple. My smile comes from my heart and I feel a love for this life inside this world that has given me a small space at its magnificent table. And in turn I am more aware of being part of something greater than ‘me/I’. It takes a lot to piss me off. 😆That was not the case before.
And having been married to such a terrible and harmful human really pushed me to work on matters of the heart and soul. If I didn’t, I was going to go mad.
Sorry for the sermon. 😬
I hope you find what your heart needs. Find your soul food and nourish yourself lovingly. 💐