Tag Archives: transcendental meditation

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.

How Transcendental Meditation Helped Me Find What I Was Looking For.

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We only find what we’ve been looking for when we’ve failed at everything else.

A little over a year ago I fell into a deep depression and contemplated suicide. My depression stemmed from a few different things, most of which were caused by external forces and my own head.

But the truth is things had been brewing for years.

It started with my biological dad and I having an argument, being kicked out of the house, arriving in Las Vegas with my big sister and having no idea what I was going to do with my life, which is a recurring theme.

My girlfriend moved down a month after I arrived in Las Vegas, we found an apartment soon after, bought a house and that’s when it started getting interesting!

I started getting migraines in 2004, just after the birth of my son. I went through test after test, to no avail. Doctors not finding anything medically wrong with me made me put off the fact that it was in my head, something I now regret not seeking help for.

When the economy tanked in 2007, along with many others, I lost our house. I say “I” because with the headaches and missed work because of them we were unable to live a life we once had and hence were unable to continue owning our house.

After the loss of our house, our daughter was born, 6 weeks early.

She lived in the N.I.C.U. unit at the hospital for the first month of her life and because she was sick and I was unable to do anything to help her get better, I felt like I had failed at being a father, something which I’ve felt often with my kids and even though my wife argues this point with me, I feel like I’ve failed them by not offering the life I felt the deserved.

I thought of leaving my wife and kids often at that point. I believed they’d be better off with someone who could take care of them in a way I couldn’t.

It was only after the death of my grandfather last year the true force of the depression took hold.

It started small, with an illness, shingles, and went throughout the winter. None of my family had an inkling of what was going on in my head.

Someone dealing with depression and thoughts of suicide will do anything to keep it from the people they care about.

My first thoughts of suicide happened toward the end of February. I planned things out. I knew my family would be better without me. The thought that I was killing myself to be rid of life, never occurred to me. The thought that “everyone will be better off without me” that happened multiple times throughout the day.

Toward the end of March I broke. The well that had been building inside me broke and I felt I either had get fixed or jump from a very tall parking structure, of which there are many in Las Vegas.

The break came after work. I called my wife sobbing, “I need to get help. I can’t do this anymore.”

I’d been looking into Transcendental Meditation earlier in the month and felt that I should try it, because I was out of options.

I went on the website, submitted my information and was contacted the next day via e-mail by my TM teacher Michael.

I called him, or he called me, I can’t remember which.

He was having a group come in the following Tuesday and I told him I’d be there.

I showed up to the meeting nervous, anxious and wondering about all the things that led me to try something I’d only read about in David Lynch’s book “Catching the Big Fish”.

I listened to Michael, watched a video of Maharishi and found myself truly listening.

By the end of the meeting I knew I wanted to do it.

I made an appointment for the next week, brought some flowers and few other things for the small ceremony, sat down, was given my mantra, began reciting it and plunged into a deep pool of consciousness.

At first I was unsure of what was happening, then Michael said, alright it’s been 20 minutes, stop repeating the mantra and begin coming up.

That was 6 months ago and there are many things which have changed in those months.

I still suffer from migraines, though they occur once a month, not the 3 or four a week I used to deal with.

I’ve discovered how wonderful my wife is all over again, how much I love her and how absolutely magical our love is.

I’ve seen people I work with ask me what’s wrong with me, what I’m taking and I’ve seen others become distant because of the new-found respect I have for myself.

There are those who will never understand me, they don’t need to. Throughout the last 6 months I’ve learned to be strong when dealing the adversity, to find out who I am and embrace him.

I’ve begun paying more attention to what is important to my kids and want to know what’s important to them, because the more I know about them the better father I can be.

Throughout all of the last 16 years there is only one person whose faith never wavered. She is my heart, soul and the reason I want to be a better man each day.

When I think of where I’ve been since I was kicked out that house. I’m a better man for not having him in my life, for learning to do things without his help and for my wife being by my side.

When I look at the places my mind has been, I see that everything led me to discover who I was, find my place and without my wife I wouldn’t be here.

 

This will be the last post of Delusions of Ink for the foreseeable future. I’ve enjoyed this blog very much, but it’s time to spend more of my writing time, writing books and doing the things I was too afraid to do before TM.

I leave you with this: If you’re struggling with depression, seek help. Talk to someone.

 

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?

