Life
9 Extraordinary Ways My Life Improved By Meditating

Almost 10 years ago, I started my first corporate job. I was scared. I didn’t know if I could do the job, and I was afraid I would be discovered as a fraud, and be fired. Luckily, I found a mentor at the job almost immediately. My first mentor was an older woman named April.
April took me aside one day and asked me about meditation. She was a very spiritual person, and had all kinds of experience that I didn’t have — Ayurveda, yoga, meditation and various other spiritual paths. She encouraged me to start a meditation habit. (I think she could probably see that I was a ball of anxiety.)
So, I started. At first I just sat cross-legged on the floor of my apartment while a few songs played on iTunes. I found it easy to concentrate with music in the background. Sometimes I left my eyes open, sometimes I closed them.
This was not my first experience with meditation. Years earlier, I had visited a Buddhist sitting meditation group, and stared at a flickering candle flame with my eyes open for an hour. It seemed like I didn’t blink during that whole hour.
Although that early experience was transformative, it was simply easier not to pursue a meditation practice in the intervening years. It was easier until I was motivated by the fear of poor job performance, and the gentle urgings of April.
So I sat. Some weeks I sat for 2 minutes, some weeks I sat for 5 or 10. It was sporadic. It was unstructured. It was meditation. It was working. After a few years of this, I started getting more serious about it (it helped that the company had an optional morning meditation break). And I started getting results.
“Meditation more than anything in my life was the biggest ingredient of whatever success I’ve had… It opens the mind.” – Ray Dalio
Here are 9 things that changed in my life from meditating:
1. A greater sense of calmness on a daily basis.
2. Everyday life became easier, frictionless. This extended from the most mundane tasks like washing clothes or cleaning my house or making food to the most previously-challenging tasks, such as tackling complicated or ‘difficult’ problems at work.
3. Freedom from what I recognized as “secondary emotions” — getting mad at myself for feeling sad, for example. I felt emotions fully, then they passed, and there was nothing after them.
4. Greater understanding and feelings of compassion for other people, and the benefit of this is that I felt angry at them much less often.
5. Rare moments of deep clarity where my inner monologue went completely silent. I had not realized that all my life I had a high-pitched whine of “inner voice” ringing in your ears. When it went away, the silence felt so good it was almost a physical sensation of pleasure. (I don’t think it’s an accident that the first time this happened was after a yoga class.)
6. Professional life became completely different. The things that used to stress me, such as deadlines, budgets, resources, agendas, politics — all become totally easy and fell into place. Instead of these worries, I found myself spending more and more of the work day just trying to magnify love into each moment, no matter what else was going on. I found this a much greater (and more rewarding) challenge than hitting quotas.
7. Insight. I understood problems quicker and more easily than before, and solutions to previously tough problems suggested themselves to my mind rapidly. Although I have yet to experienced it to these levels. There are stories of great lamas being able to diagnose problems with a car engine after a brief introduction to what some of the major parts are, but without ever having seen a car before.
8. Social and emotional processing at greater speeds. I would find myself in conversations with people and their motivations would become very transparent to me. I saw “through” people, saw when they were projecting, or being immature or egotistic in their words or deeds, and this made it relatively easy to maneuver around it without getting caught up in it.
9. I started getting bigger projects and more responsibility, which might have previously overwhelmed me. In my view, this was “Life” or “The Universe” amping up the size of life events, and the speed of change, simply because I now had more equanimity with which to deal with it — where I simply wouldn’t have been able to manage before.
“If we could teach all children to meditate, we could change the world in one generation. – Dalai Lama
These benefits are by no means special or unusual. I’ve spoken to other meditators who have experienced all this, and much more, from a simple 20-minute-a-day meditation habit.
How has meditating changed your life?
Life
The Imbalanced Problem with Work/Life Balance
Balancing is for your checkbook, gymnastics, and nutrition; not for your people’s work/life ratio.

Balance…it requires an equal distribution of value between two or more subjects to maintain steady composure and equitable proportionality. (more…)

It’s 2023, a new year, new you, right? But how do we start over? How do we make the changes in our lives that we crave so much to see? (more…)
Life
Failing is More Important Than Succeeding
Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures.

People often consider failure a stigma. Society often doesn’t respect the people who failed and avoids and criticizes their actions. Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures. Not to have endeavored is worse than failing in life as at some stage of your life you regret not having tried in your life. (more…)
Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
-
Success Advice4 weeks ago
The Dark Side of Success: How to Identify and Avoid Toxic Leaders
-
Success Advice3 weeks ago
How to Focus Your Mind on Your Goals in 2023 Constructively
-
Success Advice4 weeks ago
How to Fast Track Your Career for Guaranteed Success
-
Life4 weeks ago
Grit: The Key to Your Ultimate Greatness
-
Entrepreneurs4 weeks ago
How to Lose a Team in 10 Days: Are You a True Leader?
-
Success Advice3 weeks ago
How to Develop a Following of Passionate Fans Even Before Launch
-
Success Advice3 weeks ago
How to Think Like a CEO for Your Future Success
-
Life3 weeks ago
3 Simple Steps to Cultivate Courage and Create a Life of Meaning