From Nihilism to Nirvana (Part 3)

Part II - Experience

Aug 14, 2025

“Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

It's May of 2014. I’m living with three friends in a brownstone apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is streaming through my bay window illuminating my bright blue-green curtains. I’m sitting at my desk and I am angry. I am furiously writing a letter to the person I’m dating, a letter I do not plan on sending but I do plan on using later when we decide to discuss our argument. I’d been stuck in a toxic dynamic for over a year now and simply did not know how to fix it. He is a die-hard Christian and his dogmatic nature brings out my worst. He also has a tight grip on my abandonment issues before I even knew I had them, so our dynamic continued. Yet, he is so familiar in this foreign place, and there was real affection carrying it through.

I finish my letter. I’m still at a loss. I stare down at the composition notebook in front of me. Then I decide to try my first meditation on a whim. I had read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle a year prior and it was my first exposure to Eastern philosophy and spiritual practice. It had an effect on me. My whole life it seemed as if the options had been “cult-like religion” or “cynical and science-minded.” I had happily chosen the latter. This book however seemed like a third option, something spiritual that actually made sense. But throughout the chapters Tolle makes it clear that none of it really matters unless you meditate and embody the concepts. I think Well I'm depressed, so why not?

I walk over to my bed and flop down on my back. I close my eyes and begin to relax my body bit by bit while thinking about the concepts of the book, letting go and staying focused on the present. I then see everything in my life getting wiped away, my thoughts, my job, my relationships, my dreams, my past, my wants, needs, desires, and I slowly begin to sink into the idea that the only thing that is actually true and real, right now, is this moment. I am in a body and I am lying on a bed in a room. I am in a body and I live on the earth. Anything else, right now, is just an imagined thought. I am in a body and I live on the earth, just me, my heartbeat, my breath, and the earth.

Suddenly the voice inside my head is amplified to fifty times its regular volume, yet whispered, and it seems to be acting on its own accord. All it says is, “Just be.”

Then all at once, the birds chirping outside and the small sounds of the apartment fill my consciousness. My eyes quickly focus on the backs of my eyelids. I feel a rush of adrenaline.

Then I am gone.

Spiritual Healing Techniques:

Have you ever paused to watch a sunset? Have you ever walked through the woods alone? Have you ever stopped thinking, fixing, doing, worrying, just for a moment, and held your baby’s tiny body in the dark hours of the dawn? Have you ever let down your guard and stopped, just for a second, and felt the reverence, the magic behind it all?

If so, you can meditate.

Mindful Meditation & Present Moment Awareness

If spirituality is experiential then how do we experience it? The answer is not to chase after mystical experiences with the belief that they will make you powerful, good, or whole. This is just another way to create an identity around a belief system and avoid the present. It does not have to do with linear, goal-oriented thinking, where you try to create an experience in the future. The only place anything exists is the here and now, and all you need to do to begin is focus on your health.

The following exercises are based on my own experience and are helpful for anyone at any level of experience:

MIND

Attempting to create spiritual growth without some form of meditation is the equivalent of trying to learn to dance by reading a book about ballet, without ever getting up from your seat. Relaxing the nervous system and surrendering to the present in each moment is number one, because it is the basis of everything. You could eliminate all the other spiritual practices and ideas, but if you still do this consistently your life will change, and the other practices will fall into place. Soothing the fixed “fight or flight” response that our thinking mind keeps us trapped in is the actual physical, experiential, practice of faith because you are actively training yourself to release your irrational fear-state. This direct nurturance of our minds, and conscious evolution of our souls, is what Western religion has fallen away from and so desperately needs to resurrect.

There are still a lot of misconceptions around meditation. I hear the phrase “I can’t meditate,” a lot. But meditation is not necessarily about forcing yourself to clear your mind and focus. While mind-clearing is good to play with and gets easier with time, it is not where you need to begin. Meditation is simply about relaxing the body into the present, and the present probably includes your involuntary thoughts. So throughout your session you simply practice mindfulness. You become the non-judgmental witness to your own thoughts.

You can practice saying hello to them as each one comes in. You can also practice watching them pass by on a thought train or thought clouds. You can try labeling each one, “Thinking,” “dreaming,” “analyzing…” You get to choose what works for you. The only “goal” is to be non-judgmentally aware of what is happening. In the past I’ve had students who’ve claimed they didn’t do it right because they couldn’t relax or because they kept getting distracted. My response was always, “But you did do it right because you are aware of what happened.”

