Rocking my body. How meditation can affect your health on a deep level

A weird thing happened to me when I gave blood recently. This isn’t, by the way, a story to encourage you all to donate blood (although you absolutely should). This is about how I discovered that I have the power to control my body in a really powerful way.

Because I once fainted while giving blood, I’m aware of the need to keep my body calm during this important process. In a bid to avoid a repeat performance of the losing-consciousness-then-needing-emergency-intervention-and-vomiting-everywhere situation, I had a genius idea: meditation! What better way to keep my body calm and well out of shock territory?

This was not a good idea, as it turns out. What happened was, my heart rate dropped so low that alarm bells started going off – literally! – and the staff rushed over to check that I was not on the verge of fainting. (I wasn’t.) That’s when I realised it might be a good idea to keep my heart rate fairly fast so it can pump blood effectively.

Guys, I slowed down my own heart rate! This is an incredibly empowering realisation. There’s plenty of scientific research out there to prove that meditation can calm your entire body but it’s something else to actually see that happen. Not only did this confirm to me that meditation is a wonderful tool (when used in the right setting; ie not in a blood-donation situation), it’s also a reminder that my heart responds directly to what my brain tells it.

So maybe I should be telling it to open up more. To trust. To dance. To take risks. To light the way forward.

This reminds me of a beautiful passage from Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist – a book I adore so much that it would be a desert-island item for me – about talking to your heart: "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself."

I think I’m going to do that more often now.

The Self-Appreciation Project

I want to tell you about a little project I’m working on. Actually that was a lie – I don’t want to tell you about it at all. But my angels told me I had to, that it would help me to write about it… and, just like the husband who had warned you earlier in the evening that those stilettos would hurt your feet, they are always right (it’s very annoying). So here goes.

My self-esteem is ridiculously low. Not just I-hate-trying-on-bathing-suits low, or even I’m-too-chicken-to-ask-my-boss-for-a-raise low, but cruelly self-sabotaging-on-the-reg low – without even realising it. It’s only now, in my mid-30s, that I’ve decided I’m not willing to live like this anymore. 

I'm not looking to achieve Kanye-level self-love status, just a way of maybe being my own best friend. I’m no longer willing to avoid eye contact at parties from a belief that no one would find me interesting. I’m not willing to bail out of dates because of a belief that I’m lovable. I’m not willing to avoid pitching work projects out of a belief that they aren’t good enough (which really means: a belief that I’M not good enough).

It’s not easy to turn around decades of negative self-talk – especially when you hadn’t been aware you’d been treating yourself so shabbily. I’m not exactly sure it’s entirely possible, but I know that I have to try, with everything I’ve got. If I don’t, I will continue to push people away and live a lacklustre life. I want to live in the light now. 

That’s why I’ve embarked on something called the Self-Appreciation Project. Every night, I reflect on the day just passed and write down two things I loved about myself. Here’s the thing: it’s REALLY hard. Initially I wanted to list five things but I couldn’t. Even getting to two is a struggle. And in the spirit of absolute frankness I can tell you there have been days when I could not find a single thing. Not one. (I’m trying not to beat myself up when that happens, because self-compassion is another attribute I really want to foster. I’m also determined not to use those days as an excuse to give up.)

The Self-Appreciation Project, which shall henceforth be known as SAP, is bringing up a lot of dark stuff that’s been buried in my subconscious, which is unpleasant at best and downright terrifying at worst. But I know that I need to go through all that to get to the other side. Like Louise Hay once declared: “Honey, if you want to clean your house, you’ve gotta see where the dirt is.” (That woman is always slaying me with her wisdom.)

I hope that telling you about SAP will help keep me honest, and committed. I don’t know whether it will actually change anything, but I know that I have to do it. This may be the most important thing I do in my entire life. I can’t fail at it – it’s too important. I am too important. And I hope one day to truly believe that with every fibre of my being.

Ctrl-Alt-Delete your poor life choices

If you can call on an IT department for help with your work difficulties, why can’t you have a life department on standby to resolve your life difficulties. I mean, those IT peeps are so damn useful, and patient too (bow down to the geeks!) and I really think there’s a place for a team that can give you expertise on far-reaching snafus on a daily basis. Like these:

“Hello, this is the Helpdesk. How can I assist you?”

