I was about to find out. But like many of us, I was afraid to meditate because I didn’t know how. Do I sit or can I lie down? Do I have to stand on my head with my legs wrapped around my arms to become a more peacefully centered person? Do I chant or stay silent? I can hardly sit still for five seconds, let alone sit in a dark room for twenty minutes. How on earth could I meditate?
I arranged for a private session with Rajesh, an Indian guru with a smile so wide it split his face in two. He had a real spiritual presence, and I hoped he would teach me how to purposefully meditate. Strolling down the main walkway of the spa, I prepared myself, hopefully, for a bit of personal rejuvenation.
For starters, Rajesh wanted me to let go of my crazy mind chatter. He had a rather amusing but enlightened way of showing me how to do this.
“What are some of your bad thoughts, Sarah?”
“Oh, thoughts like I’m worthless, I’ve failed, I’m fat and ugly—that sort of negative mind chatter.”
Rajesh smiled broadly. “Those are poop balloons!”
“Poop balloons?” I admit I found the expression to be an odd turn of phrase.
“Yes, start visualizing those thoughts as balloons filled with poop. See them floating over your head. If you hold on to them, you’ll puncture them with your fingernails, and get covered with poop. Let them go; watch them soar out of your sight. Out of sight, out of mind.”
I loved the analogy. Negativity is all about poop balloons, not bursting them, but letting them float out of sight. Rajesh’s visualization releases any negativity you might be harboring and puts you in a different state of mind.
Next, it was on to meditating. Rajesh instructed me to sit with my legs folded, spine settled but erect, my chest open (rather than slouching), and my hands cupped upward and resting on my knees. At first, I found it difficult to sit quietly. I squirmed and daydreamed. I chewed over past troubles and worried about future ventures. I noticed everything from a mosquito landing on my leg to the squeaks Rajesh made when he walked about in his rain-soaked sandals.
After a few minutes, Rajesh gently encouraged me to let all the noises and distractions fall into the space of the meditation—to not fight them, but accept them. He used the analogy of an ant on your leg. In meditation, you know that an ant is crawling up your leg but you allow it. The same goes for noises or thoughts. You simply listen to them—they don’t make any impact on you. They come and go, and you remain just a witness. Meditation is possible in the midst of distraction.
I did as he instructed. I was amazed by the suddenness with which my thoughts stopped and my experience shifted as I sat listening to the sounds around me. By simply allowing, I not only experienced sounds and sensations, but I felt an almost immediate sense of belonging, of being part of the very fiber of life itself.
“Now, inhale through your nostrils. Then, exhale and make a sound like a buzzing bee,” he said. “Be aware of the feel of the vibration in your throat, mouth, cheeks, and lips. Hear the sound from within. Repeat this inhalation and exhalation pattern.”
I did as he said.
“Feel the resonation of the buzzing within your body,” he said. “This connects you to your heart chakra.”
The heart chakra is one of many centers of spiritual power in the body. The chakras (a Sanskrit term for “wheel”) receive, assimilate, and transmit life force energy. When they’re not functioning properly—when they’re over- or underactive—the chakras present “blockages” to that energy flow, which cause imbalances in our health and in our lives.
But when the chakras are open and functioning optimally, they allow energy to flow unimpeded from the base of the spine to the tip of the head in an expression of the boundless power of life.
The heart chakra is about love, compassion, and kindness. When it is blocked, we criticize and judge ourselves and cut ourselves off from a loving relationship with ourselves, other people, and the divine. On the other hand, when the heart chakra is open, we can be generous and compassionate (without giving too much or too little), and we show unconditional love for ourselves and others.
Rajesh believed that I had to unblock my heart chakra, uncover scarred emotions linked to my past experiences and troubled childhood, and reconnect with the little, suppressed Sarah.
“Anything suppressed is like garbage. After a certain period of time, it goes bad. Only by opening up your heart chakra can there be healing and a harmonious flow of energy.”
John Stewart joined us to help unblock me.
But I did not want to let them. I put up resistance. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go within and look inside. I was afraid I’d find too much that I didn’t want to deal with. I still wanted to live in denial about all the issues in my life and, by avoiding them, I hoped they’d go away.
The two of them sat with me, praying and meditating. After three hours, I lay on a bed to continue meditating. All of a sudden, it felt as if someone were sitting on my chest and suffocating me. These scary sensations lasted for twenty minutes. I thought I was having a heart attack.
Rajesh sat next to me, holding my head in his hands. I began to feel disembodied, as if I were in a trance. I was in a very deep meditation.
Their prayers were so powerful that I felt as if a huge dam in my soul had burst and I began to sob. Almost immediately I sensed a shift. All of this sustained meditation had begun to dissolve my usual ways of coping: constant ruminating, regretting, and rationalizing. It was the most intense feeling I had ever had. Some lifelong barriers like guilt, regret, and self-hatred were coming down. I felt negative energies being released and my heart opening to self-love. I felt connected to the divine through my heart. I realized, for the first time in years that God loves me and that no matter what I’ve done, God has forgiven me.
