How the process played out for me

After years of critical introspection and many crisis-inducing books, I identified a philosophically informed meditative practice that leads to inner peace. I knew I was on to something real when I learned that my system aligns with International Mindfulness and Meditation Alliance (IMMA) and the International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited training.

The Past

Somewhere in my childhood I lost more than the definitive whimsical curiosity. I hated everything and everyone, except skiing, pizza, and my dog.

Through adolescence, I pointed to everything around me as the cause of my unhappiness. I knew what I thought was fact, but I didn't know why I believed those thoughts. I didn't understand where they came from or why they made me feel the complicated things they did.

Instead of digging deeper into my discomfort and constructing philosophical relief, I'd hurt myself and others to mask what I couldn't face.

These beliefs weren't just about me. As a worldview, they include everyone and everything. And in that context, I didn't like the person I made myself out to be, first in thought, then in action.

But don't feel bad for me. We're all born in the deep end of unaligned phenomenology (the objective study of subjective conscious experience.) We have different selves we express in different spheres, and each of us has a different dominant attitude. An assumption I make about life is that getting all your selves on the same page is the human condition, and fundamentally the only way to enjoy, in the most profound sense of the word, this life you've been given.

My entire life up until age twenty was lived out of alignment. I overlooked the simple truth that all ideas are stories the conscious mind creates to explain, justify, or rationalize the nervous system's interaction with an environment. It wasn’t until I meditated past my defensive reactions that I realized my dissatisfaction was the result of a life guided by unaudited beliefs.

The stories we tell ourselves about life are only as real as we make them. We can't turn them off (nor should we), so our best bet is changing them.

The Journey

I sat down to meditate for the first time in August 2014.

Before that, all I knew was what I let myself believe, and I was trapped by those ideas. I was lost in the vast unknown of consciousness.

I expected the world to melt before my eyes; for universal secrets to write themselves in the sky; for an "aha!" moment.

Instead, the journey had me question every assumption and answer I'd taken for granted. Everything I'd have labelled "obvious" became debatable. Things like walls really interacting with my right hand became "obviously true" quickly, while my relationship with work and death became debatable.

The world I thought I knew so well melted in front of me. 2015 rattled me. Self-destruction is painful.

In response to this awakening to possibility, I reorganized my entire life. I transferred schools and changed cities. I had to change my relationship with myself.

For the next three years, I swam in the ether of not knowing - of anything being possible - questioning the veracity of this entity I called "me" that sustains through the flux of time and space. My friends will tell you I took the universal skepticism too far, but we're all on our own paths.

Creation

We create our meanings for the world with or without our conscious attention. It hurts at first, but I believe creating yourself intentionally is a healthier approach than letting the world tell you who you are.

This is where self-destruction becomes self-creation. What once we called pain (dissolution of the self), now we see as pleasure (self-realization).

This transition happens when we inhabit the attitude of philosophical non-attachment. It's the state of comfort with the universal fact of infinite possibility (which implies a high probability of your perspective being only a partial truth).

We must allow ourselves to examine conflicting narratives. We must become comfortable with uncertainty. Doing so opens our minds to creative alternatives - to the possibilities we'd never consider from one narrow perspective. When you question your beliefs enough, you begin to identify with things other than your opinions. Changing your mind no longer hurts.

After years of looking inwards and adjusting how I thought about, felt about, and treated myself, it was time to focus back out into the world. It's only out in the world that we can enact our newly constructed identities.

Changing what I ate, when I'd exercise, how I'd work, all became easier. Life didn't change. Domino's didn't go out of business. The weather wasn't always perfect for biking. I changed.

I got out of my own way. I went through the discomfort of admitting that I was undermining my own quality of life. I became indifferent to the unpleasantness of cold rain running down my neck as I pedalled the last kilometres home. Doing the hard stuff is easier when we realize the "easy" stuff makes life harder. Mindfulness shows us how neutral all these experiences really are.

Unfortunately, this kind of existential pain is the price of seeing through the fiction of the worlds we construct with thought and emotion. The ego must face its half-truth. Until then, we'll continue mistaking it for reality (which isn't all bad, but that's another essay).

I discovered how a consistent practice of meditation, hypnosis, and self-hypnosis (there's a difference) acts as sessions of radical acceptance, critical reflection, and intentional living. We can tone our muscles in the gym, our minds in a notebook, and our experience of life in consciousness itself (there's an explanatory paradox and another essay here).

I reevaluated my relationships and took responsibility for the quality of my own life.

I kept questioning and recreating my ideas of myself, others, and all reality. 

Somethings changed while others didn’t, but everything was different.

And now we're here.

The Present

If life is the being, then living is the doing, and meditation is simply doing what you’re doing while you’re doing it. I keep that thought with me through everything - from the mundane to the extraordinary.

After years of critical introspection and many crisis-inducing books, I identified a philosophically informed meditative practice that leads to inner peace. I knew I was on to something real when I learned that my system aligns with International Mindfulness and Meditation Alliance (IMMA) and the International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited training.

After meditating and philosophizing friends and family but before quitting my day job, I extended my practice to travelling professionals and digital nomads around the world. Now, I invite you to participate in what some have called the conversation that changed the direction of their lives.

I also spread, discuss, and philosophize inner peace, enlightenment, the self, self-improvement, and more daily on Twitter.