Welcome to Josie’s #MeMeditating account – part of our #MeMeditating series, where students share their real-life stories of how Vedic Meditation affects their lives.

 

Home educator Josie learned to meditate over twelve years ago with Jillian.  In this time she’s changed careers, from accountant to teacher, become a mother, and found new ways to thrive during the pandemic. Through all of these changes, she credits Vedic Meditation with helping and guiding her through. Less anxiety, reduced stress, and better energy levels, especially when her children were very young.

 

I’m Josie.

 

I learned to meditate with Jillian about 12 years ago, and since then, my life has changed so much for the better and I believe meditation has played a crucial role in this.

 

Here’s a list of the benefits I’ve noticed:

 

1. More headspace — less internal chatter.
2. More focused — the things that need doing get done and get done well.
3. Self-awareness  — I’m more aware of my feelings and curious about them rather than allowing them to consume me or trying to push them away. I’m more able to calm myself quickly in situations of high stress. I have a heightened sense of my own intuition and allowing myself to listen to this and trust it to guide me when making decisions.
4. More present in the moment — a slowing down of life to enjoy the simple things, which leads me to the next one….
5. Appreciative of the small things — e.g. a beautiful sky, seasonal changes whilst walking along the street, feeling grass beneath my bare feet. Years ago I used to get the train to work and I’d often be looking up at the sky when everyone else was looking down at their phones. If I saw another person looking up I always wondered if they were a meditator too!
6. Less tolerant of friction and toxins in my life — this is a big one for me. Not long after learning to meditate I decided my career was not working for me and was not fulfilling at all. I switched careers from accountancy to primary school teaching. Since then, I’ve noticed that I am less tolerant of situations, relationships and experiences which are not fulfilling, are stressful or which give me a sense of unease. When these situations arise, I have to get to the bottom of them rather than have it stewing.
7. Parenting & tiredness — when I had my first child 4.5 years ago, I meditated when I was able to fit it in. It helped immensely with tiredness as neither of my babies were great sleepers. My 2nd meditation is now done sitting next to my son as he falls asleep. The negative and constant internal chatter has turned right down, the morning meditation clears out any residual tiredness after a broken night’s sleep, and I am better able to hold space for those close to me who aren’t going through such an easy time with the pandemic and lockdown.