PERSONAL

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523

Should I Become A Meditation Teacher??

7 months ago3,518 words

I went to a Mindfulness class thing, and afterwards was reminded of how even minor positive real-world experiences can turn my inner world from night to day. I got wondering what I could pursue to get this more often...

This was a 'taster session' for a four-week course in basic Mindfulness skills, held by the mental health charity I previously had counselling with. I signed up for a mailing list for that charity a while back to see what they had going on that I could attend, and this stood out to me because I did quite a lot of Mindfulness and the like in the past (feels like a lifetime ago now, though).

It was at 6pm, and I spent the day leading up to that feeling bitter and miserable, my mind filled with gnashing demons telling me it'd just be the same as my past bad experiences so I should just not go. I should just hide away from the world in my cave and never inflict my awkward, painful presence on anyone again.

So that was nice.

I reluctantly pushed through anyway, and I'm glad I did because it turned out okay! Uplifting, even!



It wasn't ideal, but a big part of it turning out well was due to my expectations and chance events.

I expected it'd be me and maybe a dozen or fewer retirees, like every other meetup in this sleepy little seaside place I've gone to in the past, and was not surprised. Most of the class, including the teacher, were probably in their seventies or older. One woman looked to be slightly older than me (though maybe I'm in denial about how old I look or just bad at determining strangers' ages), and another might have been my age or a bit younger.

When I went to the counselling skills course recently, my biggest hope was to find a connection, a local friend, ideally one who could become a partner, in time. And much of the pain and alienation I felt there was because all the other people in the class were women, but they were all already settled with families and careers and I just felt so inferior by comparison and hopeless about my future because of where my mind was.

Those thoughts are still in the back of my mind - how can they not be, when pairing up is one of the most primal drives? - and I noticed some disappointment about the ages of the others or the ways in which the two younger women there either wouldn't like me or I wouldn't like them (based entirely on assumptions about looks and body language, of course).

But I tried to keep those negative thoughts at the back of my mind and focus on just trying to benefit from the meditative practice.



Chance plays such a big role in everything, though.

When I entered the small community centre the class was being held in, I immediately ran into one of the people from the charity who was helping to set up the room, who just so happened to be the very first counsellor I had like 12 years ago! So THAT was a shock!

(Only 12 years? Huh, feels like lifetimes ago...)

It took me a moment to even recognise her, and when I did I was basically stunned and babbled since there was so much I wanted to say, but sadly no opportunity to do so.

Immediately after meeting her, another woman beside her said that she knew me too; turns out she's someone I spoke to on the phone a few times regarding opportunities the charity might be able to provide for me.

One of the many weird issues I have - and which I've mentioned several times before, but I'll reiterate - is that when I'm familiar with someone from online text or a voice, the idea of seeing their face becomes strangely terrifying to me. For example, there's a youtube channel I've been watching for years where four artists talk while drawing silly pictures, but you only usually hear them and see the digital canvas being drawn on. Recently they put up a video where you could actually see their physical forms, and I literally couldn't watch it; I had to look away from the screen immediately as if I'd just seen some horrifying gory shock image. It's bizarre.

(I have no issues at all watching videos of people if I'd seen their faces from the first time I became aware of them.)

But it didn't seem to be activated here? Maybe it had something to do with the shallowness of the mental image I'd previously formed of her from two or three several-minutes-long phone calls? Or it being sudden and unexpected? Meeting my old counsellor also elicited no anxiety because it had no time to build in anticipation. I mostly just felt pleasant to meet two familiar faces back to back, even though her face in particular wasn't to me.

Speaking of faces, my old counsellor looks surprisingly like the person I had the odd tumultuous friendship with at uni. Not clones or anything, but the same 'type' of appearance. The last counsellor I saw felt into that category, too. And one of the two not-elderly women in the group had a look about her reminiscent of how I remember my ex looking when I knew her many years ago. Maybe that's another quirk of how my mind works, grouping people into 'appearance types' like that? Not something I've ever done consciously, but I noticed it here for whatever reason. I wonder if it has anything to do with making art or games, or if other people do it too, especially if they meet many more people than I do (as most people do).

Also, I referred to her my old counsellor since that's what I thought she was, but now I'm not sure. When I entered the room the class was going to be in and met the teacher, I said, jokily, since the other two were still right next to me, "have I met you before as well?". She looked confused because it was a weird thing to say without context for her, and I pointed out that the other woman was "my old counsellor", to which that person said - while leaving the room so I didn't have a chance to get a follow-up - "not counsellor!".

That confused me. I remember speaking with one of my friends about how I was frustrated by how I was only able to see my last counsellor for 8 weeks total (or was it 6?), because I remembered seeing my first one for much longer. And she was saying no, that's just how it works, it would have been impossible for a course of free counselling to go on longer than that. Which got me wondering about the accuracy of my memories. Maybe that really only was 8 weeks, but felt like much longer in hindsight, maybe because it was all so new to me back then? My memories of it are mostly hazy, after all.

