How meditation led me to mental clarity and self-acceptance

In as little as 10 minutes a day, I was able to go from an anxiety-riddled wreck of a human being to feeling like a new man

Even before I understood the practice, meditation provided insight into the person I could become. The person I hoped to become.

I believe a person would be amazed at how much they could learn about themselves if they’d just listen. And by ‘listen,’ I mean with an open heart. If you’re like me, you may discover that the apparent force in your way is, in actuality, you.

Two years ago I was on the cusp of a mental breakdown. My personal life was rife with family issues and drama, and I was deeply unhappy in my career. Not knowing how to sort through or process any of this, I internalized these emotions, which is pretty much the worst thing a person can do.

With time, these feelings swelled like balloons of negativity, giving way to a deep self-loathing. My rigidness against facing these feelings became the fine tip at the end of a long needle. You see where I’m going with this, yes? One prick and a balloon would explode, unleashing upon myself and the world around me a flood of angst and anger.

At first, these instances were sporadic, occurring every few weeks, but as my mental state worsened, the balloons began to burst at the slightest bit of pressure. If someone cut me off in traffic, I was furious. Other times, I was unbearably depressed, as if all warmth and joy were uncontrollably bleeding from my life. There was no middle ground.

I needed an escape.

After conducting a little research, I planned a retreat to get off the grid in some remote cabin in the woods. I wanted to completely cut myself off from the world, and even went as far as to turn off my cell phone and stash it in the nightstand drawer for the week. My sole intentions were to hike, to read, and to write –things that nurture my soul.

That first night I sat out on the back deck and stilled myself under the watchful eyes of countless stars. I breathed in the fresh air in patient, deep breaths, focusing on my chest as it expanded and then relaxed. If my mind wandered, I drew it back. I didn’t understand until years later this effort was actually cultivating a home base of sorts for myself.

I did this again and again for more than an hour, saying nothing and remaining as still as possible despite the cool January night. If my thoughts drifted, I tried to notice and gently bring them back to the present moment. After a while, a funny thing happened. The noise and calamity of my mind, the self-loathing voice within my heart went quiet.

The only way to describe the change was that it was like a flailing tangle of thoughts had all at once unraveled itself into a nice, clean line. Realizing I had just unlocked the peace of mind I had so desperately sought, I leaned into the sense of calm control and asked myself, “Okay, now what do you want from the Universe?”

Yes, I knew how cliche it sounded even as I said it, but you’ll have to forgive the cheesiness of the question. This honestly felt like a life-altering experience. Over the next hour and change, I pondered my life, my career, and my place in a raging storm of family drama. Along the way, I faced down a lot of the overwhelmingly negative feelings I had developed toward myself.

When I felt, at last, I had finally run out of enlightenment for the night and was merely sitting in the cold, I went back inside, grabbed my laptop, and began to write. I wanted to remember the exact feeling of that moment, as well as the goals I had outlined for myself out on that back deck. I repeated this process each night of the trip until I felt like a new man — one with a detailed plan of action, no less!

Only a funny thing happened when I returned home. A lot of the shine had seemed to wear off the proverbial apple. The epiphany I had had about myself and the courage to take action and change the course of my life had diminished somehow. I was back at work at a job I didn’t have any passion for, and the ambitious goals I had outlined all seemed too impossibly far from my means or reach now that I was back in my usual environment again.

I sunk back into a lot — but not all — of the problems and stresses I’d had before the cabin.

This past January, I returned to the place of my previous retreat, and, while it wasn’t the actual same cabin, it was just up the road. But the moment I got to the place, I realized it wasn’t going to be anything like the first trip.

The cabin, though advertised as remote, was surrounded by others like it, all of which were being rented out by families and college kids. Worse yet, the cabin was located painfully close to a major road, the headlights from which pierced the darkness with a strobe-like effect as they swept through the smattering of dead trees and illuminated our back porch in the evenings. My impulse was to curse my wretched luck and demand — to no one in particular — to know why I had once again been denied my peace and mindfulness. But then I turned to my wife.

I could see she was equally dejected about the situation. She’d spent hours researching for this trip and finding us this cabin, combing through hundreds of reviews in an effort to make this trip everything I needed. The only reason we even took the trip that year was that she knew how burnt out I was and how badly I needed it.

