This is no lie! When I read Shea’s blog I found myself engaged and understanding exactly where she had been and where she is now. I understood her story because I too was broken. As Shea said, “The moment you acknowledge the things that are broken is the moment transformation begins.” This is true!
For me, the acknowledgment came on my 55th birthday in 2019 when I watched the toilet water swirl down, down, down, and thought “That is my life.”
As I sat on the bed, contemplating how to get out of the dark hole I was in I was reminded of meditation. I had stopped doing it years before and was suffering the consequences.
This took me back to 2008 when I was going through a terrible divorce. Dante’s fifth circle of hell had nothing on me. There were moments I wished I was there instead of where I was. It was during this time that the noise in my head was so overwhelming I was sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden, tense, and my ability to rationalize was gone. I cried all of the time and felt a depth of hopelessness I never felt before. It was even difficult and sometime impossible to put 2 rational thoughts together and articulate them.
It was one evening that my brother Chris called me from California. While we were talking I told him that I wasn’t able to sleep because I couldn’t turn the noise off. He immediately asked, “Do you meditate?” When I answered, “No” he suggested I go to our local Barnes & Noble and buy a variety of meditation CDs. No, there weren’t free internet downloads then. (lol)
Off I went with the $100 my aunt gave me for my birthday earlier that year. I kept it knowing it was meant to be used for something special. Once inside, I headed directly to the clearance section for meditation. I grabbed guided and music-only meditations. As I was turning to leave I saw a $5 CD titled “How to Attract Money!” Something about it said, “TAKE ME!!” I threw it into my basket and checked out.
Later that evening with my mind in a loud noise frenzy, I put the CDs one at a time, into the player. The only one that I could stand for more than a minute was the “How to Attract Money.” It was odd to me that I was drawn to it because I was more concerned with sleep than I was about attracting money.
I downloaded the CD onto my iPod, put my earbuds in, and went to bed. It took turning on the CD each night at bedtime for a month before I was able to focus my mind to hear the meditation from start to finish. There were many false starts and falling asleep during the meditation. I wanted to give up, shit-can the CDs, and scream at the top of my lungs. So, when the night arrived that I successfully, heard the entire CD I was doing the horizontal happy dance. This was a huge win.
The first thing I noticed was my body was relaxed, my mind quiet, the fear and anxiety were gone. I felt amazing.
That CD was my meditation bible for over a year. The reason, it taught me the basics of meditation; how to quiet my mind, relax my body, release anxiety & fear, and identify issues from my childhood that were holding me back. All of that in a $5 meditation CD, that was one hell of a deal.
So, on my 55th birthday when I was again in a terrible emotional place, I reached out to a spiritual mentor Whitney McNeill who turned me on to more involved meditation, block identification, and release techniques that ultimately saved my life and led me to live my purpose.
Meditation is now solidified into my daily routine. My day begins with a meditation. Somedays it’s 5 minutes and other days it’s an hour or more. Incorporating this practice into my routine keeps me in alignment and feeling fantastic. I highly recommend it.
We’re fortunate in that there are free meditations online for everything you want to do or accomplish. I recommend doing an online search and downloading the meditations that speak to you. If you’re just starting, use simple energy-clearing or relaxation meditations and work your way up. People have told me “I cannot meditate. I tried. It doesn’t work. I can’t focus that long.” I probably said those things early on. What I know now is EVERYONE can meditate but it takes determination, intention, and desire to make it happen. How determined are you?
To read more of my story, go to my blog: Transformationsbyshari.com
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Wishing you a joyous and abundant life,
Shari Roberts