English
Three months have passed and the task I was given by the team at Transcendental Meditation Switzerland, to learn meditation and blog about the experience, has come to an end. As I wrote in my previous post, it’s hard to believe it’s been such a short time, but I assume it’s always like that, looking forward the path looks longer, looking back it’s already done and feels quick.
In the beginning I did not know what to expect, I didn’t have any big expectations or concerns about meditation. I had some friends who rolled their eyes saying it’s not ‘me’, but they also know me, I’ll always try everything, once. It’s up to the experience if it then sticks or if it’s just a onetime thing.
I have been very fortunate since I had Guénaël Boucher as my TM teacher. He’s such a fantastic person and teacher, we were a good match, but I’m sure Guénaël is a good match with everybody. He’s been practising and teaching TM for a long time, he’s even had the opportunity to work with Maharishi Mahesh who brought TM to the world. I also got to enjoy Helen’s, Guénaël ‘s wife’s, fabulous homemade chocolates! I’m sure I’ll remember them at least as long as I’ll remember Guénaël.
TM is very easy to learn but even though the lessons were very informative and practical it was very good to do the follow-up meetings with the teacher. After the lessons I had a base knowledge but the follow-ups made sure that I wasn’t straying from the method. Also questions about best practices popped up while meditating at home, but there wasn’t a question that I had that Guénaël did not know how to answer in way that made my solo meditations better.
Guénaël said that everybody experiences meditation differently. Some have an instant, noticeable reaction to practicing TM, most people need a longer time. The important part is to keep practicing. The only goal or wish I had when starting TM was to achieve a better work-life balance. And then life happened. Work has been extremely challenging and stressful due to many recent internal changes, even more than usual. So I can’t really say that I have a better work-life balance right now, but I can always speculate how stressed I would be now without practicing TM.
My morning meditation prepares me for the day, but still, some days, I’m already in complete work mode when I start and I struggle to keep meditating and not to start mentally working on different tasks. The mind is a tricky thing, it definitively has a mind of its own. But as Guénaël says, it’s normal and part of the process.
My evening meditation is calmer, it gives me the opportunity to leave the day behind and prepares me for a good night’s sleep.
On top of challenging me as a writer and a blogger, I want to thank TM Switzerland for giving me this opportunity, I think meditation will stay with me, supporting and helping with stress release, like a friend staying with me in the ups and downs of life.
