Daily Dose of Wellness - Michelle's Story

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My Daily Dose of Wellness

by Michelle Larsen

My meditation journey began when I was desperately searching for a way calm my crazy mind. My mind wasn’t always crazy but I went through a “breaking open” period that began with feelings we needed to adopt a child. I was busily caring for my five children when through a series of direct revelations from God I was led to adopt four siblings from Ethiopia. The adoption process was blessed and we had many miracles and “heaven meets earth” moments that carried us through that time. However, the crazy mind and severe anxiety came after the children came home.

Trying to love four new children that didn’t speak English or like any food I fixed and had tantrums and nightmares was overwhelming. I suddenly had nine children between the ages of 4 and 16. It was a crisis every minute and my nerves were frayed. My senses and abilities were overloaded with doubt, dread and fear. I wasn’t myself. I had never felt anxiety before and it became debilitating. Friends of mine who were on anti-anxiety medication urged me to look into that so I could function again and rest from all the negativity that was flooding my senses. Being a holistic person, I knew there was another way.

I started researching and came across Felice’s blog. The Spirit immediately told me that she would lead me to some relief. I watched a few videos and it all looked a little “kooky” to me. But, I went ahead and tried her 40-day meditation challenge. I felt a lot of resistance to meditating in the Kundalini way. I was looking for relaxation, not more stimulation. I soon realized that it was my subconscious causing my anxiety and Kundalini meditation was scrubbing out that subconscious.

The first few tries of the Kirtan Kriya were wonderful and the mantras kept my mind from wandering and kept me from falling asleep like I did in normal meditation. Then after just a few days, I started noticing some serious anger coming out of nowhere. I felt enraged and resentful that God had asked me to go through these difficult days and to do this to my family. It became too intense and I stopped meditating many months to ease up on the “subconscious cleansing”.

Fast-forward a year or so and as I prayed and learned to trust God again I started getting strong impressions to pick back up the daily Kundalini meditation practice. It was time to “wake up” and start cleaning my mind again. This time as I noticed those same feelings starting to surface I recognized them and let them flow away. As I kept up the practice it only took about a week before I noticed that the majority of negativity, resentment, anger, distrust was now gone. It wasn’t squelched down for the time being, but it was truly gone.

Part of waking up is a bit painful—but my pain was teaching me. I kept going and little by little pain was replaced with joy and my mind felt free from negativity. Countless gifts and blessings have now come to me quite effortlessly. The greatest gift has been the immense love I feel towards all my children,. I am more able to see others how God sees them—all by my ability to tap into that higher vibration through meditation. Another gift has been the ability to control my thoughts. Part of life is negativity and darkness but now when it comes I call upon that “meditation vibration” in my mind and am able to first recognize it for what it and then dispel it.

Meditation has increased my patience, love, and understanding of myself as well. I look back how far I’ve come these past three years and my heart swells with gratitude for this nutty method of meditation. My prayers are more personal and scripture study and journal writing have become revelatory—not just once in a while, but regularly.

My meditation story hasn’t been one particular sensational experience, but rather slow, incremental change. The change that has come has been on a cellular level that is difficult to describe. The overall change though is so profound to me that I am now committed to making meditation a lifetime practice for myself. Kundalini meditation began as my medication and now is my “daily dose” of wellness that I couldn’t do without.