Meditation Turned My World Upside Down

Meditation can open up Pandora’s box of emotions.

Meditation was supposed to make the fireball that I am, zen-like. I imagined my sunshiny persona zing more and my reactions to situations calmer. In fact, I imagined myself getting instigated less and less. I was eventually going to turn into a female version of the likes of Eckhart Tolle, Jay Shetty, with people asking me how I managed to build this calm vibe about me.

I can still visualize myself in a long flowing white gown with a halo on my head.

Meditating an hour every day worked contrary. I am no longer sunshiny all the time. My heart feels heavy every waking moment. Movies, series, books, posts, comments or any stressed conversation triggers my heavy heart. I feel like crying all the time. My inward journey pulled me into extra sensitive mode. It has had its fair share of impact on loved ones around me.

The real scene was me curled up in a fetal position in my pajamas, for the most part of the day.

My close friends and family had to go from being around a person who barely cried, whose strongest emotion was a burst of very assertive anger to the same person being extra sensitive, weepy all the time, and a big ball of emotions. It has not been easy for anyone.

The Emotional Upheaval Is the Best Thing To Happen

The book that truly got me into meditation is Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. The introduction to The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud helped me understand why this flip happened in my head.

In his book, Joe Dispenza says … there is a need to bridge the space between who we really are and the image we present to the world. When we are able to do that, we can take steps toward freeing up the necessary energy to become the ideal self…

Sigmund Freud explains…the mind in dynamic terms, as a system in motion, with information and energy flowing or being blocked through defensive or repressive actions. These actions served to protect our own idea of ourselves…

He also says humans are aware of thoughts and impulses. It allows us to judge ourselves very harshly, sometimes to the point of immobility. The source of this judgment was the development of inner conscience…

A combination of nurture and nature leads us to deal with emotions and situations in our lives in a way that is “appropriate” as per society but makes no sense to us. This conflict causes us to deal with this emotion by either suppressing it, projecting it, intellectualizing it, or brushing it off. In either case, we are not being authentic to ourselves.

Meditation Created The Problem

An incident happened with me 5 years ago. In hindsight, the societal conditioning put a brake on my reaction to it. Me and everyone around me who knew about it swept it under the carpet. I resumed living a partial identity of myself. My identity was that of a happy-go-lucky-never-stresses-will-fight-back persona. I suppressed the second half of me.

I gave more weight to the sunshiny part of myself because that is what everyone around me loved about me. It was the most validated part of being me. I loved it. I enjoyed how others loved it. I wanted to continue being the same. However, I was not honoring an equally important part of my identity. This part had only shown up in mild ways in my life.

In the beginning, meditation seemed like I was deliberately carving out time to sit and give more energy to the incessant chatter in my head. However, consciously bringing back my awareness to breathing or realizing my thoughts had wandered back in their favorite zone over time taught me to observe them. The pattern of thoughts became obvious.

Mindful meditation is like weight training. It is working throughout the day for us. We start noticing our pattern of thoughts. We catch ourselves spiraling into the chatter of our thoughts. The triggers surrounding us become prominent. The colors around us get brighter and more acute, so does everything that impacts us negatively.

This mindfulness forces us to honor our emotions. The inner conscience or the superego that Freud mentions starts losing its hold and we are left face to face with our deepest and darkest self. There is no turning back after this point. Depending on what was under the hood, the ripple effects on your everyday life can be mild to extra hot.

The 5-year-old memory resurfaced and a flood of emotions was let loose.

Meditation Provided The Solution

The addressing of the issue happened gradually. The balance was in favor of the sunshiny Raji instead of the ruffle-the-feathers Raji. I was hiding behind my friends, family, and my fears. The prayer was that it all goes away, that I really don't have to make choices that go against the grain of what everybody feels, that everyone will understand and I can be at peace without having to do anything.

We all know it doesn’t work like that.

I had to voice myself, I had to draw boundaries and I couldn’t wait for others to take action on my behalf. I had to take action.

The process of meditation unravels us but at the same time, it teaches us to be the observer of our thoughts and feelings. The act of observing helps us compartmentalize intellectually and emotionally. Emotionally we could be struggling but intellectually we are aware of the upheaval and we understand the struggle. This intellectual awareness helps us acknowledge and honor our feelings.

Once we understand the problem, our mind starts looking for solutions. Like everything else in life, we don’t fix problems in a day. We could. But usually, we don’t. The actions can range from brash to testing waters, depending on our personalities. Amidst the storm, meditation, and mindfulness gives us moments of peace. These moments are what give us the strength to tackle each day, even when it is hard and seems bleak.

Every small step we take is a step towards freedom.

Freedom is The Oxygen of The Soul

Moshe Dayan probably quoted this in a different context. History has proved that freedom movements have always taken time, sweat, and blood. Every freedom fighter has had their eye on the end goal and everything in-between as a journey that is worthy of the goal.

Mindfulness and meditation take us on a journey to free our own bottled selves. Repressing a part of us is energy-consuming. We can let the repressed self shine or we can let it go. To do either of them, we need to be aware of how true are we being to ourselves. Freedom is a bitter-sweet journey.

Once we free our selves we can use that energy to build a more authentic version of ourselves, because we now know ourselves a bit better.

Final Thoughts

I had days when I slept through them. I had days when all I wanted to do was cry. I had days when I lashed at loved ones. The journey has not been easy. The freedom, worth it.

Meditation is a practice. Meditation is a very individual process. Not everyone sees pretty colors and not everyone faces scary demons. Do it for mental fitness, if nothing else. It teaches us to observe our thought patterns. We are then equipped to be able to step back, breathe and let our higher self act.

When we repeatedly think the same thoughts, our brains are wired to react the same way. We create more of the same in our lives. Meditation enables us to observe this pattern. In waking life we are driven to make tiny changes that start breaking the thought pattern. Our neural network starts making new connections and we start rewiring our own self.

Meditation took me down a path of freedom.