What Jon Kabat-Zinn did for my Zen

Shortly after my mother passed, my Guru Merilynn Blum relocated, and within a matter of 6 months I lost my Mom who was my rock, best friend and advocate and MeriLynn, who truly helped me to straighten out my troubled mind. I was at a loss and felt that the foundation I build my well being on was going to crumble.

I was not sure about how I would handle these losses, and I started to fear that I could return to a very dark and scary place. I began interviewing Therapist, and could not find a good fit. I searched for a Gentle Yoga class, and came upon a beautiful class and instructor, Eileen Alexander. Eileen is a healer, in fact she is a Reiki Master and her classes were infused with mantra, chanting, meditation and gentle yoga. Facing the fact that I would not be in traditional therapy, I wanted to fortify my mind health and insure that I maintained all the benefits I enjoyed when my Mom lived here on earth and Merilynn helped me maintain and expand my wellness, especially in terms of my Mental Health.

I had been meditating for as long as I can recall, a relic from the Yoga classes that my Mom sent my sister and I to when we were children. My practice was loose and uninformed, as I filled in all the gaps with whatever I felt served me, a chant, a mantra..whatever. A friend suggested that we enroll in a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course. The course would be once a week in person for eight weeks. I knew a little about Jon Kabat-Zinn but I did not know about MBSR.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, developed by Zinn at the University of Massachusetts is an evidence-based program that offers secular, intensive mindfulness training that helps people deal with stress, anxiety, depression and pain. The program helped me to neatly organize my meditation practice, and taught me many new skills to enhance this practice. Learning to do a full body scan helped me connect my body, mind and spirit in a new and ordered fashion. MBSR fortified my abilities to handle stress, pain and anxiety in new and effective ways.

It is difficult to impart how much benefit I have gained from this 8 week course, still I know how well served I am having completed the course and in my continued practice. I am able to regulate my mood, quell my anxiety and live with whatever pain that I now refer to as discomfort I am experiencing. The mind is very powerful medicine, and MBSR came to me at a time in my life when I needed to stand on my own. I could have easily been consumed with Grief in losing my Mom, coupled with the loss of my therapeutic relationship with MeriLynn. MBSR served as the scaffolding I used to hang my daily meditation practice on, and taught me new skills that served to fortify my well being, and maintain my peace of mind.

I can hardly emphasize how important is is for me to maintain agency in terms of my mental health and well being. The key to my well being depends on my ability to regulate my mood, quell my anxieties, and live with discomfort. I am by no means dismissing the important role mental health care, therapy and medication play in ones ability to stay well, I am saying that having agency over how your mind flows, is the one tool that has served me, and continues to serve me in the most profound ways. I used to experience anxiety with physical symptoms such as racing heart, ruminating thoughts for hours on end, energy piercing through my body like an adrenaline rush that did not have an end point. I no longer experience these awful physical symptoms and am able to look at every day with optimism and a sense of calm. When I am faced with stressful situations, I am able to remain calm and I am able to think straight, a skill I assert worth learning. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Jon Kabat-Zenn for restoring my Zen, and teaching me ways to maintain a calm and clear state of mind.