Jane and I left Kamalaya in excellent spirits. She was several pounds lighter. My weight was the same, but life felt less heavy—less of a burden—and I felt connected with my spiritual side and the divine within me.
NUGGETS:
• Meditate. Practice clearing the mind and observing passing thoughts as if they were clouds.
• Try the ant and buzzing bee techniques when you meditate. Both are wonderful examples of meditating and you can do them anywhere. Don’t be frightened of meditation; it may take only a few minutes a day. It is about listening to your breath and stopping that mind chatter.
• Practice before bed for fifteen minutes, and be in total gratitude.
• Meditation practice is like any muscle—it develops over time, with slow, regular work. If you’re impulsive to grab on to its benefits, you’ll build a weak foundation of meditation practice. But with sincere, mindful progress, you’ll become more patient in your relationships, more serene at the office, and happier when alone. The only thing stepping in your way is you—so get out of your own way and make the necessary changes.
• Remember that you are perfect and whole, just as you are today. Everything you need to be happy and healthy is within you.
From: Jeannemarie
To: Sarah
Abundance is now where you are going and where you will stay. You deserve it. God gives it to you and has no intention of taking it away. Let God do the guiding as we hand over our power.
God allows the experiences in life in order to free us from the wrong attachments, and then brings us to Himself.
30 Breakthrough
The clouds pass but the sky stays.
BY MARCH 2011, the British tabloids had been working feverishly to vilify Andrew. The tragic thing about being bullied by the media is that it can keep getting horribly worse.
My skin is rubbed thinnest where Andrew is concerned. The reasons are that he has always supported me, and there is absolutely nothing I would not do for him. It was all so unfair. Andrew is a man who does not know how to tell an untruth or behave dishonorably.
A dear friend wrote me the following:
You should boycott the press completely. Go on a tabloid diet for 30 days. Then exten
d it to 60 and so on. Stop feeding yourself TRASH. And tell everyone around you: “Don’t bring me any news that isn’t going to directly and positively impact my life.” Set that boundary. Be able to say: “This doesn’t work for me.” And choose what does—that is the mastery of boundaries. Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so. The lesson you’re still learning is that what the newspapers say about you isn’t YOU. Not one person writing about you or your family has spent an instant of time trying to know you. They don’t know of your hurts, heart’s desires, or joys or sorrows. All the things that make up you. You must think of their motivation and intention: to sell newspapers. It’s the only thing they think about when they sit down at their computers.
She was right. I now had to be more disciplined than ever.
I was in Puerto Rico visiting a children’s cancer hospital when the media lashing began. The bullying would grate in my ears all day—it would grind me down until I found relief in sleep. But there in the dark, the real horror started. Every night I berated myself mercilessly for having caused Andrew’s predicament: I did everything wrong; I was to blame. Had he not married me, Andrew wouldn’t be so tarnished. I felt intense guilt, and I wanted desperately to fight for him.
When I plummet into dark, abusive thoughts like those, my friend and spiritual counselor Anamika points out that I am in the “triangle.”
The triangle has three roles: Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor. These roles form a cycle of blame and guilt that allows us to avoid taking responsibility for our own emotions, beliefs, or behavior. Just about everyone knows how to assume these three roles, and most of us have a favorite one. We learn how to play the roles in early childhood and we play them thousands of times throughout our lives. Here are brief descriptions of the roles.
• Victim. People often step into the victim role because they are feeling stressed or have low self-esteem or because another person has been persecuting them. The message delivered is “I’m not okay.” The victim feels oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, and ashamed. The victim is on the defensive, always trying to survive. Victims get their needs met when they get enough attention.
Victimhood can have a huge impact on our well-being and some victims identify so much with their role that they even develop physical illnesses to get, and keep, the attention they need. Staying in the victim position keeps us from making decisions, solving problems, and understanding ourselves.
Whether we know it, or not, most of us react to life as victims. Whenever we refuse to take responsibility for ourselves, we are unconsciously choosing to react as a victim. Inevitably, this creates feelings of anger, fear, guilt, or inadequacy and leaves us feeling betrayed or taken advantage of by others.
• Rescuer. Sometimes people become rescuers because they won’t say no and reluctantly take on the responsibility of trying to solve someone else’s problem to please them. The rescuer may rescue when he or she doesn’t really want to. Yet rescuers feel guilty if they don’t rescue. Rescuers love to help, even when they are not asked to do so; helping others is what makes them happy. I asked Anamika, “Well, what is wrong with being a rescuer? What is wrong with saving the world? Isn’t this really a good thing?”
“It doesn’t mean you can’t do nice things for people, as long as you are motivated to act out of pure compassion. Compassion comes from the heart. It has a different energy than rescuing,” she explained. “Rescuing winds up being self-sacrificing in every case. We use our own personal energy at our own expense. We sacrifice ourselves and become martyrs. There is never any sacrifice or martyrdom involved in true compassion.”
• Persecutor. Persecutors are easy to sum up: They blame, criticize, and shout: “It’s all your fault!”
