How Zoe Started With Meditation

Zoe's Journey With Meditation

I'm a meditation teacher. I've taught hundreds of people worldwide how to meditate.

But I didn't begin to meditate because I wanted more calm. I started to meditate because I was desperate.

My journey with meditation first began when I tried meditation in my first year at university. At this point, I was suffering from depression, anxiety and recovering from glandular fever and chronic fatigue. I knew my mind was dysfunctional (I read A LOT) and knew that I needed to learn to train it.

The world was different back then. Meditation was considered completely alternative, and my upbringing (whilst not quite ‘normal’) was not alternative.

I started meditating by attending my first class with one of my best friends.

It was a Buddhist meditation class. We walked into a small room and sat on the floor beside the others, most of whom were Buddhist monks. We were so cramped in a tiny room that you couldn’t see the carpet. They all began chanting and issuing instructions in a foreign language. My friend and I copied: eyes closed, approximating something that sounded foreign. After 15 minutes, I was in an altered state. My body was buzzing with energy, and my mind was calm for the first time in years. The monks smiled at me and pointed to an image on the wall, compelling us both to look: a photo of a man whose eyes had rolled back in his head. I was startled. It looked like something from a horror film. My heart raced, and I started to shake with panic. One monk saw this and kept pointing at the picture, saying, “Guru, guru”. This only made it worse. I was anti-religion at this point in my life, and I’d researched all about cults and knew this was how one might work!

I know now that we had been to a chanting class and that having gurus in this tradition is normal. We were asked to gaze openly and meditate on the guru. However, as none of this was explained in English, and we were young and pretty paranoid, it was time to find another class! This time, my friend refused to come with me…

My journey with meditation took me to my next class at a yoga school.

I called the teacher and was told to “come along”, so I did. I was warmly welcomed into the established class and told to sit down. I was then instructed to relax, breathe and focus on my breathing for the course of the class- 1 hour. The class was silent. No further instruction was given to me, and I sat there in a state of inner dismay- what was I supposed to be doing? Sit here for 1 hour? You’ve got to be kidding me! I thought. Watch my breathe? Why? It breathed all by itself! What was I to do?

I don’t know how I did it, thinking back, but I did sit there, in that darkened room with a room full of strangers, their eyes all closed, some snoring, whilst I was ignored by the teacher whose eyes were closed as she sat and smiled for an hour.

I needed to ask questions! When I did, I was told that there was nothing to instruct in meditation: I had sit and breathe and see what came up. What came up, I thought. Questions!!!! Questions come up! Isn’t that obvious? I realised at that moment that I needed a teacher who could explain things in a more logical and comprehensive way for my truly Western mind.

For years, I attended different classes, tried various meditation styles, listened to meditation audio programs, and read many books.

I discovered that most meditation traditions originated in the East and that, although they differed in some ways, their essence remained the same. As I learned to focus my practice, meditation began to help transform my mind and boost my overall health. I chose to practice simple mindfulness meditation, focusing on the breath, and now understand why and what the benefits are. For me, it was the form that could most easily be extended out into everyday life and help me live more mindfully. Other forms, such as continually repeating the mantra “Ra” in everyday life, may have been Ghandi’s choice (it’s reported that even while in conversation, he repeated “Ra” in his mind), always felt foreign to me and added content to my mind which I was trying to remove. Breathing was something that I knew the body did naturally, and I could comfortably learn to direct my mind to watch my breath, even whilst speaking and whilst listening.

Meditation wasn’t the only form of mind training I did, but it is one that helped change my life.

The depressed, anxious and emotionally heavy person who started meditating has long been dead and in her place is someone who spends a lot of their life laughing! Something that no-one who knew me when I began would never have ever foreseen.

I believe that everyone should learn to meditate and become more self-aware. It’s truly transformative, and if I can learn to do it, so can everyone.

Based on my journey with meditation, it will come as no surprise that I choose to teach mindfulness meditation in a simple, grounded, practical, mainstream way. 

Learning to meditate is one thing; learning to discipline yourself to do it is another. 

In reality, it’s easy to learn a technique but much harder to establish an everyday practice that allows you to get the life-affirming benefits of meditation. That’s why, in my classes, you’ll be taught technique AND coached on establishing a home-based practice.

You learn so much when you begin to meditate. It really is a journey. And it's one I suggest you undertake for yourself, too.

Love Zoe X

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