Doprah for Days

And pretend it was 6/1 when I wrote how every so often I spend three weeks with Deepak Choprah and Oprah Winfrey guiding me in morning meditation.  So do thousands of others who drink Deepak and Oprah’s brand of mindfulness cool-aid each time a new round of their twenty-one day series hits the Internet. 

To say the duo has changed my life with their 21-Day Meditation Experiences would be a bit of an overstatement, but to deny the fact I’ve come to rely on the seasonal appearance of their marketing materials in my inbox would be dishonest.  I actually feel my spirits lift when I find out I have a few weeks with the two of them on the horizon.  I genuinely appreciate the reminder from the two moguls to be mindful.

The current popularity of meditation as a stress reduction technique is well-documented. Major corporations have introduced the practice to their employees, doctors recommend it to patients at risk for heart attacks and celebrities have endorsed its ability to keep them grounded and connect them with their purpose and aspirations - the pressure of life in the public eye is kept at bay by their ability to tune everything out for twenty minutes or so.   Commercial a ploy as it is for high profile advocates like Oprah and Deepak, you can’t knock them for encouraging enlightenment, wellness, self-care and mental health.

I find time to be one of the most valuable things one can have in one’s possession.  How we allocate minutes and hours and days to the demands made on us to deliver at work, in relationships and in our communities can be complicated to decide.   I have been making a point of sectioning off time in my life for mindfulness for years now.  If I’ve reaped some ribbing from facetious friends and family for doing so, it’s been entirely worth it for the benefits I’ve reaped of mental and physical well being. 

My new dentist greeted me saying, “you have perfect blood pressure” just the other week.  I am still not entirely sure why it was necessary for him to take my blood pressure at a consultation about my teeth, but I wasn’t surprised in the least to learn this fact about myself.   Rarely does anyone or anything get a rise out of me. 

I’ve maintained an even-keeled base level and temperament since my first foray into the new-agey world of wellness eight years ago.  It was actually a bi-product of back pain I was having one spring.  My chiropractor shared an office space with a holistic healer who advertised his ability to cure people of smoking addictions and poor eating habits with hypnosis.  Tempted, I purchased a package of eight sessions with this Avinoam Lerner, and by summer, I was feeling more clear headed and self confident than I ever before, not to mention eating fruits and vegetables with the best of them.  Armed with the emotional freeing technique during which one taps on a series of endpoints of the body’s energy meridians to diminish distress and two mp3s with hypnoses Avinoam had recorded for his patients to listen to at home, I was open to expanding my arsenal of self help and mental health go-too tools.  In the years to come I took up yoga, long distance running, and IntenSati fitness, which combines aerobic moves and positive affirmations to improve your attitude and level of physical strength and endurance.

“What do the recordings say?” my friends used to ask, curious about my habit of tuning in to Avinoam’s mp3s for twenty minutes per day.  “They say, ‘ you are feeling good about your body,” I’d say in my best imitation of his Israeli accent.  The phrase became a running joke for a while, but the teasing subsided when those same friends saw the shift in my all around health and wellness. 

I have meditation and mindfulness to thank for the glass half full persona I present to the world. I imagine I’ll continue to be partial to practices suggested by different gurus at different points, but I maintain these “Doprah days” do wonders.