Sam’s story so far…

Before I found meditation I had been struggling severely with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, sometimes abbreviated as CFS/ME. In the west there is no “cure” for this illness and to be labelled as someone who has CFS/ME, you need to have a certain amount of symptoms to qualify. Not all my symptoms appeared at once, I’d never been a great sleeper and my digestion was never quite right. 

In my late teens I was working as a joiner, which was at times quite physically demanding. In a way the physical activity, chocolate bars and constant supply of coffee kept me going throughout the day, but whenever I got home and rested, I would feel drained. What I later realised was that I was in a constant state of fight or flight, which kept me going during the day, but in the evening and on weekends I had to take the time to recover from being in this debilitating state all the time. 

 A few years later when I was 21 I decided on a change in career and started a 4 year distance learning university degree in Estate Management, whilst also working as a full-time assistant building surveyor. I’d also just come out of a relationship and decided to improve my fitness and eat healthily. About a year into my degree, just after my first set of exams, I began experiencing more digestive issues. Further food intolerances began creeping in with extreme fatigue at certain times of the day, my eyes just wanted to close all the time, my sleep got worse and I was experiencing “brain fog”, just keeping a thought and concentrating was impossible. Despite endless visits to the GP and tests, nothing clinically wrong would show up on the tests they did, everything was all in the “normal” range, I was beginning to think it was all in my head. 

Without any conclusive diagnosis, I began experimenting with different foods to see if that would alleviate the symptoms, which did bring about some temporary relief, but then I began having issues with the new dietary options I was experimenting with. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, my body would soon revert back to my symptoms, only it was actually getting worse.

At this point I was aware these were just symptoms but I needed to discover the root cause of my troubles if I was to have a chance of getting well. I was becoming very despondent with the lack of medical help available, I was just desperate to have my life back and on reflection I can now acknowledge  that I was becoming increasingly anxious and depressed.

My social life was non existent, I couldn’t engage in conversations as it exhausted me and every time I went out all I wanted to do was crawl back to the comfort of being at home. 

Despite feeling as`I did, I knew I had to keep going and experiment with alternative health options, foods etc… in order to discover the cause of my illness.

After completing my degree I started a new job in a new location, I figured a fresh start in a new environment would be worth trying. Not long into the new job my symptoms started getting a lot worse, every day was like wading through treacle and my increasing absence from work was starting to pile up, this created huge amounts of anxiety for me.

Introduction to Meditation

About 6 months later a friend talked to me about Vedic meditation, which he had been practicing for a while. I was immediately intrigued by it and the idea of it reducing stress in my body was a no brainer, I just had to try it. My concern was that I didn't think I could sit there twice a day for 20 minutes just being quiet in my thoughts… my friend explained that using the mantra helps with that process, it is just like being taken for a ride and that I didn’t have to worry about trying to meditate, it would just come naturally. I was intrigued and desperate, so within 5 days I attended the beginners meditation course in London.

From the first session I immediately felt more calm, I experienced a level of relaxation I didn’t think possible and I felt more alive too. The session wasn’t full of hippies like you may imagine! There were a range of people from all walks of life and varying ages and I felt very comfortable. For the first time I had found something productive that I could do to help myself everyday, no matter where I was or what I was doing.

Knowing that I had a tool up my sleeve that could help me feel happier, less anxious and overwhelmed and more connected was of great comfort. I had a feeling that this was the first real step I needed to recover from my illness. Although it didn’t cure me straight away, it was the best foundational step for me to take and I immediately wondered where meditation had been all my life. I should point out that Initially some of my symptoms began to get worse before they got better, which can be expected.

During this time, I had also looked into the potential health benefits of various complementary therapies, some of which have certainly helped me in my recovery to good health in conjunction with the meditation.

I believe without question that the meditation practice has effectively supported me through other important factors in my life that I now realise were not contributing positively to my health. For example a big factor for me was my environment; my job, where I was living and the people I had around me, none of which were making me happy. With meditation providing a calmness and clarity within me, I began to feel in control of who I am and what I want, which follows on to effective decision making skills. My meditation provides me with the confidence to make the right decisions for me, however big or small and to follow through with them. As a result of this, once I changed my job my health improved, once I moved house, my health improved further. I then found that as my health improved I started attracting the right people into my life and with that comes a feeling of happiness and self worth.

Becoming a Teacher

As you can probably gather, I developed a huge passion and honest belief in the wide ranging benefits that Vedic meditation can bring to each and every one of us, given the opportunity. I became so fascinated about learning all the ancient knowledge of the Vedas and how it’s so relevant to us all today, that I followed my heart and began my training to become a teacher in order to help others. It has taken me 3 years to become a teacher during which time I undertook several advanced courses and rounding retreats which have been valuable contributions to my ongoing learning and recovery to good health. Finally I then underwent teacher training for 3.5 months in Bali, where I would meditate for up to 15 hours a per day. 

I am now teaching and running retreats in the UK and Portugal. I live with my wife, Maria and our Miniature Red Poodle, Dobby. My wish is to teach Vedic Meditation to as many people as possible, so they too get to experience the profound benefits this simple and effortless technique can offer them. Hopefully you are one of them.