Category Archives: Uncategorized

How Transcendental Meditation is leading me to other discoveries.

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When we least expect our life to improve, it does.

Now that I’ve been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 7 months, I see where I was when my mind broke. I see the life, the person and the lack of spirituality I had in my life.

I know that I’ve been Buddhist for over 10 years, but I never meditated every day until TM. It’s not because I didn’t want to, it was only because I didn’t see it affecting my life the way I thought it would.

I see others who’ve practiced Buddhism and they seem okay, but some of them who say they practice, aren’t exactly happy with the lives they live and it affects who they are, how they respond to criticism and whether they’re open to improving themselves.

When things came crashing down 7 months ago, I had no other options than to try something “radical”.

To me Transcendental Meditation seemed “radical”, it was something I’d looked into, but it wasn’t something I really believed would help me, because we never truly believe the benefits of something until we’ve tried it.

When I sat down with Michael, my teacher, I wasn’t sure what would happen, and maybe I wasn’t prepared for what happened.

While I sat and began my mantra, I felt a pull. It was full and yet it wasn’t alarming. It was the most calming thing that had ever happened to me.

As I descended into the pool of warmth I felt an absolute calm. There was nothing around me but calm water. While I sat at the bottom of the pool there was nothing but warmth and while it’s been 7 months since I began the intensity of the warmth and the strength of the calm, if you could call it that.

While I’ve dealt with many things the last seven months, including the death of my father-in-law, I’ve found that TM is the only thing which calms me enough, quiets my mind enough and centers my soul enough to continue with life.

The last few months I’ve been away from the blog to focus on non-blog related writing and though I had wanted to take a break from blogging, but there are many things I want to say about TM, about how I’ve benefited from it, how my family has and how my writing has.

Over the next few months I’ll be telling you these things. Some of them are drastic others, though seemingly minor, have changed who I am.

Why I Rethought The Way I Look at My Writing.

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Each day we’re stuck living someone else’s dream.

We go to a job where oftentimes, we’re creating something for someone else, because it pays the bills.

What if we decided to live our dream, pay the bills and still keep people happy?

This was something I thought about the other day when I was writing.

I work a day job, which I had considered my main job, obviously neglecting my writing and anything creative in the process.

That was until this past week, when I was struck with something, I’m not a writer. I’m pretending to be a writer.

What I realized in that “moment of clarity” is that I’ve been looking at my writing as a second job, sure it doesn’t pay the bills right now, but as long as I treat my writing as the second job and not the first, it will always suffer.

In this realization I thought, “Damn, if I think this way, others do as well.”

What do we do about it?

We rethink our creative side, redo the way we look at our day and come up with ways to put our creative efforts first, and other things second.

I say this as a husband and father, “If your creative side isn’t in first place, it will never win.”

I have obligations, it’s not like I’m going to quit my day job, not right now. I see the time coming when that will happen, but it’s not right now.

The thing is, we all have things we want to do, but we put them in second place out of fear, shame or other reasons.

Fear of rejection, fear of someone not understanding and the fear of failure. And shame, damn, shame is the worst. When we look at the things we’ve failed at there could be a big list, and because we failed at those the shame and fear of it happening again makes us not want to try, not want to do it again.

But, when we come to the realization, as I did, that what we wake up for in the morning should be first. That the thing we want to do most in our life should be first, then, and only then will we discover the will to do it.

I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be hard. There will be people who say you can’t do it, there will be that damn voice in your head and when the voice in your head talks, tell it to F off.

The only way you’re going to do what you want with your life is to put your creative pursuits first and anything else second.

We live someone else’s dream every day, isn’t it about time we live our dream?

Why Finding Your Self is The Best Thing You’ll Do

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A year ago I was dealing with not being enough for my biological dad.

I had no idea that being enough for myself was a possibility, or that I should even consider being enough for myself.

When I look back on how I dealt with things in the aftermath of the events which would send me in a spiral of depression, alcohol and self-loathing, I understand why they happened, and why finding myself became the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself.

When our life spirals we try to blame others, anything but dealing with the face in the mirror or the voices in our head telling us we’re not good enough.

When I sat down and looked at who I was, what my life was like and how I let someone else take my confidence, happiness and self-respect, I realize I didn’t know who I was then.

