Meditation & Therapy
When I was 23, I moved back to the Chicago area from Prague, where I had been living and teaching for a year. I realized while in Prague that I had been actively avoiding myself for years, through various means. It was time to get to know myself.
I found a therapist, Alice White, a woman my mother’s age, who pointed out things that I had never seen about myself. She told me I had a nervous laugh. When I complained about a job I had writing for a small PR firm, she told me I should be happy to be getting paid to write. She guided me through decisions I had to make and helped me sort through my experiences as a child and teenager. She was kind but direct. She helped me grow up; I needed her feedback.
At the same time that I was seeing Alice, one of my close friends gave me a book called Entering the Stream: An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings. It’s a collection of essays about Buddhism and meditation, and I found the book’s ideas enormously exciting. I was drawn to Buddhist philosophy, including the idea of samsara, suffering borne from duality, and the goal of trying to live in the here and now.
My friend and I began going to Shambhala, a retreat center with a location on the North side of Chicago. I connected to meditation right away, even though it was challenging. My goals while meditating were so simple. As an anxious 24-year-old deciding what path to take with his life, it was a relief to just focus on my outbreath and try to gain distance from my thoughts.
I went to several retreats at Shambhala, during which we meditated for six or seven hours a day. Practicing meditation, especially with a group, made me feel like I was becoming the person I wanted to be. I felt as though I was somehow rapidly maturing, becoming more grounded and more in touch with myself. I remember friends commenting that I seemed happier and, well, different.
This is all to say that I think talk therapy and sitting meditation can really complement one another. Meditation and meeting with my therapist both helped me to know and understand myself. Knowing and understanding myself were the first steps in becoming the person I wanted to become.
Nowadays, I enjoy incorporating meditation into my practice as a therapist. When clients are interested, I like to spend the first 5 or 10 minutes of the session meditating. Then we can talk about what came up while we were sitting.
In 2022, I took an excellent 8-week meditation course in the method, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the Insight Center with a terrific teacher, Elaine Retholtz. Through that class, I got a glimpse of my experience in my early 20s (I’m 48 now.) Since then, I’ve been recommending it to clients when it seems that they could benefit.
Meditation is scientifically proven to help people with insomnia, anxiety, and depression. I recommend getting started by taking a class, going to a group, or finding a good teacher. It’s the best way I know of to work on oneself and I think it’s best to get started with a community of fellow travelers.