MY JOURNEY INTO MINDFULNESS PART 1

BY JENNIFER JAMES

Mindfulness and I found each other about 11 years ago. I was at a serious crossroads in my life. I was in a rut, a bit of a depression to be completely honest. It was the second time in my life I had actually been in a true depression. It felt like everything was collapsing. I would keep looking up and around and I would see “good things”, I had a job, I was married to my soulmate, I had a lot of close friends. It felt like from the outside looking in life should be great. BUT from the inside looking out I was feeling unsettled, unhappy, and sad. At the time, if you had asked me I wouldn’t have been able to to tell you that. I was scared of my sadness. In fact, I would often try to run it out of my system, and I literally mean go for a run and see if I could run away from it. That tactic never worked.

I had been in my job at the time for 2 years. I didn’t like it. The team was good but we weren’t growing and everyone could feel the tension and pressure of that pain. We needed growth to sustain. We were a small agency and we just needed more clients. What was supposed to be a creative role became more of a sales role. The pressure to sell became consuming and I created an internal battle within myself. I kept telling myself how much I hated selling and the more I told myself that narrative the worse going into work became and my tension grew…