But maybe she was never a trained counsellor, and instead was just some helpful volunteer providing some 'listening service' or something like that, and she felt the need to specify the distinction for legal reasons? Maybe the charity had got in trouble for offering that service, and she felt some embarrassment about it?? She didn't exactly seem happy to see me again, more like unpleasantly surprised, taken aback (though that could be the social anxiety thing where neutral faces are perceived as negative)...

(After going through things since then that definitely were counselling, though, I don't really see any clear difference between what she and they offered. Though I suppose I used both as just someone to vent excessively at...)

I don't know! I'd be really curious to ask, if I had the chance, as I suppose she played a pivotal role in my personal development. From what I vaguely recall, talking with her bridged the gap between my ex leaving and me deciding to go to uni (the second time, of three, where I only stayed for a year).

I got reflective afterwards about how my life seems to be ever moving forward, and it's rare to me that I encounter clear things from my past. I have my creative work from years ago that I look back on, but I've moved house - and country - with my parents several times, so even though I still live with them, it's rare that I ever see stuff around the house that was a part of any of the houses I lived in while growing up. Recently my mum dug up some of my old toys from a cupboard, and seeing them was extremely surreal for me because I hadn't even thought about them in years. I was surprised they still existed. That anything from 'lifetimes ago' even could.

I wonder what it's like to live in the same house all your life. Or the same town or city. To cross paths on the street with people you grew up with. People I knew in the past have mostly faded into the mists of time. Seeing this one again made me aware of how un-anchored I am, just drifting, or something like that.

I wondered about her, too. Why she's still there, whether she's happy about that. Maybe most people don't have any strong desire to fly away from their stamping ground (mixed metaphor there?). Would I have done, if I wasn't forced to do so by my step-dad's wanderlust? Or ambition, whatever it was?

Oh, and I say random chance is important because I started this meeting greeted by familiar people, which immediately activated some trigger in my mind that gave me feelings of belonging or acceptance. Had everyone there been a stranger, especially if they were all together part of some established clique, maybe I would have just sat alone in the corner and felt like an alien again, then come home in pain to whine embarrassingly about my failures yet again.

(Though I suppose it's not entirely chance if I've been to several things by that charity over the years, and it's small and local so I'm bound to be recognised by someone at this point...)

Also, just remembered: the woman I'd only spoken to on the phone asked me during a break how 'college' was going for me. "I'm not in college?", I replied, confused, since I spend so much time on the mostly-American internet and usually mentally translate 'college' to 'uni'. I thought she must be thinking of someone else. Turns out she meant the counselling course, which I had either started or was going to start when last we talked on the phone, and which was at a local place which was technically called a college. So that was an embarrassing failure of my memory or comprehension!

I then broke down on the floor into a flailing fit of tears and crapped my pants out of shame and embarrassment.

Then I died.



Anyway, I'm rambling. So unlike me!!

The class itself was a couple of hours long, just basic beginner Mindfulness stuff. The others there has no prior experience with Mindfulness and barely seemed to understand what it was even when the teacher explained it. Because I had quite a bit of experience with it in the past, and said so, I got the feeling I came across as an obnoxious know-it-all and had to bite my tongue a lot. Same as with the counselling course.

(Like with that, it was more that I was eager to share rather than smugly showing off or condescendingly 'correcting'. I suppose it has something to do with wanting to be of value or use through competence, maybe.)

Based on what I see on Reddit, a lot of people with social issues similar to my own struggle to have anything to say; their minds go blank. In situations like this, at least, my mind buzzes with ideas, and I have to spend a lot of mental energy holding closed the cage doors as they repeatedly charge at it and threaten to blurt out. I wonder if that's related to creativity, or anxiety, or the result of isolation. It's likely also related to why everything I write anywhere turns out excessively long.

Most of my social anxiety comes from saying something stupid - or inappropriate - and getting baffled/annoyed/uncomfortable responses, rather than being overly quiet.

One of the thoughts that bubbled up - though privately rather than as something trying to get out - was that my whole adult life seems to have been about going to little places I'm vastly 'overqualified' to be in. Like some middle-aged man arm-wrestling children or something. I stay at level 1, never try to climb the ladder, due to a combination of mental illness and lack of opportunities. There's so much more I could be doing with my skills and intelligence. Had I been able to take the right steps, I could probably be wealthy, settled, appreciated for what I was able to bring to the table. Part of a team of equals, sharing our skills for some greater good.

Or maybe I'm just delusional and narcissistic for even thinking like that. Or so the demons - with voices of trolls from my past - are quick to remind me. How dare I try to escape the pit.



After the class, I asked the teacher whether there were any other local meditation classes I could go to. I keep meaning to get back into it, but it's harder to find the motivation alone, and the practice is more effective in groups. Plus it could be a way to meet people.

She said the only one she knows of is some Buddhist meditation group, which I used to go to years ago, but stopped when it all got weirdly culty (they seemed to be a sect that believed that the Dalai Lama was literally the incarnation of some evil deity who wanted to rule and/or ruin the world).

