My meditation journey started in September 2015 when I attended a three day Mind and Body Calm Meditation Retreat with Sandy C. Newbigging simply because I wanted to learn more about meditation. I had always found meditation difficult when I’d tried it previously as I could never stop thinking. What a relief to be told you don’t have to stop thinking! Suddenly I started to believe that maybe I could meditate after all.
I began meditating everyday after the course and it has completely changed my experience of life. So much so, that everyone around around me, including my massage therapy clients, started saying “I want whatever it is you have”. That really inspired me to go on to qualify as a Calm Coach with Sandy C. Newbigging’s Calm Academy so that I could share this transformative experience with other people.
I ran a successful Aromatherapy and Massage Therapy business, Aromaticus, in Tilehurst, Reading from 2005 to 2019 and constantly saw people who were struggling with some aspect of their life. The massage therapy really helped people to relax, however, also being able to help people deal with what’s going on in their minds completes the picture in terms of helping to reduce the suffering I so frequently saw in clients.
Changes and benefits I experienced
My own personal experience of reduced suffering from learning Mind Calm and Body Calm Meditation came in a number of ways. At the time I went on the original retreat I was experiencing constant pain from a back condition and suffering greatly over my Mum’s death after a long battle with cancer. I now very rarely experience back pain. That started to improve within days of starting to meditate using Body Calm Meditation and the suffering from the grief over my Mum’s death was also very quickly resolved. I still miss her hugely, but I don’t suffer anymore.
Despite the fact that I’m a confident and outgoing person, throughout my life I’ve always been quite envious of people who genuinely don’t seem to care too much about what other people thought of them. Like so many people, I’ve struggled with wanting to be liked by others and easily feeling hurt by the words or actions of others. Mind Calm Meditation completely transforms your relationship with life. It gives you a different perspective on life and the events that happen along the way. Along with this comes a different kind of confidence. One that frees you from limiting self-beliefs about who you are, what you are capable of and also from the ability to be hurt quite so much by others. I really can’t describe just how liberating this is. It boosts your self-esteem, enables you to be true to yourself and makes you realise you are capable of so much more than you previously thought possible.
Best of all, the techniques are simple, modern and easy-to-learn. Simply learning how to be aware of what you mind is doing and how that drives how you are feeling gives you a very different perspective on life. It enables you to be free of the limitations of your thoughts, to go beyond your constricting beliefs and really flourish. I have never felt as consistently happy and content in my life as I do now as a result of learning to meditate. Of course, it only works if you actually do it and one of the reasons I have experienced such spectacular changes is that I have made meditation a core part of my life and meditate everyday. But frankly, self-improvement really doesn’t get any easier than sitting down and closing your eyes a couple of times a day!
I am truly delighted to be able to share these calm techniques and meditation practice with others as I don’t believe there is a single person who wouldn’t benefit from them.
There is a huge amount of scientific research on the benefits of meditation, which are well established, and I encourage anyone who would like to change their experience of life to get in touch and start what could be an amazing journey.