A Photographer’s Yoga & Meditation Journey

When I was 14, my friend’s mother introduced me to buddhism. She swore if I practiced the mantra she gave me, my wish would come true. Being raised Catholic, I felt like partaking in this meditation would be a slap in the face to God, but I was desperate, and reluctantly, and skeptically, I practiced the mantra. I knelt at the side of my bed and repeated the mantra she gave me over and over. Would you believe, it worked? That was about the extent of my praying to the Buddha, and I moved on with my life and continued practicing my Catholic religion and prayed to God in my times of need.

Fast forward twenty years later. With building stress from my job, every issue you could imagine arising with not only my house, but my car too, and a lingering head injury that didn’t allow me to live, function, or workout to release anxiety and stress, I decided to look to meditation.
Oddly enough, my husband suggested I should meditate because he saw the amount of stress I was enduring, and however weird this sounds, I felt like his statement meant it was ok for me to meditate. I guess I had a fear that if I meditated and let him, or anybody else, know what I was doing, they would look at me like a crazy person. I wanted to be normal. Was it possible to meditate and be normal?

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my journey into meditation would give me so much more than stress relief.  It would lead me to more wholeness – mind, body, and soul.

My journey didn’t begin with meditation itself, it started with a book. I had been listening to Elvis Duran one morning on my drive home from work, and he had mentioned that he read the book 10% Happier by Dan Harris, an ABC News correspondent. I love reading, so I immediately added the book to my Kindle wish list, but … months later, I still had not read it.

So here I was wondering about this meditation stuff and I remembered that I had added that book to my wish list, so I purchased it. I finished the book in 2 days, by listening to the audio version while I was at work. If you haven’t read the book, I highly suggest it. I didn’t come to an epiphany after reading the book, but Dan Harris did make me feel a lot better about the act of meditation.  Yes, he went on a meditation retreat and was meditating with monks and had to be silent for days, but he still remained normal, and his practice changed him for the better, in a small, 10% way.

His book inspired me, so I began my journey into meditation, yoga, and some soul searching, which I will share with you through the posts on this blog. Welcome to the Photog Yogi’s world.