Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Michelle's Story of Learning Meditation: My Deepest Darkest Secrets...

Did you know, when it comes to meditation, you and I are very much alike? 

Before I learned meditation, I had a very chaotic mind. You might not even have recognized me about 7 years ago. For all intents and purposes, I was a bit of a mess. I was very anxious, had an intense fear of flying, even though I had to fly often. I was unhappy with my life at the time and wasn't sure how to change my situation. 

When I came to the Chopra Center in 2006, I only wanted to learn how to teach Ayurveda, not knowing how important learning and practicing meditation was to the process. My contact at the Chopra Center said I would need to start by learning Primordial Sound Meditation. I can't believe I'm telling you this....but in my mind, I was saying, "Yeah, I'll learn it, just to go with it but no one can make me practice it." 

I was thoroughly convinced that I could not sit in meditation, let alone sit in silence at all. I had never been able to do it in my 36 years of life and no one was going to be able to convince me otherwise. 

So I flew to California from France (a 13-hour flight) and on the same day, started my Primordial Sound Meditation Course with about 150 new meditators. I thought I had joined some sort of hippie-fest or cult. But I had this deep respect for Deepak Chopra, and that is the only thing that kept me there. The person who gave me my mantra was an American woman wearing a turban (not a bad thing in itself, just a bit odd for me) and I swear she had a crystal ball. My stubborn mind told me that she had given me the wrong mantra (no rhyme or reason to that one) and when I started the group meditation, I felt the whole ballroom was vibrating with the sound OM. (Maybe that was the jetlag.) 

But maybe it was the fact that I knew I had to be there for 8 days or the fact that I had spent $2,200 for the seminar, I stuck with it. And after the 3rd or 4th day, I began to love meditation. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was my fascination with Deepak or my love for the Chopra Center family. But I, the reticent one, who came into the practice kicking and screaming that I wouldn't do it, was transformed. The first flight I took, after the seminar went 100% smoothly. No fear at all came upon me. Coincidence or the power of meditation?  You choose. 

Now I know I cannot live without meditation or I will become that insanely chaotic person, I once was. Sometimes we don't realize how crazy we actually were until we get better and we can look back and say, "My goodness, I can't believe I was like that." 

Thank you for reading my story. Hopefully you can relate some and want to share in the joy (and sanity) of learning meditation. 

Namasté,

Michelle

Michelle S. Fondin, Founder of The Ayurvedic Path & author of The Wheel of Healing: An Easy Guide to an Ayurvedic Lifestyle

No comments:

Post a Comment