I felt like I was this person created from all the things my biological dad wanted me to be as a kid or teenager. I knew that I had to get past the things he believed I was and become the person I knew I could be.

Even though he hasn’t been my dad for 16 years, his voice echoes in my head, because it’s the voice I heard telling me I wasn’t good enough, I couldn’t do it or I was too skinny.

His voice, unlike my own, filled my head with bullshit that kept me from being me.

We reach a point when the voice in our head is telling us lies. Whether your voice is a parent, sibling or something else, listen to your voice, listen to your heart and do what it says.

NO ONE knows you like you do. NO ONE will ever know you the way you know yourself.

I’ve had my voice in my head for the last 6 months. It’s been telling me I can do anything I want, and I want to be a writer. I’m no longer satisfied with being anything but.

When I think about where I was a year ago and the lessons I learned from being that person, I’ll never go back to listening to that voice or fail myself the way I did a year ago.

I’ve found I’m more important to myself than I believed and I now understand how to believe in myself like I never have before. I’ve become someone else in the last 6 months and he’s tired of the bullshit and ready to do the things he’s put off because of one little voice.

I wouldn’t have found my own voice without hearing his, but not hearing his voice in my head anymore has led me to discover how beautiful the world is, my family is and that I don’t have to put up with the bullshit anymore.

 

How my Wife Saved Me.

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Our life, our writing and who we are come together often. Sometimes we discover those who help us need help more than we do.

Each day I wake up, meditate, kiss my kids before they go to school and I always tell my wife I love her

The last part has many reasons, the biggest being how much she’s saved me in the 16 years we’ve been together.

When we first met, I thought she was something she wasn’t and she thought I was a kid who had a few issues.

The more we got to know each other, and when we started dating, I discovered she was as broken as I was and that together we became one whole person.

Tomorrow we celebrate our 15 year wedding anniversary and she’s done more to help me find myself than anyone who’s ever been in my life.

She’s never questioned my motives, never told me I shouldn’t follow my heart and gave me the wonderful kids we have.

She’s my editor when I need help, my confidant when I need counseling, and she always believes I can write better than what I wrote before.

I see more of myself in her every day and I since starting TM I’ve begun to understand why we’re still together and why we need each other.

She’s the best part of who I am and I’d never have the courage to write anything without her love and trust.

I see now that I’m better than I was, but I’ll always be better with her in my life than I could have been had we not met and helped each other when we needed it most.

I find comfort in her by my side and I know I’ve found the person who makes me better.

When you Stand in a NICU…

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When you stand in a NICU you try not to listen to other parents, at least that’s what I did. I tried not to make eye contact.

I knew they were there for the same reason I was, their child had been born early and though they had other obligations, they needed to be there to watch their child get better or huddle in the corner with their spouse, doctor or nurse to hear they wouldn’t be able to take their child home.

It’s been nearly five years since I stood in that room, the sound of alarms going off as a silent prayer comes from my lips, please don’t be her.

I remember the month she was in the hospital after her birth. The first few days were the worst. We were told her lungs were underdeveloped and that she may not make it.

I remember the feeling of absolute despair that day, it was the same I’d felt when my son came into the world. His little body was stronger than hers and he was out of the NICU and into the nursery in a matter of hours.

The memory of her being in the NICU is one of the strongest I have of my kids. The sound of the machines, the little tubes and wires coming from her skin, each doing something I didn’t know, I only wished for them to keep her alive so I could hold her.

When we took her home a month after her birth, she wasn’t near the weight of most infants and I worried constantly that she’d have to go back to the hospital for some reason.

She’s only been in the hospital once since then for MRSA, which scared the hell out of us, but she pulled through.

Every time I kiss her goodnight I think about that month where she was my little girl, but she wasn’t mine to take home.

When I see her face in the morning I think about the future and the things I want to protect her from and I worry I won’t be able to protect her from everything, but I’ll do my best to always be there for her as I tried to be when she was in the plastic box covered in tubes and wires.

She’s getting bigger, smarter and has a quick wit like me, but there are times I wish the world wasn’t there to change her. I like her curiosity and the way she asks about things.

I wait for the days of dates and I hope she knows I’ll walk her through the things she doesn’t understand and I’ll help her become the woman she wants to be.