We not only act out these triangular distortions in our everyday relations with others—like trying to rescue someone, feeling like a victim, or punishing another person, but we also play out the triangle internally. We zip around the triangle as rapidly inside our own minds as we do out in the world. We ensnare ourselves on the triangle with dishonest and dysfunctional internal dialogue.
For example, as a persecutor, I came down hard on myself for triggering Andrew’s problems, which made me spiral into feelings of self-worthlessness. Inwardly, I cowered to this persecutory voice, fearing it might be right. Then I felt victimized by my own thoughts: “What is wrong with me?” “Why am I so terrible?” “Why do people hate me so much and punish me so much?”
To transcend the triangle, we must recognize that we’re in it, or else we can’t get out. Which is what I did. There I was in the middle of my triangle—Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer—all at once.
Andrew called me in Puerto Rico to talk about the problems with the recent press. Immediately I felt like rescuing him, but I pulled myself back. All of a sudden the rescuer role did not feel comfortable to me. Yes, I would be strong for him and I’d be there for him—but this was his problem—and I couldn’t be his rescuer or persecute or victimize myself. What I realized is: Other people’s problems are not your problems unless you foolishly choose to make them so.
I understood this revelation for what it was: a huge sign that I was healing. I had come to the turning point in my life after finally grappling with who I am. For so long I had been stuck in the triangle, running frantically from one point to another until I had simply worn myself down.
I felt like I had found a new path—a slower, broader road. I would not turn back. I felt stronger, better able to make good choices, treat everything with reverence, assume responsibility for my problems and deal with them, and accept my imperfections. I began to see that I am stronger than anything that could bring me down. At least, I hoped so.
From: Martha Beck
To: Sarah
Hey dear girl!
There’s something in our minds psychologists call the “generalized other.” It’s our fantasy of “everybody,” and we believe it’s real down to our last breaths. Actually, we often have few genuine representatives of what we think “everybody” is.
It sounds to me (I could be wrong) as though you’re focused pretty tenaciously on thinking about your generalized other, which had bad and awful things to say about you. The more you give something your attention, the more it grows. What you know for sure, from the very lips of real people, is that there are many, many individuals who love and support you, no matter what. You notice that, hear it briefly, but go back to obsessing about the negative generalized other, like a person with a hand-washing compulsion who hears the doctor say, “You don’t need to fear germs,” and feels better for 5 seconds, then goes back to the obsessive fear and the compulsive hand washing all over again.
Your energy is strong—that’s why you sell newspapers—and as you turn toward the good, wonderful things will happen. You’re making that change already. All is well—and getting better!
xoxo
Martha
13th April 2011
My Dearest Darling Mummy
I have had one of the most incredible journeys this past two weeks and it is all down to you, the best mumsy … You have shared your friends, so that me and Jack can have a magical time and created moments that are unforgettable for me. I really can’t explain how grateful I am that you are who you are … your laugh is the best laugh in the world, and this week we really have laughed. I am just so lucky that I have you to make my world go round because without you nothing is possible … you are the most generous mumsy, and I thank you from the bottom of my soul and the moon and back for everything you give me every day! I am going to miss our special time together, but before we know it we will be back creating more magic … I love you with all my heart.
Eugeniexxxxxx
31 Hugging Pain
The day goes on.
THERE WAS ONE stop on my journey that I had not yet made. I had never looked into the darkness of a lost part of my life—not full on, without flinching. Until now.
Perhaps it was Kamalaya working its magic on me
again. On April 29, 2011, the day of the Royal Wedding, I was back in Kamalaya. For several days I would rest, detox, and meditate in this nirvana, my every creature need met, my external world quiet and complete.
I was doing well, I thought. I helped my daughters get ready for the wedding by telephone, even trimming the feathers on Eugenie’s hat over the airwaves. I gave Andrew a picture of me to carry in his pocket that day… and he did.
I awaited the onset of tranquility … but my melancholy would not cooperate. Rather than melt away, it bloomed all out of proportion. I missed the excitement and buzz of wedding fever, and, in particular, a Royal one. I said: “This can’t be happening. You’re the Duchess of York. You should be wearing a new designer suit, walking into the Abbey, taking a seat with your family, then shaking hands with the wedding party.”
Sadness enfolded me; it obscured the happy sounds of nature and eclipsed the radiant sun through the palm trees.
Had I had the chance I would have inhaled food and binged to the highest peak of addiction. I wanted desperately to feed the gaping pain and hole in my heart. I fell headlong into my own melancholy—the regrets, the lost marriage, the lost dignity, the shame, all the things I would have done differently.
I canceled most of my appointments in Kamalaya and sat alone in my room and allowed myself to just be. I just lay there and felt the pain of the moment, and of the next one, and the next one. I didn’t stiff-upper-lip myself. I stayed under the covers. I cried. I cried some more. I tried to feel as bad as humanly possible. Friends might have advised, “Pull yourself together, you’re so lucky, you’ve got two girls, you’ve got your health.” But I just let myself feel bad.
Finding Sarah Page 22