Radical Transparency
Blog every 15th of the Month
Have you ever contemplated your life and wonder, How did I get here?
How did I get to this place where i feel like I am not writing my own story anymore. Im just a living and breathing vessel that just exists. That is where I found myself 6 years ago. I was working as a Therapist in a psychiatric hospital and all around me I could see despair, suffering, and chaos. I had come to realize that the traditional “counseling version” of myself that I was striving for was unraveling. I found myself questioning what I was doing and where my life was taking me. I was missing something.
So…. I did what any person does I went to google to try and figure out what was missing in my life.
I found myself coming to a retreat center. I thought to myself “I have never been on a retreat let alone on a trip by myself”. So without hesitation I booked my first retreat. I must have not of noticed that I booked a week long silent retreat because I received a silent surprise when I got there. The land was beautiful and had a profound silence at the same time. I found myself feeling guarded about sharing my life with anyone. I found myself wanting to instantly shield myself.
The first night i arrived I was placed in an introductory circle where we had to share why we were there. It was a moment to be vulnerable but I found myself identifying that word as weak and unforgiving. The closer they got to me the closer I found myself in a panic. What would I say to these people that I don’t know. As they reached me I found a sense of surrender and unraveled two decades worth of stuff. No one said anything. They just looked at me with compassionate eyes. Once we got around to everyone in the group I had noticed that I was not alone and others had felt the same way i did. Lost and in the daily shuffle.
Then… We were off into silence. I wore a badge of silence. I found myself in the beginning wanting to speak to others and sneak talk, But to no avail no one would talk with me. This may have just been my saving grace. For the first time in my life I had to sit with me. I had to unpack all of the challenges and the struggles while being in silence. The focus for the first time was not on others but on me. This was a scary moment. I had no where to run, no where to hide, but to just be present.
There are three areas in our life that can be defined by pre-contemplation, contemplation, and implementation. At the end of that week I found myself in the implementation stage. I was ready to take action. I was ready to change my life. I was ready to shift the trajectory of my coming moments. So… I took the first step and started a daily meditation practice. I started out with five minutes a day. In the beginning a minute felt like forever but now after all this time 30 minutes feels like a minute. I changed my career path, evaluated my friendships, and started a daily journaling process to remind myself of what I was manifesting and how I was going to get there. I had planted a seed.
In the beginning everyone thought I was crazy to go on this spiritual journey. They didn’t understand it and they thought I had “lost my mind”. The funny thing is I had to lose my mind to gain my life back. I had to address the things I was running from to see that they were not as scary as I had imagined.
So.. Did meditation change my life? Yes, yes it did. It gave me so much more than I could have imagined. It brought me home.
Stay tuned for every middle of the month!