“I can’t find my car keys!”

“Hold the line, I’ll run a search… OK, they’re on your desktop.”

“Thank you so much!”

“Hello, Helpdesk. What is your issue today?”

“My wardrobe has reached maximum capacity.”

“No problem, I’ll delete some expired items and create new storage facilities.”

“Amazing! Thank you!”

“Hello, Helpdesk. What do you need help with?”

“My relationship has crashed and I can’t recover it.”

“Let me restore it from the back-up for you.”

“Perfect – thanks guys!”

“Welcome to the Helpdesk. What is your situation?”

“My boyfriend has denied me access, so I need to get my permissions changed.”

“I see. [Silence.] Have you tried turning him off and turning him on again?”

What do you think, guys? Could we get a kick-starter campaign going for the Life Department? I’m pretty sure they’d never run out of customers…

Blame it on the weather

In this part of the world, we talk about the weather A LOT. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, you’ll regularly hear comments like: “Oh no – it’s going to rain this weekend”, “I hope it’s nice tomorrow” and “What a miserable day”. For so many people, it seems like they need a day of blazing sunshine before they can feel content.

I understand the interest in Mother Nature’s moods – after all, I never make a wardrobe choice without checking the forecast, so I can choose pants over floaty dresses in gale conditions and avoid a Marilyn moment – but I don’t understand the amount of power we give to external conditions. I find it odd that something which we have zero control over not only features heavily in social interactions but is the determinant of whether it is a “good day” or a “bad day”.

Here are the factors that typically amount to a good day for me:

·         Waking up alive

·         Feeling loved

·         Feeling a sense of purpose

·         Laughing at least a couple of times (ideally more)

Neither the absence of rain nor a high temperature are prerequisites for my day-to-day happiness.

Why do we care so much about the weather? As far as what Mother Nature throws at us, we have sunhats and sunglasses and umbrellas and coats. As far as what life throws at us, we have the power to determine our own forecast.

The sunshine is within us – it’s our job to bring the warmth and the light to each day.

The year that was. Or wasn’t. (And why that made me feel shitty.)

As the year 2014 drew to a close, I noticed an annoying trend emerging on social media. People were avidly posting glossy pictures in symmetrical grids to summarise their ‘amazing’ (side note: is this the most overused adjective ever?!) year. Now, I want to say first up that I don’t begrudge anyone happiness – I believe everyone is entitled to win at life – and of course most of these people are very dear to me, so my heart soars when theirs do. I don’t even mind that they’re posting highly edited, carefully selected versions of their 2014 experiences and ignoring the low-lights. After all, no one really needs to see a picture of your baby screaming its head off or the rejection letter for that job you didn’t get.

My problem with these ‘look at my amazing life’ posts is that they made me feel crap. Like, crying-into-my-pillow crap. Is that the fault of the person who had that wonderful trip to Spain/dream promotion/romantic engagement? No, of course it isn’t. Like I said, I genuinely want my friends – and everyone, for that matter – to live a life rich with joyous moments. Happiness isn’t in short supply – we can all have a slice of it. It’s my response that was the problem.

Comparison. It’s the bane of my existence. As the saying goes, there will always be someone smarter/richer/prettier than you, so comparison is futile. Life is not a competition. I know all of this, and I do truly believe it. And yet...

What my response showed me was that I have some work to do in deeply accepting myself. There’s a part of me that feels that I’ve failed because I haven’t had some of these experiences that other people in my age group have had. Even though I know that that doesn’t matter, that this is how my life is supposed to be, and that’s more than OK. And even though I know I’m not lacking anything whatsoever. In spite of all of this knowledge, I still feel the misery of disappointment and inferiority.

Eckhart Tolle (wise man, that Eckie) says that ‘life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.’ I’m still not 100 per cent sure what my life purpose is, but I know that this lesson – of accepting myself, of being content with my life, of letting go my need to compete with peers – is at the heart of my journey towards evolution. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

In the meantime, any advice you have on self-acceptance, overcoming envy and feelings of failure would be gratefully accepted. Thank you.