Aside from the mechanics of how to actually meditate, the question I get most often about my personal meditation practice is how meditation has changed my life. And actually, those who are close to me don't even ask anymore; it's glaringly evident. I am seriously the happiest person I know. It has been just over a year and a half since I attended that first meditation workshop that set this all in motion, and to say my life has changed would be an understatement. In the time that I have been practicing this work, my dreams have unfolded in the most beautiful and loving ways, and it literally just keeps getting better and better.
Since this past summer (my one year anniversary of daily meditation), I have effortlessly lost 20 pounds. I've literally tried everything in the past 10 years to lose those same 20 pounds, and in the past few months they have joyously flung themselves from my body with no focus on my part to "try" to lose weight. I am healthier than I’ve been in probably my whole life, and I am taking care of my body in ways that I never dreamed could feel so easy and loving. Whereas I would laugh if you asked me to run a mile before, I’m running 3 miles now with joy and ease. A girlfriend was over last night and before I could help myself I was blurting out, "I just LOVE jogging!" She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Who are you and what did you do with my friend that I've known for the past 15 years?!"
My perspective on what is possible for my life has completely shifted. Where travel once felt expensive and out of reach, it is now a reality my husband and I are diving into full-time. We have decided to shed most of our worldly possessions and are embracing slow travel full-time as a family. We’ll spend this summer in Colorado before heading to Costa Rica in the winter and then to Spain early next year. The logistics are falling into place magically and effortlessly, and we are getting more excited by the day. I can hardly wait to see my sweet daughter hiking in Colorado, running naked on the beach in Costa Rica, and eating pan con tomate in Barcelona.
Miracles are a part of my daily life now, and I literally wake up every morning knowing that something fabulous is going to unfold for me. I feel supported and loved by this life, and I just want to share that joy and soak up as much of it as I can. I continue to be guided to more and more personal and spiritual expansion, and in that spirit I entered a meditation teacher training program at the beginning of the year that has already begun enriching my life in the most magical of ways. Even though I was already teaching meditation, this program is awakening in me a power and personal confidence that has lay dormant and just out of reach for many years.
My intuitive gifts have burst wide open as well. While I have been in tune with my psychic abilities for many years, since I began my daily meditation practice, those gifts have grown at rapid pace. I am now channelling with the other side and experiencing things I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. Every day I affirm that I am a great mystic, and each day I am seeing and experiencing clearer and clearer communication with the other side. I am blessing people's lives with my Angel Readings and growing in my own understanding of the nature of this great Universe and the Source that created us all.
Here's the biggie for me. I am secure in who I am for the first time in my life. Feelings of unworthiness and low self-esteem chased me my ENTIRE life, and for the first time I look in the mirror and feel deep love and kindness toward the reflection I see. Whereas I once cried daily begging the Universe for a sense of purpose and belonging, I now feel completely entrenched in my dharma to share this work and facilitate healing through the power of stillness. And it feels better than I ever could have imagined.
And perhaps the best of all, my sweet two-and-a-half-year-old daughter now meditates with me. She perches there in my lap and for 15 or 20 minutes will sit quietly breathing along with me in the bliss of nothingness. Any parent knows how amazing that feeling is to truly connect with your child, but this just knocked me over. I am in the deepest gratitude of my life to know that my daughter will have this tool her entire life. There aren’t words for how deeply that hits my heart.
I could go on and on. The impact it has had on my extended family, on my friends. The manifestations and sweet serendipities. The ease around money. The healing of deep childhood wounds. The physical healings in my body and my husband's. The ripples are far and wide.
I am learning that me being me is the game-changer...letting my light shine so wholly and completely that the only thing that emanates is love. Thoughts are becoming things like crazy in my life, and I’m finally starting to grasp the beautiful simplicity in the whole equation. Life has just become so much more fun.
So if you ask me how meditation has changed my life, I am going to say this. I am truly in love with my life. I am in love with myself. I am in love with everyone and everything I see. I am in love with my body and my purpose. I am in love with my husband and my daughter. I am in love with all the possibility and abundance waiting in line to bless me. And I am in love with 5am and the blissful hour of nothingness that has created everything.
It all boils down to love. Meditation has brought more love into my life than I even knew existed.