Transcendental Meditation amid a Torrent

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It started in Houston, a small drizzle, preceded by a ridiculously bumpy landing.
From Houston, a layover of 45 minutes and a decent sandwich from an airport vendor, we boarded for New Orleans.
It was our first vacation without the kids and we’d she’d only seen The Crescent City in a mad rush through the Quarter and didn’t see the beauty the city held, only what at 19, she was really allowed by her parents.
Arriving at our hotel too early for check-in, we left our luggage with their bellperson and headed for Jackson Square.
Stepping on the street, we saw the usual New Orleans panhandlers, though there were less than there’d been when I visited the city 17 years prior.
The chill of an early spring rain and the smell of spices and Creole seasonings drifted from the restaurants we passed.
Our stomachs were soon growling and though we weren’t quite hungry we perused menus searching for dinner, but nothing sounded good and we made our way to Jackson Square, it was then as the chill and scents of New Orleans ran through our senses the heavens opened.
It wasn’t the rain we were used to. It was a southern downpour.
We ran from awning to awning and sidewalk to sidewalk dodging the torrent unleashed upon us.
We stepped in puddles as our clothes became drenched and then we decided to sit, eat and take in the flavors of New Orleans.
I’d only been doing TM a week, but after our meal we returned to our hotel for my second meditation of the day.
My wife thought it was a phase at that point, or that I couldn’t be experiencing the things I told her, but now that it’s been months later, she understands that it’s not a fluke and she’s closer to learning the TM technique.

How Transcendental Meditation changed my Writing Fears Into Confidence

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He strode across the floor, his walk more of a glide than I’d anticipated, but there was confidence in it. He looked past the veil of flesh of my exterior, seeing only the soul within.
The look scared me.

Before Transcendental Meditation, I felt like I’d create a new blog post, start a new story, I’d always have that thought, just before I’d finish, “Can I really show this to anyone? How would they feel about who I really am?”

With TM came a new understanding of who I am, not just as a person, but as a writer. I no longer worry about whether someone judges what I write. For my fiction, I write for myself, for my blog posts I write to free myself and hopefully help others, which is extremely gratifying.

I’ve sat, staring at my monitor, my finger twitching, my hand on the publish button before, but now, publishing a blog post is a given. There are posts which don’t get the words out right and they may never be published, but I wrote them.

Sometimes getting past the fear of judgement is the greatest fear we deal with. It can be writing, performing or it can be our day job, but the fear of judgement dissipates.

Fear is the only thing which held me back from writing what I wanted. Fear is the only thing holding any of us back from becoming who we want to be and who we deserve to be. TM has truly been a blessing to me, one I intend to share with my wife and kids.

My fear of judgement on my writing and personal life is considerably less than before TM.

 

How Transcendental Meditation Helped Me Live in the Present Moment.

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A soft flurry, like shredded tissue paper from God’s hands fell around me.

I watched the three of them play, one snowball, another.

Their laughter and smiles infectious as they struggled to stay upright on the damp grass.

I stood at the top of the hill, a smile from ear to ear as I watched my wife and kids play and I wondered, “how many of these moments have I missed?”

When I think about the selfish person I was a year ago (and I’m not referring to suicide). I wonder about the times days like the snowballs and laughter happened, but I was too busy worrying about myself?

I could have done more for my wife and kids, I see that now, but then, I couldn’t see anything but my own ambition and ego.

Ambition which had led me astray, ego which had nearly killed my marriage, but now that I’m better and see who I was, I think about moments, small moments that I may have missed because I wasn’t paying attention to the “moment’.

But what thing stands out among everything. The person I was missed some awesome things, things which I’ll never get back, but I’m trying.

I look at my children playing, my son tearing it up on video games, my daughter and her Palace Pets, and I broke a promise to them, one I’ve been working to repair.

For my wife, whose trust and love I often took for granted, I try to make new moments for us. Moments only we know about, whether it’s laughter about me acting out something that happened at work, or doing one of the numerous voices I’m able to do, I’ve begun to find myself in the ego I once held sacred.

I look for ways to make up for the person I was, whether that’s my son telling me about school, showing me the details of his new Lego collection, or my daughter explaining the intricacies of which Palace Pet belongs to which Disney Princess.

I listen more to them now. My wife, I truly hear her. I don’t judge her as I once did. I take notice of her more and that’s the one thing I’ve noticed about TM and who I am now, I find myself more in love with my wife than I believe I’ve ever been.

I see the way she fixes her hair to try to hide the grey and the way she looks at me as if I were an alien when I respond to a question in a way my former self wouldn’t have.

I see all these things about my family, and to think, I’m different because of 20 minutes twice a day. That’s all I’ve changed.

The Day I Almost Didn’t See.

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We never think about when our loved ones leave us until it gets closer.

It was 5:37, the phone pierced the early morning silence. Her hands unsteady, my mind racing, I watched her reach for it.

I tried not to listen, but by that time he’d already become another father to me.

I lay there with her in the predawn light, pieces of sun pushing through the blinds, her head on my chest, the tears flowing, hers and mine.

I held her until she had to get up and clear her sinuses.

My chest moist from her tears, her hair damp from mine and as she returned to bed, I realized what we’d been through the last 16 years.

She’d watched two of my grandfathers pass and one grandmother. While I saw her grandmother and that morning her father, but through all of it I never had that moment of clarity which expressed itself that morning.

We’d seen the worst of each other. The worst of our parents and yet we still clung to each other that morning.

I see her today. Her face bright, her multicolored eyes shimmering and I think about a year ago when I nearly took my own life.

I see our kids, their beautiful faces and remember thinking, “they’ll be better.”

But the truth was, I believed it then.

Today I see the life I almost gave up and I hug her tighter because I almost wasn’t there to hold her, to embrace her and wipe the tears away.

The last 8 months has changed me. Transcendental Meditation has changed who I am and I never thought I could feel this happy, but I never believed I’d live this long.

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.