A Racing mind, intrusive thoughts, a swirling collage of ideas, memories, and predictions—some haunting. It kept me up at night and hyper during the day. Some called it insomnia; I called it an uncontrollable circus. This had been a problem for me ever since I was young, but it certainly went into overdrive when I stopped drinking; not to mention, a big factor for starting.

Thoughts seemed alive, like they “happened” to me, nothing I could do about it. But I was wrong. In the West, the attitude towards this type of torment is to “just suck it up and deal with it” and you either drink or take a pill to cope.

My father was a drinker, but he also practiced Eastern modalities like meditation and Thai Chi. That’s how I was introduced to it when I was young but found it to be one of the silliest things ever back then. Little did I know it would save my life later.

There are many ways to meditate, and I’m not going to tell you which way you should do it. I will describe what helped me.

I did what most do, I went the conventional route first. The hospitalizations, treatment programs, inpatient, outpatient, aftercare . . . There was some “quiet time” in these programs, but nothing as effective as formal meditation.

I read a few books on it, but what I found worked best was to practice with others. I found a meditation center and went regularly for weeks. There was a monk there, a white dude. Some nights had guided meditation, some just silence. But the key was the people. It hits differently when there’s a room full of people meditating, much like a room full of people praying. I was much more likely to quit 20 minutes into it while at home, but when I traveled to a temple and sit with 20 other people for 40 minutes, I was far more likely to go the distance and complete the session.

The goal is No Mind—not a total eradication of ego, nor an eradication of thought, but an allowance to let it be, step out of it and simply observe. Because thoughts can be like cars crashing and piling up on an icy freeway. If you find yourself in it, you can’t stop it. All you can do is get out of your car and watch it happen from a safe distance, and it will eventually stop.

It’s the same with meditation. When I sit, breathe, observe the mental chaos, and let my brain and mind sort things without me judging any of it; after about 25 minutes, it all begins to slow. Many thoughts are disregarded, many noted, and the cringeworthy thoughts lose power over my emotions because when I do this, they lose power over my emotions, because when I do this, I realize that in the moment, when I stop time traveling, a thought becomes just a thought, not me.

It’s not about control. It’s about allowing a process to unfold without interfering. An innate mechanism for a psychic detox, much like the physical one that happens when you Fast. I learned how to give my system some time and space to do what it’s designed to do instead of throwing a bunch more junk at it to distract and make me feel better for a short period of time but adding more to the pile-up.

The consistent formal practice of meditation is like intensive Dodgeball training for everyday life. So, when I get randomly caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts chucking balls at my head, I can recognize where I am at and just walk off the court and get on with my day in peace.

MAJOR LIFE HACK!