Image: Lucy with her son Harry
I found meditation when trying to fall pregnant. I’d suffered a miscarriage and was almost a year into a particularly trying period of ‘trying’ to conceive.
Like many wannabe pregnant women before me, I was exasperated. I’d changed my diet. I’d changed my habits. I’d been to therapy. I’d questioned everything about my health. Looking back now I realise that I had tried everything except accepting.
Then one day, a message popped into my inbox from My Diamond Days. That’s a free website that promises to teach you to mediate in just ten minutes a day.
I was a skeptic at first. Closing my eyes equated to one thing: more thoughts. Which also meant more questions, which in turn meant more reasons churning over in my brain about what should be happening in our life right now and what wasn’t.
So I didn’t sign up.
Again, with hindsight I think I was scared of what meditation represented. If ‘going inwards’ didn’t help then only I could be to blame.
Then I wrote myself a letter, listing all the reasons I wanted a baby in my life. I guess it was like making a wish. I folded it up into a tiny square and sealed it with sticky tape. That seems a bit weird now – was I keeping myself out? - but at the time it made sense.
Every night after that, about ten minutes before I was ready to go to bed, I’d sit on the floor, light a candle, wedging my little ‘note to self’ under the candle and I'd close my eyes.
At first I just sat there and tried not to open my eyes.
I’d really only manage five minutes before my mind started to wander - there would always be something distracting. A niggle in my shoulders, a tight back, a police siren racing by and that would be it. 'Well, I’m done then!' I’d say to myself and pack everything back up again.
But one night I interrupted myself mid-flight and tried to focus on the space between my eyes. This is a wonderful place. It’s very quiet, very dark and reassuringly endless.
By turning off the outside world every night I was learning to face into myself ... Instead of being afraid of my questions, meditation became a tool to let those thoughts simply pass me by.
When my mind started to wander again, I’d keep focussed on that space and breathe in and out. Until eventually this swell of calm washed over me.
Some nights I made it to ten minutes sitting on my own in that room. Others it was back to five, but rarely less.
It’s hard to explain what happens in that space between the eyes. I think that’s probably because we are not meant to know. But one thing is for sure, there is an amazing energy there, and it can be very healing.
All of that happened two years ago and I fell pregnant after about six months after starting my little nightly ritual. Clearly, the meditation wasn't the reason for my pregnancy, but I am utterly convinced that it helped. Why? Perhaps it just helped decrease my stress. By turning off the outside world every night I was learning to tune into myself. It also gave me courage. Instead of being afraid of my questions, meditation became a tool to let those thoughts simply pass me by.
This sounds easier said than done, I know! But one of the best techniques I found was to figuratively wave to the questions that as soon as they popped into my mind, and then tell them to leave. And I’d repeat this over and over until the ten minutes was up.
When I opened my eyes, the whole room would feel larger. The colours would seem sharper and there was just more space. More hope.
Above all meditation has proved to me the power of intention. That no matter how much stuff creeps into your mind in the course of the day, you can sort it into small piles and put it somewhere else. And that if you’re willing, and you make the time, meditation can transport you back to a really important space where amazing things can happen.
All through my pregnancy I kept meditating. I found it particularly useful when sleeping was a bit rough, to sit and calm myself before sleep. And now that baby is here, alive, healthy and well I find myself setting a time each day just to meditate.
When I’m at home I sit on a cushion as soon as he crashes for his first nap. And the days I’m at work I try and squeeze a ten minute zoning-in session on the train. Every day I do that, everything feels better.
There are plenty of things to distract us in this busy, modern life. There is always something to read or play with or reply to or watch. But there will never be enough allocated space to go inside yourself, to invest in your mind and cultivate your dreams. And in just ten minutes, that’s what meditation does for me.
Have you ever tried meditation? How did you get started?
We think you'll also love:
It's okay to be bored: A beginner's guide to meditation
7 reasons you might be tired all the time