Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

-Mary Oliver

On the opening page of the story of my life, I am dead. I drank myself to death. I ate myself to death. I died a million deaths before I died, in a hostile world that hated me as much as I hated myself. 

I killed myself. 

I don’t hold myself out as a super-wise person. I used to be a mess. A well-intentioned, doing-my-best mess, but a mess. I was 350 pounds, an alcoholic, a smoker, and I suffered with debilitating depression. With adding some things into my life and taking lots of others away, my situation has improved quickly and exponentially. These days, I still grapple with addictive behaviors. I abuse food frequently, I still struggle mightily to not smoke (and fail sometimes), I spend time being mindless instead of being present. 

Of all the behavioral changes I’ve made, it’s hard to say which changes have helped the most, but I give the most credit to meditation. It’s changed my outlook in a lot of ways. When I’m stressed, I feel like I’ve built a safe room for myself – it’s just sitting in the darkness appreciating that all of these stressful thoughts are just thoughts, and I can be free of them for a moment. And I did build that room. I built it 5 minutes at a time at first – hell, at first, one breath at a time. It wasn’t a very sturdy room at first, but it’s gotten stronger with time and practice. 

I have a friendliness with my mental landscape that is totally new for me, and so, so welcome. My mind used to be a terrible place, ruminating glumly on romantic relationships I would never have, feelings of worthlessness, anger and resentment, and endless denigrating. I have a totally different relationship with my thoughts now. Daily, I experience the instantaneous relief that comes when I’ve been thinking thinking thinking about how to solve a problem, and the immediate unclenching that comes when I arrest that train and realize the only thing I have to do this second is breathe. When I catch myself thinking for the millionth time today about the next thing I’m going to put in my mouth, I don’t react with angst and hand-wringing – I laugh at how single-minded and predictable I am about all things food, and think it’s hilarious how often my meditation turns to the next thing to eat. 

When I’ve gone through hard times, I’ve felt much more able to process tough emotions. I haven’t had strenuous tests of this, but when I’ve experienced loss, I’m able to zoom in and out to perspectives that feel helpful. 

My meditation practice is a little “thinkier” than I believe would be acceptable to more disciplined mindfulness meditation teachers. But I often (at least  20% of meditation time) feel a very deep spiritual connection when I meditate, and wouldn’t trade these spiritual experiences for a more disciplined practice. What could be a better outcome from meditation than experiencing the magic of creation and feeling connected to all life on earth? Doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend 20 minutes. Occasionally, I can even carry that feeling into waking life for a while, and on those days, my heart just sings. 

I have a hard time with the idea that I have something worthwhile to say, or something people should take the time to hear. Some of that is a legacy of deep-seated, decades-old feelings of unworthiness. But I’ve come really far, and if there’s anything in these writings that can help anyone else suffer less, it takes only a small dose of that to make it worthwhile to share what’s helped me. 

And the act of writing this is helpful for me. One thing I’ve learned over countless writing projects is that the act of writing, for an audience, helps you sort out what you need to say, even if you don’t know what that is to start with. What I do know is that I’m filled with a sense of mission – that I have a modest message, and a responsibility to carry it to people who are suffering. I’m a writer – I’m not an organizer, or a rabble-rouser, or a caregiver, or even a particularly charitable person – words are the only way I know to offer something. 

I want to share some thoughts and behaviors that have greatly reduced my suffering, along with occasional, badly researched, gee-whiz science. Think if your goofy meditation buddy was a fan of Carl Sagan. I also know that there are bigger problems in the world than depression and addiction. Still, when you’re depressed and addicted, those feel like big problems. Honestly I don’t have a lot to offer people whose suffering arises from the cruelty of the world. Poverty, oppression, injustice, and violence are so real, and there are people experiencing the worst kind of trauma. I’m sitting comfortably in a place of extraordinary privilege, and have not had to overcome much. But I can say, as the movie’s gone on, I used to experience a lot of suffering originating from within myself, and I don’t suffer as much any more.  

In the TV series Modern Family, Mitchell says, “Do I believe people can change? … Plus or minus 10%. That’s how much I think people can change.” I thought that sounded about right. But then I changed – like 50%. Even with all the change I’ve been through, I still don’t know what motivates people to change, how they turn that motivation into action, how they sustain that change, and why they don’t sometimes. I hope that by writing about it a little, I can unpack for myself – and maybe even for others! – some of these questions. 

“I’ll be so happy just to have spoken. I’ll have so much to tell you about it.” So here I am, acting as if I have something to say that’s worth someone else listening to. I hope you find some useful ideas and perspectives here.