My story of finding silence amongst the noise

My life, not 5 years back looked a lot different to what it does today. After graduating from uni and none too enticed by the prospect of the career-climb, white picket fence, two kids and a dog I headed overseas “to find myself”. Through acquaintances and detours I was fortunate enough to find myself in work and travel that exposed me to the vast divide that exists between the world’s richest and the very poorest. Finding these extremes unjust I was drawn to a career as an International Development Professional, or aid worker. After a stint working in the war-torn Palestinian Territories I landed a dream job with the United Nations. I was eager and dedicated and quickly moved up the ranks.

After a few years I was promoted as the head of a large regional operation. I oversaw several teams primarily responsible for delivering humanitarian assistance in the refugee camps, emergency disaster relief, and implementing livelihood programs to address wide-scale poverty.

It was a diverse and challenging role, steeped in politics and security risks,  and one in which I was well over my head. Green to the responsibility there was little time to become accustomed to it all before the challenges came in thick and fast. First with cyclones and flooding, then with changing policies and demands with the refugee camps, and then not long after border tensions had began to rise, and what started as a trickle turned into what was unfavourably termed an “influx” of refugees. What were already devastating & difficult conditions escalated dramatically overnight.

The work was equal parts thrilling and horrid. It was not uncommon to be found working around the clock frantically trying to scale up our assistance, and gather more funding. I felt as though one thing would settle and another challenge would rear its head, it took my all to keep my office and myself adaptive, responsive, and safe. We were on the frontline, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.      

But it was at the sacrifice of my own.

With the post came zero lifestyle. Countrywide terrorist activity had escalated to an unforeseen level and there was a dedicated armed guard outside our doors at all times, and we were forbidden any movement beyond home and office. With no respite, stress was running my head and my body. As a psychologist I should have known better, but my way of coping was to stubbornly work harder, effectively distracting myself from my self, trying not to feel what I felt. I had become a robot without emotion, and no time for nonsense. I told everyone I was fine, a bit tired, but fine.

But our bodies don’t lie. Seriously malnourished, anaemic, and chronically stressed my period disappeared. My hair started to fall out, including my eyelashes. I was riding the rollercoaster between anxiety and depression. Living in a state of go-go-go, I’d become an insomniac, which even strongest sleeping pills couldn’t counter, and half-drugged I’d still be responding to emails throughout the night.

I was teetering on the edge of high grade burn-out.

My personal life wasn’t going too great either. It was an isolating post, away from friends in the capital and far away from family in Australia. The more isolated I felt, the less and less inclined I was to reach out. I hang onto a relationship that was becoming increasingly abusive like it was a life-raft. I was aware at the back of my mind how unhealthy it was, but I felt I had no energy left to make final my repeated attempts at separation and so had just become numb to it.

The work was considered a hardship post, and a perk of the job was regular R&R breaks and so every couple of months I headed out of the country for a week’s reprieve leaving both the work and the relationship at home. I beelined to yoga and meditation retreats, places where I didn’t have to talk to anyone or look in the mirror. These breaks became a beacon of salvation for me. In fact they were probably the only thing that kept me sane.

I would return somewhat recharged, and semi-motivated to take up a personal meditation practice. I knew and accepted all the benefits of meditation, and was aware it would do me some good but I couldn't keep to the habit. In fact I heavily resisted it.

And this may echo some of your own resistance; I said I’d meditate when I had time, which was never. When I did sit I thought that I couldn’t do it properly, as my monkey mind would be whirring in overdrive. I never felt like I was making progress, so I’d give up. I was convinced that meditation wasn’t for me. 

But then something happened.

On yet another R&R break I’d travelled to the west coast of India, backpack on my pack, freedom in my heart ready for a month long yoga course. It was as cliched (and fun) as it sounds - there was incense, harem pants, strong chai, and a handsome guru with a salt and pepper beard. Each morning we were required to rise at 4.00am and sit in lotus for one hour of silent meditation. When the concluding gong rang we’d shake out our pins and needles and trail out of the yoga shala, bleary eyed.

The meditation was a course-pre requisite, but at the time, and like the majority of students I wasn’t interested in ‘wasting my time’  when instead I could have been sleeping, or hitting up the beach, and exploring the fun that the liberal state of Goa had to offer - far removed from the conservative backwaters of Bangladesh.

But then one morning, everything changed.

I’d swept aside the mosquito net, taken my place on the floor, closed my eyes and settled in.

And - without any real intention or any effort, one hour passed in one resoundingly joyous moment. Utterly present and free from all forms of distractions the feeling that came over me was like nothing I’d experienced before, and one that words do little justice to.

I can remember being overcome with a feeling of absolute love. It tickled my body alive and burnt through to the space surrounding me. The heavy weights of my worries were lifted off my shoulders and I found trust, and the realisation that everything was just as it should be. I felt so peaceful, and ever so slightly stunned. I floated out of that shala and looked around me - and it was like I was witnessing the world for the first time, so bright, so colourful. It was as though I saw everything in its pure form, just as a young child sees, without any kind of story attached. And man, it was breathtaking.

That morning was utterly transformative & one of the biggest pivot points in my life.

But…. I soon found out that meditation wasn’t going to provide my desired escape from the world.

Yes, I was finding more calm, greater mental clarity and was less reactive. But the more I sat it was apparent that I couldn't just breathe and concentrate my way out of the mess that I was in, nor more ideally live in that transcendental state I’d experienced in India. On the contrary I felt as though I was walking into a dust storm, and all this dirt previously trodden down was being thrown in my face. All the not-so-pretty stuff I’d become expert at avoiding was becoming painfully clear.

The hardest truth to realise was that my life was an intoxicating lie.

A lie that told me I was successful, saving lives, on a career trajectory. I lie that said I had travelled far from the white-picket fence and the status quo. I lie that said here I was really living life, an awesome life, in all its richness and diversity. Right?

Wrong.  I wasn’t experiencing my life at all.

In silent reflection I became increasingly aware of just how far I had strayed. I was striving to meet other people’s values and ideas of success, not my own. This was reflected in the utter exhaustion I felt, the crippling lack of confidence in myself, and low self-worth that saw me seeking external validation, and settling into a marriage with a violent and abusive man. All the stress and overwhelm was far more reflective of me living a life that was incongruent with my true self, rather than the pressure I was under.

The intensity of work was a prime excuse to avoid facing the fact that I was lost to myself.

That initial hour of meditation woke me up, and placed me on to a path of finding truth and trust in myself. In establishing a meditation practice, all the external stimuli was stripped away, and I was forced to face the entirety of my experience and myself. And so, with a measured process of extraction I left behind the illustrious career, the addictive expat-life, an unsuitable marriage, and came home.

Home to Toowoomba and family. But more profoundly home to myself.

In the rawness of this experience I was shown that if we stop listening to our inner voice, and we start following another’s we lose all our power. That in fact we are all incredibly powerful, and wise, and wonderful- if only we stay true to ourselves.

When we sit in our truth and pave our own path we give an unrivalled gift back to the world.

And as my story can attest it is all too easy to find yourself caught up in doing good, sacrificing yourself, or chasing the illusions of success instead of finding your own path. It isn’t easy - to know your truth, let alone pursue it  in the face of the current paradigm, the economy, societal expectations, and often shaky foundations of self-worth.

But your truth is never far away. You only need to find the silence that resides within you.