Getting Past Who I Thought I Was

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I’m discovering I wasn’t who I thought I was.

When we reach a certain point in our lives, we find that the person we believe ourselves to be, isn’t the one everyone else sees. This is either by accident or design.

I’ve always thought of myself as shy, reserved, but in my family life that’s not how I was.

During my time with TM, I’ve discovered I’m not the person I thought I was, I was much worse.

I believed myself to be a good husband, father and son, though quite a few times it has been the opposite.

I’d been demanding, belittling and sometimes cruel. I write this because I’m doing my best to be better in all the roles I listed above.

A few weeks after I started doing TM I had a self-realization moment.

I watched myself, how I acted towards my wife, kids and parents, and I didn’t like what I saw.

I’ve put up this facade of who I was, what my family life was like and it’s time to tear it down.

I no longer want to be the person who tells stories about his life, I want to write stories about others lives.

Growing up lies were told to me many times about many things, and I’ve found myself doing that to people I care about, not because it was planned, but because it was something I took as normal and in truth, if you love someone you don’t lie to them.

The lies I was told as a kid grew to shape who I am, and what I believed, but in shaping me they’ve allowed me to create this facade and build a wall around myself which I thought protected me from being hurt by others, which was a constant as a child.

My self-realization moment happened and I sat down with my wife, apologized for the man I’d been and promised that I would be a better man, it was a true awakening moment.

When I realized the things I was doing, I was overcome with emotion and had to think about all the things I’d done to people. It was as close as I can get to make amends for the things I’ve done in my life and the way I’ve hurt people.

That I’ve caused pain to my wife, who’s stood by me through everything and put up with my attitude and being an ass, shows how much she cares for me.

I realized that my wife is the best thing to happen to me. She’s never judged me, or anything I’ve done. She’s loved me for who I am and ignored or tolerated the person I was.

I find myself in a new place, devoid of having people who only want me around for their own means and I’m learning that I have more control of things and who I’ll be in the future than I thought possible.

I say these words often to myself, but they ring true every time. Our life is our own, how we deal with it defines who we are to ourselves and others. Who we choose to be is under our control and no one can tell us who we are but ourselves.

 

Writing, Depression and Staying Away from the Cliff.

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What do you do when the cold runs in. When the snow comes to your shins, or higher, and you think…how did this happen?

I see there are things we have in common. I once felt that the snow, ice, or whatever weather you prefer was rolling in all the time. I felt my life had been switched with a meteorologist on some backwoods station, but alas, it hadn’t.

I’d experienced the cold. Had things happen in my life that I didn’t or couldn’t do anything about, but I’ve also done things where I didn’t accept responsibility for my actions.

There are many reasons for this, the biggest being I wasn’t mature enough to understand my life was in my hands and I should stop making excuses for what I’m doing and stop blaming others for my screw ups.

Well, the cold came, it came in a torrent one year ago. I felt it run down my spine, into my soul and wrap every molecule with its frosty embrace. The truth a year ago was I was afraid to be who I wanted, I knew that who I was wasn’t what everyone wanted.

I wanted to be this free spirit. I wanted to care about the people around me who cared about me and to hell with the rest.

In the last year I’ve been down the drain of depression, felt the exhilaration as I reached the top of the cliff and stared at the little ants, and they had no idea I was standing on the cliff. They didn’t understand the cliff was closer than they thought, and possibly myself as well.

When I was able to step away from the edge, find myself and let everyone know what I’d been through, I felt ashamed that I’d stood on the cliff. I didn’t want anyone to know how close I came, hell most people believed I was the sanest person they knew.

The cliff is still out there, waiting for its chance to surprise me. Indeed it surprises me that I’ve even told my story of depression and coming out of it.

I’ve wanted to be this other person for so long, the one I am now, that trying to be the person I want is harder than I thought it would be.

I want to write as much as possible, but I’m like a dog in forest filled with squirrels.

When I tell myself, “You have to write” something happens, whether it’s a distraction or something else. I find that my time away from the keyboard is one that I don’t often like, but I do it, for the weirdest of reasons. I’m afraid to show some of what I write for fear that it would either make people afraid, or my wife would have me committed.

I see that I’m becoming who I want to be, without the distraction of caring what people think about me or my writing, and I’m finding that living in my world is getting better as long as I don’t climb the mountain and get near the cliff again.