A stupid meditation practice for my stupid mental health

I started meditating in 2023 and was very skeptical of its benefits, but I'm here to tell you that it works and it's worth it. But you'll also suck at it for a while...

For years, health professionals and psychics alike had told me that I would benefit from meditation. Maybe it’s all the caffeine I drink or the rampant and, at the time, untreated anxiety, but everyone was suggesting it. So I ignored it.

I think I’ve probably always been anxious. I’ve never slept well and I can turn a very benign conversation into an awkward mess in about 5 seconds, which I will then fixate on for days. I talk too much, I interrupt when I should be listening and my resting heart rate is about 72 (I’m in really good shape so this should be much lower).

In college, my friend Erin and I were both psychology majors and had matching energy. We were (are) both too much and if you put us together, it's loud and rambunctious and often highly inappropriate (she and I almost got kicked out of the NCAA tournament for this behavior, which I wrote about here). I call her my HLP, which stands for Heterosexual Life Partner because I was constantly threatening to forgo finding a husband and just moving in with her. She’s probably forever thankful that I found Coby…

One day, she and I were warming up for cheer practice when she told me that she thought she had anxiety.

“What’s ‘anxiety’?” I’d asked. It was 2006. We didn’t have words for how we felt back then.

“It’s this feeling of being constantly anxious, running through doomsday scenarios in my head when I should be sleeping, not being able to concentrate or concentrating too much on unproductive bullshit. I just feel on edge and I worry a lot,” she’d told me. As she put this into words, I was probably chewing on my fingers and she was probably casually bobbing her leg up and down in a shaking motion.

The view from my meditation loft

She was describing how I felt but I didn’t want to admit it. I also didn’t want to jump on the “let’s diagnose ourselves” train or be accused of copying Erin. See what I did there? Instead of being able to take something in and see it for what it was, I worried how other people would view me. Yay.

Eventually, I accepted reality and when I finally started going to therapy in 2018, it was official. I have an anxiety disorder. Which also now sounds a hell of a lot like ADHD but I am refusing to accept that diagnosis and I don’t want to jump on the “everyone has ADHD” train and since Erin was recently diagnosed with that too, I worry about being seen as copying Erin. So, yeah. Clearly I’ve come a long way.

The best thing about having anxiety are the panic attacks. Nothing says, “I’M ALIVE!” quite like being swallowed by the rising tide of uncontrollable dread, hyperventilating to the point of fearing you’ll pass out, and loosing your ability to see straight.

I’ve had a few of these. The most memorable was the one I had on the way to Easter dinner with Coby’s family. Coby’s family is pretty religious and I am definitely not. We were in the middle of Trump’s presidency and having weaponized Christianity, I really wasn’t feeling up to celebrating zombie Jesus’s supposed return from the dead some 2,000 years ago.

We were in the car, about 20 minutes away, when I started getting really hot. What would they think if I didn’t go? Could I hold my tongue through dinner? What if I can’t pretend to be okay with all of this? My hands started to shake, my vision narrowed and my breath came and went in ragged intervals. This was my third panic attack. I knew what was coming and I knew I couldn’t stop it.

And I most certainty could not have a panic attack at my in-laws so I had Coby drop me off in my grandma Myrna’s front lawn. My aunt Karrie and my Mom happened to be vising her. Thank god for small blessings. Like a mobster dumping a body, I stumbled from the vehicle and collapse in the yard. All I remember is the two of them rubbing my back and reminding me to breath, counting up to 5 and then back down from 5. Eventually, they got me under control and my Mom dropped me off at Easter dinner, which was in the dessert stage. I kept my sunglasses on didn’t eat. I was exhausted. When Coby got me home, I got in bed but couldn’t sleep, too worried that Coby’s family thought I was a nut case (I am, so that’s fair).

Me and Aunt Karrie

But still, I refused to meditate. It was so daunting. I would turn on a timer for 5 minutes and spend the whole time in a state of agitation. How do people sit in silence with their thoughts?!

In the fall of 2023, after I’d been on sabbatical from work for a month, I decided to give it another try by using the guided meditations on the Peloton app. I searched for a short one, only 10 minutes, and sat down. The instructor started talking about Metta, where you talk to yourself and say (in your head) the following mantra: I am safe, I am happy, I am healthy, I live with ease.

I meditate in the loft on that cream colored beanbag chair

For the first time in my life, it felt like I could take a deep breath. I don’t think I ever truly breathed deeply before that day. The next day I tried a different instructor and he had us visualize a tiny version of ourselves, going into our heart center and sitting on a gold throne. Every time we breathed out, we were supposed to see glitter or sparkles flowing out of the top of our heads and cascading gently over our bodies. My throne is gold and my sparkles are pink, just in case you’re curious.

It truly changed my life. My mediation practice is in the morning. I get up, turn the coffee pot on and then go up into my reading loft and light a candle. I never go for longer than 15 minutes and I take a cup of coffee with me. Look, are you supposed to drink coffee while meditating? probably not but also, YES. Because this is my meditation practice and I’ll do it however the fuck I want to thank you very much! You can sit, lie down, walk, sleep. It’s your meditation practice. Do with it what you will.

But no seriously. If you were like me, you have a lot of misconceptions about meditation. If you’re thinking that meditation had to be an hour, it can be however long or short you want. If you thought it had to be silent, mine never is - I always do guided meditations. If you’re nervous that you’ll suck at it, just know that you will. At first. But like anything, you’ll get better at it.

There are days where I am somewhere else and fighting my thoughts the entire session. Other times I am easily focused on the words or breathing techniques and the session flies by. One time I almost fell asleep I was so into it.

One of my favorite instructors, Kirra Michel, said that each time a thought arrives, offer it a cup of tea for the road. So if I find my thoughts drifting, I say “would you like a cup of tea?” and then I get right back into the meditation. Another tip is when you find your thoughts drifting to something else, you can simply think, “thought”, and then take a deep breath to refocus. Whatever you use, just get right back into the session without judgment.

Meditation has taught me how to stop racing thoughts and focus my mind. Throughout the day, I am reminded to take deep breaths. The effects of the practice are subtle but powerful. I don’t spin out as much as I used to, worrying about how someone took something I said or what someone else might have meant by a passing comment. It has helped me turn off the commentary, lower my cortisol levels, and breath deeply.

It won’t be perfect, but you can’t expect perfection. Unless you’re me and perfection just comes naturally. It’s my cross to bear; being so great. Maybe that’s why I had panic attacks: because I was worried that everyone hates me because I’m so clearly better than everyone else. Maybe I was hit with the sudden realization that you’re going to go through your whole entire life without knowing how close to perfection I am. How sad for you.

As my hero once said, All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy. (I saw on TikTok that Gen Z is just now figuring out what Britney’s saying in that song and it made me giggle and now I can’t get it out of my head).

Remember, stay difficult and always question authority.

---

UPDATES!

1. I am officially a paid author! My musings will be featured in the upcoming edition of Comet Magazine, a local alternative paper in the Wenatchee Valley. It’s free and you should subscribe. That link is to their Instagram account but they also have Facebook.

2. I am on TV! The fabulous Lisa Bradshaw interviewed me for her talk show, Life With Lisa, which is on the local NCWLife Channel, or you can find it here on YouTube. We talk about this Substack, my transition from a big law firm to owning my own (with partners), and my book. Lisa has written two books, had products featured on the TV show Friends, been on Oprah.com and has done a TedX talk. Suffice it to say, she’s a success story. We have a really fun conversation and I hope you’ll tune in!