Dooley Noted: 1/4/2016
I am described as a glowing, happy, intense woman.
So when I recently let sadness overwhelm me, it was remarkably visible.
Those people closest to me described it as a heaviness in my eyes.
I felt it as a heaviness of the body and a vice grip on my mind.
I couldn’t shake the idea that I loved someone and worked so hard to make it work – just to, again, watch it fail.
I let the failure start to drown me, and I was grasping onto a rope of thorns to save me.
The rope was the idea of holding onto something I couldn’t have – something that was not mine to hold.
The last two weeks were drowning and grasping at thorny ropes, until I would let go – just to start drowning again.
I suddenly couldn’t see all the beauty around me. I couldn’t feel the enormous amount of love and passion I was used to delivering.
And I was scared – so scared I wouldn’t get it back.
Then, a friend reached out a hand to save me by helping me to save myself.
He said he would teach me meditation.
I shirked immediately.
I told him I had been through various meditation techniques, and they seemed to distract me more than anything.
He noted that most people have meditation a bit wrong, and he would teach me the techniques with which he thought he would die having never taught another.
He was the strongest, most centered person I’ve ever met, completing feats of strength in mere moments that took others years to master.
He offered help without my prompt. So, the drowning woman took his hand.
The techniques were nothing novel. In fact, they were so simple that I am doing them as I write this.
The concentration level altered my entire axis, as I learned that meditation didn’t have to be sitting in lotus for hours and hours.
I learned how very much I had been running on automatic – until I fell in love this summer.
So, when the emotions were let loose, they washed over my mind and shook me from my axis.
I was having overwhelming emotions. My mind was disconnected from my purpose.
Being fairly well-trained in discipline and self-awareness, I had forgotten to discipline myself away from running on autopilot.
I had forgotten to discipline my limbic system to not run my show. After all, it’s only one system.
In my emotional drowning, I was attempting to run logistics with a frenetic heart and my hands on thorny ropes.
I couldn’t rationalize until I stepped out of the water.
And once I did, the clarity came like the stairs I needed to walk right out of the pool.
It was so simple, hiding in plain sight right in front of my face.
Suddenly, I could see everything as it once was, only now with more clarity.
Meditation wasn’t about zoning out. It was about zoning back in.
I felt the chains break around my heart and mind, leaving nothing but love and peace.
It was no magic pill.
Since then, I have felt myself wander from my center and back towards the pool, just to harness myself right back.
Meditation is a discipline, since auto-pilot had proven it cannot be trusted.
Once again, well-placed discipline saved me from drowning.
If you’ve tried meditation and failed to benefit, perhaps try a different type until one resonates.
There’s too much research – and this personal case study – in support of meditation to deny its efficacy.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
