Weird title right? The word meditation conjures thoughts of highly evolved beings sitting quietly, breathing deeply and connecting with the divine in a state of pure tranquillity right? Right. Except this is not exactly how it began for me.

When I first truly discovered what it means to meditate, I had loved the idea of meditation for a good few years. When I was still in my active church going years, I was a bit dubious about meditation because the church always preached prayer and cited mediation as ‘new age’ and therefore somewhat dangerous for the unenlightened. During the ‘divorce years’ as I call them, I moved right out of ‘church life’ and walked straight into ‘new age’ and I loved it! I also walked into ‘party central’, so my soul journey at this stage was an interesting one to say the least.

I discovered that since nobody needed me on the weekends that my beautiful daughter was with her dad, I could do whatever I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was dance the night away with a drink in one hand and surrounded by my friends. This was a new experience for me and I loved it. Hindsight has shown me that I certainly could have enjoyed party nights with my girlfriends whilst I was still married but I I was so busy living to a strict idea of what a wife and mother should be doing in those days, that I missed the memo that I was still me and free. So I broke out of that mould when we got divorced and it was great fun. Not only was I experimenting with partying but with all aspects of life that had not yet made it into my day to day experience - like meditation.

A very good friend of mine took me to a Chinese New Year festival at a Buddhist Temple outside of Johannesburg in South Africa one year and I loved it! I loved the energy there, the gentle, smiling monks and nuns and the general vibe of complete acceptance and tolerance that permeated the entire place. Some months later that year, another good friend of mine suggested that we attend a meditation workshop at the same temple. I jumped at the idea. It was a weekend event, so we were to arrive early on the Saturday morning, stay the night and then leave on the Sunday afternoon. It was perfect timing for me as my daughter used to go to her dad from Friday after school until Sunday evening.

On the Friday before our weekend meditation retreat, some friends of mine invited me out for drinks. I was very determined to only have one or two drinks as I had to be up early the next morning. Somehow, that’s not how it happened - I went on to enjoy a really late night with many more than one or two drinks, In fact - perhaps it was more of an early morning than a late night. If anything though - I am good for my word and so the next morning (or later that same morning), I was up and showering and downing coffee and loads of water, to get ready for our retreat. Off I went to meet my friend at her house as planned. Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that perhaps I shouldn’t be driving at all. Thankfully, my friend had a new car and was keen to drive us out of the city to the temple, so I parked my car at her place and assumed my role as passenger. I spent most of the short trip wondering how the hell I was going to meditate in this state and hoping that there would be food and juice or coffee (or both) on arrival.

There was no food or juice or coffee on arrival. There was water and accommodation allocation and we were just in time for the first meditation lesson, which was…TRADITIONAL Buddhist meditation! Oh good grief, I was falling asleep on the introduction speech - what the hell was going to become of me if I tried to meditate. As I sat in the introduction speech trying not to allow my head to loll back, I sent out a plea prayer to whomever was listening - “please keep me awake", I want to do this and I don’t want to let myself and my friend down by falling asleep”. Suddenly the speech was over and we were being ushered into another room which had little miniature bench-type seats for each participant - there were about 25 of us. I panicked - I couldn’t even hold my head up I was so ready for a nap, let alone keep my whole body upright on a PERCH.

The monk instructed us how to sit on our perches in his calm, lyrical Chinese accented English. He really sounded like a guided sleep meditation to me, regardless of what he was saying, so I was in a minor panic. He reassured us all and went on to explain how we should sit and to close our eyes. He guided us to follow our breath and to go within as soon as we had found balance in our body. I got myself perched, thinking that I should actually be fine with this, since I did yoga twice a week and I started to focus on my breathing. Just then, my prayer was answered! I suddenly felt totally balanced, calm and strangely comfortable on my perch but no longer sleepy. I went within. I stayed within. I was hardly aware of the music that was playing, or of the rest of the room and the other people…I was within and it was glorious. At some point, as forewarned, the monk rang a bell lightly at first and then a bit harder and harder to bring us out of our meditative state. His first question was “How long do you think you meditated for?”. I felt like a new human, so I thought we must have managed about ten full minutes. A few other people guessed, all in the same region. Then the monk shocked me right INTO my commitment to meditation - we had meditated for forty five minutes!

I am a very active person and when I am not busy, I am asleep. I had sat upright on the equivalent of a bird perch, with my eyes closed and still sobering up from the previous night and instead of falling asleep and off my perch - I had meditated!

WOOHOO - this was big and exciting and amazing. Also - I came out of that meditation completely sober and clear and ready for the rest of the weekend. We did so many different types of meditation including walking meditation, tea making ritual, mindful eating and T’ai chi. It was a beautiful, sacred experience which I will never forget as it is etched on my soul. Since then I have practised meditation. My practice has ebbed and flowed as with many disciplines in life but one thing I know for sure - I will never abandon meditation.

Just recently I have managed to get to a point where I meditate every single day and my life is shifting gears to better and stronger and brighter by the day. Sometimes I feel like I am time travelling, the shifts in my life are so fast and it feels GREAT. The moral of this story is this - if a post-divorce renegade party animal can learn to meditate in one session before being 100% sober - so can anyone. Just ask Russell Brand ;)