From Confusion to Clarity

I was 17 and I was angry. I was angry at my parents and my ex girlfriend, I was angry at my teachers and other peers. I was angry about my life and I really didn’t know what to do. Looking back now it all seems so silly, but I remember feeling the sense of urgency in my life and my inability to change it. Of course this manifested into bigger “behavioural” problems, but I was simply drowning in a sea that I couldn’t quite navigate.

My mom sent me to see my family doctor and he immediately put me on an antidepressant called Zoloft. Every day for three months I swallowed back 100mg of this drug. It “fixed” the symptoms but it left me feeling empty instead. On the outside this must have looked like a success. I no longer lashed out, got into fights but I no longer felt joy, my sex drive plummeted. I remember looking down at the bottle of drugs and realizing I have traded one horror for another so I threw the bottle away.

A teacher of mine introduced me to a man named Andrew Blake, a wonderful psychotherapist that works in Toronto. We worked together for several weeks, to be honest I don’t remember much of the sessions after all these years but at the end of our time together he gave me a book called Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I went home and immediately read it hoping that this would be the answer I was looking for, but it fell flat for me. It was like I was trying to decipher some code that had been given to me, but I was failing so I found some help.

There was a Buddhist temple about a 20 minute walk from my house and they offered free meditation classes every Monday from 7:30-8:30 so I started going. They gave me prayer beads and talked in great detail about their respect for the teachings of the enlightened one”. They handed me a sheet of paper with a prayer broken down phonetically. We sat in a circle with our eyes closed and chanted in unison. When I left, I didn’t feel any different but I was assured that the more often I practised the more beneficial I would find the prayer.

Every night before I went to bed I meditated for 20-30 minutes with my Buddhist praying beads. I felt clearer, calmer, better. My problems didn’t go away but they didn’t seem so life and death anymore. Instead of being a slave trapped in my emotions, I as more aware of them. It was as if I was sitting outside of myself looking in, able to make much more rational decisions.

I got better and of course I eventually stopped…

Why is it that we need to feel shitty in order to remind ourselves to do the things that

make us healthy?

I spent the last month researching top performers, digging deep, exploring their lives and habits trying to uncover common denominators. Meditation came up again and again and it got me thinking back to my time at the Buddhist temple and how drastically the quality of my life improved. I want to feel that sense of calm and confidence again and I want all of you to feel it as well.

I set up the 10 day meditation challenge in hopes that it set people down a path of clarity through the confusion of life. I could discuss all the scientific benefits, but I urge you just to try it. The more often you do it the more benefits you will see. We just finished the 10 day challenge but that doesn’t mean you missed it. Try the 10 day meditation challenge for yourself and be curious to the changes it will bring to your life.