How do you go from overthinking, letting every problem affect you, and feeling overwhelmed by how chaotic everything is, to restoring balance and calm to your life? The answers are more simple and straightforward than you might think, and have been available to anyone who is prepared to put in a bit of positive practice for thousands of years. The tips I’m sharing are just the techniques and practices I’ve sought out and learned over the past 22 plus years. There’s nothing special about me or how I’ve managed to learn them, it’s just the choices I’ve made that have helped me get there.
A little bit about my Zen journey. I grew up in a working class and pretty uninspiring part of greater London, my parents got divorced when I was 9, and my brother and I stayed with my Mum. My Mum had difficulties with her emotional health due to many factors including childhood sexual abuse and undiagnosed neurodiversity. She was a brilliant Mum but had low self-esteem and made life choices that had a detrimental affect on herself and those around her (especially my brother and myself). I was a sensitive child and worried about everything. The methods I used to feel happier and more in control of my life (eating disorders, excessive drinking, etc) were quite damaging physically and emotionally. I felt useless and helpless because I couldn’t help my Mum feel better or help other people in my life who were struggling in different ways.
Due to a lifetime of people pleasing and masking my own needs, I burnt myself out by the age of 22, and felt I had to escape from my life. I travelled on my own around the world for 13 months, and discovered that spending time on my own, in nature, was the key to my inner peace. All the time and energy I’d spent hiding and covering up who I was inside might have been incredibly fun at times, but it made me feel empty and miserable. Spending time on my own was the only way I could work out what was going on deep down inside me. Just sitting and looking at the sky, walking through the redwoods in California and the mangroves in Cairns, watching sunsets and sunrises all over the world, filled me with a tranquil, effortless joy. I took up meditation while I was travelling in America and learned shiatsu massage for 3 months in Hobart, Australia.
When it was time to return to my ‘normal’ life in England. I knew it wouldn’t be so easy to maintain this new sense of peace and inner joy that is much easier to achieve without distractions, but I was determined. I’d made my choice to be happy so that I could actually genuinely help other people. I lost a couple of friendships that had been built on the reliance of my insecurities and anxieties, but discovered that if I trusted my instincts and stayed on my path, everything would work out. I happened to meet a Zen Buddhist Traditional Chinese Medicine teacher while working as a personal assistant to a quadriplegic lady, and began an intensive Zen Healing course immediately. 22 years on, I’m still learning, still working on this zen healing adventure, and now I have a family with two autistic sons and a rather cute dog. My sons have had a very difficult time in mainstream school and I’ve fought for appropriate understanding and education for over 10 years. I developed chronic kidney disease due to bad habits when I was young, combined with years of sleep deprivation and hereditary blood pressure and kidney issues. I suffer with excruciating period pain after traumatic births, and also anaemia. About 90% of my family members have in the past 12 years, including my Mum. However, I manage to maintain a semblance of inner peace most of the time, even while surrounded by chaos.
This is how:
- Read about all things Zen – Buddhism, Taoism, any approaches that are about simplifying life and connecting with nature (yours and the outer universe). Being a Buddhist and having a Buddhism teacher has helped me enormously, but everyone is different.
- Retrain your brain – find the positives in every situation, no matter how hard that is to start with. The way we think and see the world is just a habit (it’s also an illusion!) and you can slowly rewire your brain so that seeing the positives becomes effortless. Meditation, guided and many other types, have enabled me to do this.
- Spend time with nature – go for walks in woods or by the sea, do some gardening, bring plants into your home, gaze at the sky. Allow yourself to be completely absorbed in the activity and contemplate all the lessons you can learn from nature.
- Meditate – sit or stand or lay down, on your own, with no music or other distractions, and just breathe. You don’t need to add anything, you already have everything you need. Allow your thoughts to come and go without following them. Bring your attention back to your body and your breathing if your mind wanders. Do this for longer and longer amounts of time over the weeks, months and years.
- Accept yourself, warts and all – stop being hard on yourself for being imperfect, everyone is. Everyone has good and bad, ups and downs, and positive and negative thoughts, and no-one has everything sussed.
- Practice qigong and Daoist exercises – these slow, therapeutic movements help you to connect with yourself and to nature, reset your nervous system, and overcome emotional and physical obstacles. They are suitable for all levels of ability and can even be practiced if you’re unable to move any parts of your body – they are internal exercises.
- Let go of stuff – start small and throw away something you don’t need right now. Put away something that is out of place. Start letting go of useless thoughts too, anything that makes you feel unhappy. If it doesn’t bring you joy or comfort, you don’t need it.
Lots more support and inspiration always available in my Facebook and Instagram pages, and I offer many different types of classes and courses to suit everyone. Please feel free to get in touch.
Restore Balance 
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