The end of summer, for many, marks a return to rules, regulations and an orderliness that we had neglected a bit during the summer months. Whether a student, working professional, self-employed or a parent, the lax days of summer, when the sunshine put everyone in a bit of a better mood, the days are shortening signalling the coming of the next season. As a child, and if I am honest as an adult as well, the new school year was my favourite time of the year. I loved everything about it from the new books, new stationary and a chance to get back to a routine.
However, regardless of the expectation of organisation, I have come to realise that no matter how organised or ready you are for a new routine, if your mind is not in order, it will not matter how many colours of highlighters you have. Which is why Laurent Grenier’s book, Mediation Time, came as such a fortunate time.
I have had, what may just be, the busiest summer of my life and coming out of it I have felt frazzled and stressed and completely unlike myself. I very quickly realised that what I was missing was a sense of inner peace, awareness of what I needed, and an inability to stay focused on the present. Instead I was feeling lost, helpless to change it and controlled by my stress and anxiety regarding the future.
Now, I am not one to believe that one self-help book can fix all of that. Indeed, I have gone into a discussion on whether I think self-helps books actually work. But what I found so nice about Meditation Time is that it absolutely did not feel like a self-help book. Instead it was exactly what the title suggests: a prompt to help you meditate your way through the tougher times.
Most self-help books are quick to tell you that they are different, that they are not going to magically fix your issues but have in some way found the avenues that can help you do so. Indeed, reading the first pages of Meditation Time I expected to find exactly that. But instead what I found was complete honest of what the book was, how it might come across. It was the following line that drew me in:
‘The truth is, my book appears untidy and incomplete because it is, despite my best effort to approach the mystery of existence in a factual, coherent, and luminous fashion. I see no point to a system of thought whose pretense of tidiness and completeness amounts in the end to a pure illusion.’
For how I was feeling, I did not want tidy. I did not want more organised. Or at the very least, I did not want the illusion of it, that much I could get with my coloured highlighters. I wanted the real thing and I had hope that this was a step in the right direction.
Divided into 28 relatively short chapters, I treated Grenier’s book almost like a textbook, dedicating time to one chapter per night that I picked up the book. Granted this meant that it took me almost a month to get through all 170 pages but taking my time with it meant that I got the most out of it.
On the nights that I pulled up the book I would read through the chapter (rarely taking more than 10 minutes to do so) and use it as a prompt to begin working through and clearing the issues in my head for a less cluttered mind.
With the diagrams included at the end of every chapter giving a visual summary of the concepts and ideas, I felt simultaneously guided and free to make of it what I wanted. There were times where is almost felt like I had fallen into a discussion, taking the time between paragraphs or even sentences to ponder how I would address the topic at hand. Without intending to be, it was incredibly interactive which I had neither expected nor looked for in a self-help book before. Indeed, I tend to find the self-help books with exercises to feel quite tedious, almost putting me back in the mindset of the reluctant adolescent made to do maths exercises.
After a month with this book, I had filled my journal almost to the end (and this coming from a person who has never successfully managed to journal consistently). While I do believe that my experience with Mediation Time had a lot to do with the mental position I found myself in when it crossed my path and as such, may not be as helpful for someone feeling content with their state of mind, I do think that it opens the doors to queries and conversations you might not have otherwise considered having.
Some of my favourite chapters included the following: ‘Inner Peace’, ‘Mental Hygiene’, ‘The Stranger Within’ and ‘The Emotional Minefield’.
~S~
Disclaimer: Meditation Time was gifted to AvidBards in exchange for an honest review. All our views are our own and we have not been told by the author or anybody else what to say.