I mentioned that I literally live right next to a community centre like the one this class was being hosted in; my step-dad's the caretaker (it's the 'hall' I have to look after when my parents are away), and that I've been interested for a while in running my own meditation group there.

Have I ever mentioned that in this blog before? I've wondered about it for ages, but it's never really gone beyond a vague idea. Whenever I've suggested it to my mum, she just dismisses it (not with overt hostility, but it's part of her general belief that I can't cope with things).

I suspect you probably need some kind of qualification to be able to legally do something like that, so I asked this teacher about how I might go about getting one. She seemed to think I was talking about Mindfulness specifically, and suggested the Mindfulness department at the uni I previously went to (which I'm familiar with since I went to various Mindfulness things while there).

So one possibility is that I could go back there and do something like that. Maybe run my own little meditation group, as it'd force me to work on my own mind, I'd meet people, maybe even get paid for it....

Maybe I'll start looking into things.



I've also been wondering about volunteering or part-time work for ages, though the thought of bridging the gap between where I am now and the point where I'm actively doing the work seems to be the hardest part for me.

(As an example, I see a lot of posts by socially anxious people on Reddit about how they hate getting haircuts because they can't bear the small talk. I actually don't mind the small talk, but finding a hairdresser and then the exact procedure to get from being where I am to sitting in that chair (when and where do I pay? How much? Where do I go, exactly?) feels like some insurmountable barrier for me because I haven't done it in so long, or - with some things - ever.)

I've been looking online at volunteering opportunity listings, and most of them seem to be helping out in charity shops. They also seem to require that you be a bubbly, extroverted person who loves working with customers. So I never get as far as just browsing the lists then giving up.

I wondered whether to ask someone from this mental health charity I'm already familiar with if there's anything I could help them out with. Familiar connections are important for introducing opportunities, after all. There's a reason jobs require references.



This 'taster session' will lead to a four-week course, though for some odd reason it starts the week after next. Pretty much everyone else in the group said they'll definitely come to that, though I said I'll think about it. It'll probably be the same tiny group of mostly elderly people.

But maybe I'll go back just for the experience. To get out of the damn house. I don't need to meet people through it, or maybe I'll be able to reconnect with some of the people from the charity - like my old maybe-not-counsellor - and that'll lead to something else.

That's better than nothing.



The class was held in a town which is about an hour away on foot or about 15 minutes by bus. Much less annoying than the counselling I had a few months back, while required 40-minute bus trips either way.

I've walked there and back several times in the past, and thought it'd be good for me to walk to and from this... but I felt so miserable and anxious all day beforehand that I couldn't bear the thought of walking there, and just got the bus (where I held my phone upside down over the thing that scans a QR code for a digital ticket, and the driver had to tell me how to do it properly... pffff).

After the class, though, I quite willingly walked home, feeling lighter and calmer, maybe even whistling, and the hour went by in a flash. The streets were almost empty and the weather was calm; it was a lovely sunset-y time of evening too. I drunk in the beautiful, living world around me and felt like I was a part of it for the first time in ages.

I rarely go into shops these days - I miss needing to go to a supermarket regularly when I was at uni - but had to the other day, and felt so awkward, anxious, reluctant. I did it anyway, but the whole thing felt strained and difficult.

As I passed the same shop on the walk back, I felt as if I could have done that exact same basic task without a care in the world. I didn't! I had no money on me. But I felt like I could have done, which was so different to how I'd felt about the exact same task just days before.

I really need to keep reminding myself of how just getting out of my dark cocoon leads to this massive shift in my inner world. Like going from being tortured in Hell to floating freely through Heaven.

It's just a pain that the Hell state makes it so hard to find the motivation to do the things that'd take me to the Heaven place where that motivation is abundant. So I come this revelation, then just fall backwards soon after, all progress undone. Over and over.

Hopefully doing things like this more regularly will get the ball rolling and make things easier in the long run.



Oh, also: Earlier in the week, while feeling particularly low and frustrated at my inability to make forward progress in life, I got thinking maybe I should just finally bite the bullet and start paying for counselling/therapy instead of waiting months for limited-duration free counselling courses.

I looked up listing of local counsellors, which seem almost like dating sites, with a flattering photo accompanied by a long bio that you're meant to be charmed by into picking them. One of them was a man who looked like Thor making bedroom eyes in his picture. Another was a man who listed dozens of different relevant qualifications he'd acquired since 2003, including two Master's degrees.

I didn't actually choose one, but did at least consider a couple. Maybe I'll give that some more thought in the coming days or weeks, too. We'll see.



I really want to post about Dreamons, but didn't want to do that then immediately post this, 'overriding' it (as if that'd make any difference to the few views either post might get anyway). I'll hopefully do that on the weekend. I BET YOU CAN'T WAIT; the overwhelming torrents of enthusiastic begging to see more of that game just get so hard to deal with sometimes, you know. Such pressure.