Look, Listen, Relax, Breathe

Set a timer for however long you’d like to meditate. I use the Insight Timer app.
Sit upright with your legs crossed with a straight but relaxed spine or lay down on your back in a neutral position.
Relax your body bit by bit as best you can from head to foot while breathing slowly and deeply.
Start to listen intently to the sounds around you. Make it a game to see how many small sounds you can find in every moment. Then allow yourself to listen to the silence behind the sounds that allows for the sounds to exist.
Each time you hear something let your body relax more and more. Sink into every little sound.
Your mind will wander and that’s okay. This is a little relaxing game and every time you realize your mind has wandered it is a mindful moment to celebrate. Gently let go of the thought, and kindly say to yourself, “Listen!” Continue to breathe into it. (Create your own ASMR with real life).
If you’d like to keep your eyes open during this practice, see if you can relax them so that they are still and not darting around. Become aware of your peripheral vision so that your focus becomes soft and you see everything your eyes are taking in at once. You do not see double. You simply see all of it. No one thing is the main focus.

Mind Clearing: If your mind is busy and you want to try to clear it, make sure to remember that it is a game and that even a few seconds is a success.

Try watching all your thoughts play out on a big screen. Then imagine yourself pulling the plug out of the wall. Everything goes black and silent inside your head. Then allow present moment awareness to increase.
Imagine your thoughts floating out of your head on little strings and imagine yourself using scissors to cut each one, watch them float away, and come back to your body.
You can also try to listen to your thoughts. Usually this helps to quiet the mind because the talker suddenly becomes the listener.
If your mind is just too busy for cleaning, try creating an “on purpose” narration in your mind. I am walking. I can hear my footsteps. I just thought of something new to write in my book. I am now thinking about how best to word it. I heard a car go by….

Feel free to increase the minutes the more frequently you practice. Or if this is very new to you just start with five or even one! If you’re new to meditation and feel like nothing happens it is because it takes a few sessions to start feeling the effects. Thinking something should happen right away is kind of like expecting to be cured after one session of physical therapy. Your body and nervous system have been working one way for your entire life. This is new and it takes time to sink in. The process is gradual but worth it.

I open my eyes. I don’t know how long I was gone. I blacked out. Time disappeared. There were no dreams. I am in the same exact position I was in when I was awake, and the sun hasn’t really moved. The first thing I see when I open my eyes is a collection of rings on my windowsill that I had taken off my hands to get more comfortable before meditating. I immediately notice that for some reason, their colors and shapes look simply incredible, so I stare at them for a few moments. When I’m done I slowly look to the right and I see a pillow lying next to me in the bed. It is a purple, velvet, decorative pillow, and the folds in its fabric are one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, so I take my time to gaze at it. After a few moments my eyes move slightly upward and I see some electrical cords hanging down over my desk, connected to my lamp and computer. Something about the way they are hanging there is picture-worthy. I begin to look around and realize that everything I see might as well be an amazing piece of photography. The background is perfectly framing the foreground. My peripheral vision is turned on somehow. My eyes feel more physically open, and I can see the wholeness of every image I take in. Then I have the idea to grab my phone and create Instagram pictures of everything in my entire room. But I have no motivation to attach to any of it, so I just lay there at peace with the transience of all things.

An empty plastic water bottle is standing upright on my floor and I realize that it feels as if it’s charged with some sort of energy. As I sit on my bed and look around, I discover that everything in my whole room feels this way. It feels like the reason the objects aren’t falling over is because everything is attached to a force, like the hairs that float upwards on your head after pulling your sweater off in the fall. I think about how I usually carelessly toss empty water bottles in the trash, but for some reason this feels so ungrateful and unceremonious today. Even though I know that, of course, all of these things are inanimate objects, it also feels as if every single thing around me is alive.

