My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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Blog 254 finished with these words.

When Margaret was so very ill, meditation enabled me to accept that there was nothing I could do except always be there for her whenever she needed me.  The best solution to Margaret’s illness was for me to accept that there was no solution.  She was dying and I needed to ensure I did everything thing I could to ease her pain. And that is what I did.

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I like to bushwalk with a backpack on my back and trek through wild places.  This was me on 22 September 2010 at Wilpena Pound in South Australia’s astonishing Flinders Ranges.

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I also took this photo on 22 September 2010 when I was in the Flinders Ranges.  Margaret could never understand why I liked to walk for miles, sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag, and then carry a backpack for yet more miles before again sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag.  What can I say?  You either understand because you do it, or you will never understand because you do not do it.   I do it because it makes me feel more alive. 

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I took this photo on 5 March 2011 when I was camping in Ceduna in South Australia.  If you want to see glorious sunrises like this one, you have to be up and about before dawn.  If you do this, the reward is unbelievably uplifting.

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I was completely proud of you.  I hope you realise how important you are.  Without you, the universe would not know how to exist.

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So how on earth can meditation help you get out of the Pit?  The first thing you will notice if you try meditation is that you will fall asleep.  You heard me, meditation will send you to sleep; as soon as you slow down that great river of your thoughts, your body will immediately say it is time to nod off.  Don’t panic, that is actually a good sign!  You have slowed yourself down enough for your body to be able to say “Thank goodness, at last I can get a rest”.

Don’t give up just because you get sleepy.  If you immediately fall asleep and wake up wondering what has happened, this means that you have pushed yourself so hard that you were exhausted.  When you are exhausted, you need rest.  Falling asleep when you are meditating is a sign that the process is working.  Just imagine, you have slowed down the great waterfall of thoughts running through your mind; you have done it so much that your exhausted body is finally able to get the rest that it so desperately needs.   Resist the sleepiness, but do not panic if the sleep wins the struggle.

The essence of meditation is to accept what is happening and not be utterly panicked by it.  Accept that your diet at the moment sonsists only of sh*t sandwiches.  If you are panicked by having to eat all the sh*t sandwiches, you will not be able to clear your thoughts enough to be able to work out how to lay hands of genuine nutrition to replace the sh*t sandwiches.

In my experience, the major benefit of meditation is to allow my brain which is working overtime all the time, to slow down.

It may sound crazy, but when you are surrounded by chaos, the best way to tame the chaos is to slow your thoughts down.  If you can slow your thoughts down, your ability to precisely identify what is happening, will improve greatly.  Once you identify precisely what is happening, the best course of action will often be obvious.

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I was with Margaret when the doctor told us that she had an untreatable cancer and that she would die in less than 5 months.  The news was devastating.  Surprise, surprise, I panicked.  Margaret was had an illness that the doctors could not cure.  She was dying and I wanted to stay alive.

When we got home, I meditated.  By that stage, I had been meditating for six years, so I was much better at it than I had been when I started.  The great river of crazy thoughts became fifteen River Amazons - all rushing madly through my head.  My wife was dying, I did not want her to die, what could I do … you know the sort of stuff in the crazy, horrible dance that went through my head.

Eventually, the Amazons started to settle.  

There was nothing I could do to cure Margaret of the cancer … nothing at all.  

The only thing I could do was to make sure that whenever she needed me, I would be there for her.  If I fell into a crazy panic of despair, Margaret would still have untreatable cancer, and she would know that I was a useless donkey who could not be relied on to help her with her daily struggle to stay alive in the time left to her.

I swallowed the sh*t sandwich of Margaret’s untreatable cancer – just as Margaret did.

If you think meditation is a miracle cure for anything, you will be very disappointed.  Meditation is not a miracle cure.  But it did help me swallow a continuous diet of sh*t sandwiches and help Margaret in every possible way on her journey into the next world.

Meditation meant I was able to keep driving Margaret to her appointments and treatments; it helped me insist that she had to be seen in A & E departments even though the staff kept insisting A & E was full.  Meditation gave me the courage to visit Margaret every day when she was in hospital.  Meditation gave me the courage to make sure I knew exactly what Margaret wanted me to do when the end of her life was close.  Meditation gave me the courage to tell the doctors to turn the machines off and let her die when only the machines were keeping her alive. 

Meditation enabled me to accept that although her death was unstoppable, I could shower her with my love and care before the cancer conquered her body.

Meditation is not a miracle cure, but it is an effective survival tool.

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Tomorrow, I will tell you more about the practical tools I discovered to make my meditation effective.