When the student is ready, the teacher will come…

I had been doing a delicate dance around starting a consistent meditation class for many years. There were a lot of excuses as to why I couldn’t do it: too busy, scared of being bored, how would I sit so long?, weirdo-s, hate the smell of incense…blah blah blah. Well, I listen to a lot of podcasts. My two favorite are the Tim Ferris show and the James Altucher show. (By the way, I use a great app called Stitcher to listen.) Recently on one of Tim’s episodes, he responded to a listener’s question: “what is one thing that you have found that all the successful people whom you interview – however success might be defined – do”? His answer was “they meditate”. Hmmmm…and these were all people whom I admired and found fascinating. Then he interviewed Maria Papova, an amazing reader and writer whom I admire. Guess what? She meditates…Hmmmm. And the “coincidences” go on…so I decided to research meditation a bit more..and I found an approach that I thought might work for me (Maria uses it). It’s called MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). I googled local offerings. Guess what? UCSF offers many classes on MBSR…Hmmm. There was one series offering in January 2015. There were spots available. A phrase kept popping into my mind: When the student is ready…the teacher will come.

So I reserved my spot and….I actually loved the eight week MBSR course. This approach to meditation is very accessible. It’s non-judgemental. Non striving. There’s no “doing it right”. It’s paying attention, in the moment, on purpose, non-judgementally as if your life depended on it. There’s no chanting, no “om”s, no incense etc. But it’s not a piece of cake. In fact, it’s difficult! Three hour class once a week and one hour of homework every night, plus an all day silent retreat, for eight weeks. Highly recommended, I am already enjoying the fruits of my labor. One lady whom I met last night at the “alumni weekly meditation hour” said to me, “You know, they told me it would change my life, and I didn’t believe it. Well it has.” But you know, it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what has changed. All I know is that you don’t have to like meditation, you just have to do it.

• People who succeed at the highest level are not lucky; they’re doing something differently than everyone else does.
  

And now I see “MBSR” everywhere! This book just came out. This CEO just lauded it. Bill Moyers researched it. Anderson Cooper and 60 Minutes checked it out. And Oprah just did this interview. 

The book that goes along with the course is also amazing and very helpful.

So how does this effect my makeup/hair routine? Beauty is within and “without” as we all know. 

Beauty. Every Day. Big Day.