I continue to sit on my bed, taking it all in, and I suddenly remember that I had been angry before meditating. My mind is so clear that it feels like the thought drops into the top of my head and continues to sink down into my heart, and then into my stomach, bringing emotion with it as it arrives, like a heavy stone being dropped into a pond. But there’s no trace of anger now, it is only sadness. But it isn’t sadness like I’d ever experienced before. It is pure. There are no thoughts surrounding it. There are no plans to fix it. There is no anxious energy trying to make it go away. I am simply feeling. I pick up my phone and send apology texts. I take full responsibility for everything. But I’m not conscious of my sudden maturity. I’m not really aware that I’m doing something “right” or “good,” and I have no expectation that he should apologize too, none of that. It is my choice to continue engaging with this person, knowing that it is difficult. I feel compassionate, humble, and responsible, and that’s all. After I push send, I realize that I’ve done all I can do to help the situation, so the sadness fades, and a feeling of happiness grows inside me as I go about my day as I please. I do not think to check my phone once.

The next morning when I wake up I’m still different. I feel refreshed after a great night’s sleep, no nighttime racing thoughts keeping me up, no grogginess, and all I want to do is look at things, shapes, colors, everything I see is art. I get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. I go to put on my mascara as usual. The brush gets about a centimeter from my eyelashes and I start laughing. This is so weird! I think. Why am I painting my face? Chuckling to myself I put it away and go into my day without makeup. (Which was not common for me at the time. I was usually very self-conscious about having blond eyelashes). But I don’t feel accomplished or anything for not wearing makeup. I just totally forget about it, and I feel great.

I turn on the water and put my hands under the faucet to wash them, and I don’t want to stop. The water is so soft! It feels amazing on my skin. I’m hungry but it doesn’t seem to bother me as much as usual. I think about food and realize nothing even remotely unhealthy is tempting whatsoever. Upon interacting with others, I realize that I’m being more honest. Not that I was dishonest before, it just feels … different. Any insecurities seem to have diminished. I start my walk to the subway station and I can’t believe how much fun it is to walk! I might as well be swimming. I even feel physically lighter. It’s a chilly day for spring. The wind caresses my shoulders but I don’t recoil as usual. As I walk through the city I am being inundated with advertising like always, but today it makes me giggle because it all feels so serious, and silly, and desperate.

Waiting for the train I discover that my little nervous habits have disappeared. I’m not bouncing my knee. My nose is suddenly itchy, but I don’t relieve it quite so impulsively. No thoughts of the past or future worries are entering my mind. Instead I find myself thinking about how the universe started, feeling like the answer is just out of reach, a tiny tickle in the back of my brain. Every little thing I do feels conscious, on purpose. As I sit down on the bench and wait for my train, I find the subway bricks fascinating so I happily settle in and stare at the wall.

As the joy of tile permeates my consciousness, the train eventually arrives. Bored, irritated, exhausted people enter the train car as usual, but today I am overcome with happiness as they sit down around me just because they’re people, and they’re alive. Once I’m at work, I help my customers purchase their gluten-free cookies, croissants, and kale salads and I find that I am no longer annoyed with any of their unnecessary complaints or grievances. Those feelings are their own, and it feels like they are subconsciously choosing unhappiness as a form of self-validation. Any outbursts in my direction feel like an angry toddler. I’m incapable of judgment or belittlement, but compassion is effortless. They seem to sense my energy. It confuses yet calms them. At the end of my shift, I step out onto the sidewalk and another girl my age walks past me. She is dressed up, tall, thin, high-end fashion, black stiletto knee-high boots, bright red power suit dress, impeccable makeup, and long, flowing, shiny brown hair with natural gold highlights. She struts when she walks and has a bit of a permanent death-stare pout.

I love her.

And at the same time, her attitude, clothes, and makeup feel absolutely ridiculous, silly, I almost want to laugh. But somehow I’m experiencing these feelings while simultaneously adoring her for existing. There is no judgment, no competition, no feelings of superiority because of how funny it all is. I’m not laughing at her at all. It almost feels like there’s a part of her, deep down, that would laugh along with me. It feels like ego is something we all should have left behind in high school, but ego is also a part of this beautiful world that I’m held by, and all I feel for everything in it is love.

Spiritual Healing Techniques

HEART & BODY

HEART

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Sometimes when people say, “I can’t meditate,” what they’re really saying is, “I have a subconscious block up, and I can’t relax because if I do I will end up having to feel my feelings.” Once you have started a meditation practice and your body and mind begin to loosen, it is true that you can no longer hide or distract yourself from what you really feel. I personally went through an entire year where all I did when I tried to meditate was cry. But when it comes to emotions the only way out is through. If they are suppressed or ignored then they stay stuck in the body as a form of tension. In extreme cases this can even make us sick. If the emotions are overwhelming try to notice what they feel like in your body and pace yourself. Stay present and focus on the physical feelings. Remember to hold yourself the way you’d hold a child when the painful emotions come. Stay in touch with your mindful witnessing self, the loving parent.

