My Journey to Mindfulness…

It all started with a mandala.

It was 10 years ago. 2013.

My word for the year was STILLNESS. And the only way I knew how find stillness, was in a dictionary. I don’t know what possessed me to choose that word, other than I was tired of being busy.

I was 37 and completely done.

The details aren’t necessary, but years of traumas, shamed sexuality, toxic work environments, and fear-based religion left me feeling worthless, anxious, depressed, defensive, guarded, and angry.

People become addicts to numb those emotions - I guess I did too. My addiction was busyness, to just keep busy and keep moving - fill the calendar, please all the people, do all the things, clean, rearrange, clean again, please more people. So much that I forgot about myself.

BUT…

drawing and coloring mandalas kept me still and reduced my feelings of my world spiraling out of control.

One day after beating myself up because I couldn’t meditate the “right way” - my husband walked into the room where I was playing guitar and said, “That’s it! THAT is how YOU meditate - you play guitar!”

Mandalas and Music.

Sure this maybe cliche’ to say… BUT -

Guitar literally kept me alive all those years - music (and busyness) was how I survived.

Mandalas brought me back to myself. How? They taught me about the only moment that matters is the present one.

And later when I learned to let myself play guitar without self-judgement, that became meditation.

Now years later - after lots of hard work with a great therapist, the right meds, deconstruction and rebuilding,

studying and questioning, learning and unlearning,

moving my body, accepting my body,

just being with myself & accepting things "as is"-

I’m on the other side. I still struggle to rest.

But I can now tell my amygdala…

“It’s okay we are safe. Thanks for caring! Let’s go play some music.”