It was at that moment I knew I needed to focus on the positive and be appreciative of her efforts. This particular trip might not be able to do all of the things the original one had, but I was determined to make the most of it. This shift in mindset set me on the right path.

After we put our daughter to sleep that night, I stepped out onto the back porch and looked out over a small pond behind the cabin. The air was fresh, carrying with it a slight chill that, all things considered, was pretty mild for early January. The stars above were too numerous to count; twinkling flares of brilliance under which I felt almost insignificant yet peaceful.

The noise of the road still loomed every couple of minutes, as did the distant laughter and shouting of other vacation-goers around me, but I was in the right frame of mind because those things were all beyond my control, so why bother worrying about them?

Even my efforts to slip back into that “flow state” weren’t especially smooth. I struggled to fully clear my mind and focus on the present moment. After nearly an hour, I was just about to head back inside and tell myself I would try again the following night. But then something occurred to me.

I had seen an ad on a YouTube video for the Calm app and I wondered if a very rudimentary meditation session could open things up for me. I don’t know what possessed me to consider this as I had never successfully meditated in my life, or even knew how to go about it beyond the stereotypical lotus position and skyward palms with droning chants of “ohmmm.” As the first lesson progressed, I began to realize that what I had been doing that first night two years earlier was, in a sense, meditation.

According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation is a quick, easy means of reducing stress.

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. Meditation originally was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction.

Meditation is considered a type of mind-body complementary medicine. Meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind.

By letting go of the tension in your body, the heaviness of your thoughts, and focusing on the present moment, you not only lower your blood pressure but afford your mind a chance to reboot. In your calmer state, you allow yourself to approach things from a more positive, or at the very least neutral, perspective. Don’t get me wrong, negative thoughts and feelings still crop up at times, and did so even on that night, but I knew that I was trying and that allowed me to be more gentle with myself.

Rather than berate or talk down to myself, I thought of everything I had achieved over the past two years as well as the things I was still working toward, taking note of the positive steps along the way and not just the destination or result. If negative thoughts tried to drown out these gentle soothings, I noticed them but declined to identify with their venom, opting instead to return my focus to my breathing.

By not identifying with every thought or emotion and giving power instead to those that serve your best interests, stress and anxiety can be brought crumbling down. My mind used to swing like a pendulum between crippling doubt and soaring ambition, only it wasn’t an evenly balanced arc. If the ambition rose slightly, the blade swung back dramatically to the side of doubt. But now that doubt was largely being ignored, which forced that illogical arc to even out. Over the coming days and weeks, it would tilt again, only this time in a more positive direction that served me and, as my friend Lyndie Putnam would say, “filled my cup.”

By accepting that there are things I cannot change — such as the less than remote cabin location — and choosing instead to focus on the positive, I put myself in a more amiable frame of mind. That was key.

Being gentle with yourself and taking even just a few moments to breathe and let go of that tension in your back and shoulders and face, you “reset” your mind. Once you’ve done that, you can have honest and open discussions with yourself, keeping in mind that you have the power to give the megaphone to either the negative internal voice you’ve developed or the positive one you’re hoping to nurture. Think of the tale of two wolves.

When I realized that what I had been doing on that initial retreat was, in fact, meditation, albeit without the crossed legs and erect posture, I knew I could bring it back with me and implement it into my daily life. In previous retreats, my mistake had been in giving the power to the setting — a remote cabin — rather than myself. Don’t get me wrong, nature is a great place to find peace and serenity, but it isn’t essential to finding or maintaining mindfulness.

Over the weeks that followed, I began to feel like a new man. The crushing pessimism that had defined my thought pattern for the better part of my life slowly gave way to a more positive and hopeful self. My ambition and trust within myself grew immensely. It was incredible the impact just 10–15 minutes a day of meditation have had on my mental state.

Inspired by this, I began to seek out other small rituals I could work into my daily routine. Meditation soon brought me to dynamic resistance yoga, daily journaling, reading, and even back to writing –an especially estranged relationship of mine prior to this most recent retreat. Together, these practices not only keep me sane, but they also make me stronger mentally, creatively, and physically.

I’ve lost over 40lbs since January, and I’m working on a host of creative projects I’ve wanted to explore for years. I’m the best, happiest, healthiest version of myself, and to obtain all of that I just had to say yes to daily meditation.