When a strong emotion overtakes us during our practice some of us are overwhelmed because we’re thinking, “This is not who I am,” or, “I do not want to feel this.” Some others have the opposite reaction and indulge in the romanticized idea of being angry or depressed. But in reality the best thing we can do is fully relax, let them in without rejecting or attaching, and then let them go when they are done.

This practice can help us process our emotions in life situations as well. Because while we do not want to bottle our emotions we also don’t want to become highly reactionary either. In fact, both are ways to hide from actually feeling our feelings. So the best thing we can do is try to become mindful of what is happening as the emotion begins to build and then take a brief pause to feel the physical sensations in the body. This is not about forcing yourself to stay calm. It is about relaxing into the feeling. When you can do this during an argument the next thing that comes out of your mouth may surprise you, in a good way. You can remember this process by using the acronym R.A.I.N.

RAIN

Recognize that the emotion is happening

Allow for the emotion to be fully felt in the body

Investigate the physical sensations. I have a sharp feeling in my chest. I have a burning sensation in my stomach.

Non-Identification. Try not to merge your identity with the feeling or judge it as good or bad. Just feel the sensations.

RAIN originally coined by meditation teacher Michele McDonold

You may have success with this practice and then a week later completely lose it. Change takes time and it is about the journey. If you’re doing the best you can and making an effort then that is all anyone can ask for, and no spiritual journey can unfold without forgiveness, patience, and love of self.

(And if you’re lacking in patience and self-love, forgive yourself for that. And if you’re lacking in forgiveness, forgive yourself for that! And if you have trouble with that, then forgive yourself for that…)

BODY

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert,

repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves…”

Mary Oliver

Everything we experience is in the body. The idea that our thoughts, emotions, and souls are separate from our body is unhelpful. Our energy, our consciousness (that is connected to greater consciousness) exists within our bodies. During meditation, and throughout your day, practice getting in touch with what your body is telling you. Notice every little sensation. Our bodies hold wisdom for us when our minds fall short. If you’re having an anxiety attack about doing something, maybe don’t do that thing right now. Listen to what your body wants and how it wants to move. Unless it is your passion or hobby, maybe take a break from really harsh workouts. If you hate working out and dread going to the gym then stop doing it, and dive into what is pleasurable to feel! Swimming, dancing, running, yoga, hiking, quidditch, whatever it may be. Get creative. As one of my favorite spiritual self-help teachers, Martha Beck, suggests: Think of your body as if it’s a pet that you love dearly. Feed it healthy but delicious food when it’s hungry. Take it on walks! Allow for rest when it’s tired. Drink water when it’s thirsty. As Martha would say, “The truth of it all is that you are divine consciousness animating a beautiful animal creature.”

How’s that for body image?

Feel, Relax, Breathe

In this exercise, repeat the steps from Look, Listen, Relax, Breathe, but wherever you see the word sound, exchange it for body sensation. Both of these things are called anchors. They are what we use to keep ourselves anchored in the present moment. You can use sound, breath, sensation, or your own heartbeat. For body awareness use bodily sensations. Whenever you feel something, try to use language that is non-judgemental, like in the RAIN practice. Use temperature, pressure, or colors to describe everything you feel to yourself.

Be sure not to confuse this practice with emotional suppression. I’m not sad! It’s just a sharp, black, tight, clamp inside my chest. We always need to fully allow for what is there.

Mindful Eating: Anything mindfully done will boost the health of the activity exponentially. This includes eating. Try applying Feel, Relax, Breathe, to every sensation you notice next time you're eating. This is also great to apply to addictive eating.

For example, let’s say you are craving a bag of donuts. You want to eat the entire bag really badly, but you also don’t think this is the healthiest decision.

Pause for a moment, take a breath, get a present.
Take one donut out of the bag and eat it slowly. Keep yourself laser focused on every delicious crumb and grain of sugar. Pay attention to taste, texture, even sound as you chew.
Allow for the pleasure to relax your body. Enjoy yourself fully.

Once you’re done there’s a good chance you will no longer need the rest.

Sidhe (SHē)

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