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Why I Meditate - Nick

1. When & where did you begin to meditate?

Back in 2013 I had a fashion company, with a lot of shareholders, and there was a public meltdown. A friend gave me the book Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman and it changed my perception of who I was. We are not our thoughts, thank goodness. You don’t have to be a big high achiever, you can spend your life in the corner watching butterflies.

I was brought up to be a player in the material world, but I have dyslexia and ADHD. After I read the book, I started meditation and mindfulness and took it very seriously. There wasn’t a way to change my circumstances, which were extremely toxic, but I had two of the happiest years of my life.

2. Why did you take up a regular practice? What was the spark?

I saw an advert for the School of Meditation on the tube, so I went to the door and knocked. Simon answered, an amazing guy. He was welcoming, genuine, friendly, came across as having no ego. There was no performance – I felt like I’d arrived. I then discovered my daughter had learned to meditate at the School, so we use the same mantra.

Subconsciously, I was already very attracted to meditation. I thought the School might be too advanced for me, spiritually. With my poor memory, I needed to practise day-to-day mindfulness exercises first, see the results and read about brain science.

The Mark Willams book taught me to meditate: peace, calm, patience, resilience. It was strategic and effective. It allowed me to put two worlds together, the hippy in an ashram world and my 20 shareholders world.

I learned to stop and pause between activities. I could put myself in a trance-like state. In chaos, I could bring this into my life. But I needed to be sold meditation as I come from such a different background. It is scientifically proved that meditation helps you handle things. Once I saw that there was evidence, I saw that I could handle an hour a day meditating. I became more effective; taking time out makes you more effective.

3. What were your early experiences?

When I started to attend regularly, the ideas made sense, especially ‘We are not our thoughts.’ The School opened the door to all that.

I got an email from a PR company offering me a breakfast meeting. When I arrived, I realised I was the keynote speaker. I couldn’t have given the speech before I learned to meditate. There were lots of things like that, where meditation allowed me to step back and deal with things skilfully, without judgement. I had lived my whole life in fight or flight mode and was suddenly given permission to just be – I cannot tell you what an enormous relief that was.

If you talk to my family they will tell you I became a different person. My circumstances didn’t change when I took up meditation, but I no longer took them personally. I still cared and still did my utmost, but I realised there was so much that was out of my control.

4. How does meditating affect your everyday life?

Meditation gives you a lot of life skills; it helps with the universal and the practical day-to-day. Nobody gets away from having big struggles in life, but meditation helps navigate incredibly challenging situations.

A regular practice is essential for my day-to-day existence, to being a human. It allows me to step back, to not get swamped. I no longer have voices saying ’You should be doing this and that instead of what you’re doing.’ It’s essential for my mental health. If I don’t meditate, I have less resilience to deal with things.

I actively love meditating. ‘Enjoyment’ is probably not the right word, but I can’t think of a better word. I now experience the inter-connectedness of everything. When I pluck up the courage to smile at someone, if they smile back, it’s one of the best feelings in life. A lot of fear is just memory and childhood teachings. Embracing the inter-connectedness allows me to be forgiving, to see that we are often wrong about other people. We pattern-match based on the past, but we can drop all that. In the modern world, it’s like there’s a campaign to separate us from everyone and everything.

I’m 63 and going through a big change as I leave the fashion world and train to be a therapist. It’s challenging, scary and exciting at the same time. Now I stop between actions and take a minute or two for myself. I’m mindful when I do routine activities. I’m slowing it down, focusing on the moment, it all adds up.

5. What has been your experience as a member of the School of Meditation?

The School is a bit of a sanctuary. I come to a group one evening a week, I try to never miss it, all the members of the group are very different. We discuss written material; we debate it and share experiences. The concepts in the material suddenly become real. There’s no dogma, and that’s so important.

The School gave me an education in non-duality, the interconnectedness of everything. You don’t need to be a Sanskrit scholar to benefit from these teachings, it’s a question of ‘are you living it?’ and it’s about how we treat others and ourselves.

I’ve had a great experience in terms of the welcome I get. I’ve lived my life as a bit of an outsider, I created my own little worlds, creating my own systems and outlooks. Everything would be about performance, and once that was done, I’d disappear.

I became a member in 2018 and doing the course was a very beautiful experience for me. The ceremony was very moving. As well as my weekly group, I attend retreats and open days. We’re a school, and schools have people of all backgrounds.

At the School, I feel I’m accepted for who I am, warts and all, with warmth and love. I’m part of something much bigger than myself. There’s a lack of pretentions, a lack of dogma.