Kurt Vonnegut once said, “The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration.”
…not like I would have ever known that, though. I haven’t really read any Vonnegut, and I don’t typically scour the internet for quotes from authors with whose work I am unfamiliar.
I was sitting at my desk this morning in a comfortable position with a tall, straight back, my hands resting gently upon my knees. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes. I felt the weight of my body against the chair. I softened the muscles in my face and brought the corners of my lips to a smile. There was a tingling sensation from my scalp to my toes as Tamara Levitt wrapped me in vocal velvet, quoting the Slaughterhouse-Five novelist in an 11-minute guided meditation on productivity at work.
“And now, when you’re ready, open your eyes.”
Eleven-day streak. My longest yet.
For someone loosely interested in alternative medicine and all things hippie, it took me a while to come around to meditation. My partner had been using Headspace regularly for over a year—a meditation app I’d half-ass try once every couple months. He had begged me to join him hoping mindfulness could help break my patterns of rumination. But between couples counseling, internet articles, and mid-fight breathing exercises, all his suggestions melted into a muted pool of pseudowokeness. Headspace was relegated to the Folder of Lost Apps.
This past August, though, my world flipped upside down. My sister lost her battle with cancer at age 30 (yes, it’s taking me months to crank out a worthy post on that. Stay tuned). Starting therapy again has been a bleak process. No matter how many times you’ve sought mental health care in your life, each becomes your new square one. I scrolled Psychology Today with lifeless eyes, dreadfully compiling a list of anyone vaguely appealing who took Aetna insurance. Before I knew it, I was on an elevator to the 27th floor of some sterile office building where self-acceptance goes to die.
I met with an older, white male therapist (red flag already, amiright!?) who blatantly shamed me for everything from past drug use to contraception. There’s slight irony in a trained “professional” barking, “you only have ONE brain, you know” at your LSD recounts in a room decorated with Pink Floyd memorabilia. Poser. I sat cross-legged absorbing the shock of my first really bad therapy experience. I left feeling defeated and have been too traumatized to seek new counseling since. I wanted to take something from our session, though, so I followed his recommendation to download the meditation app, Calm.
I began a week-long free trial of Calm when I got home. A week flew by and I forgot to cancel said free trial, and it auto-renewed for some super-premium package at $69.99/yr. There went two weeks worth of groceries on an app I’ll never use! (…Or so I thought.) I was distraught and too lazy to beg for a refund. Part of me thought it was fate, too.
In a fit of frustration with my diminished attention span and inability to complete anything I start, I decided to give this meditation thing a whirl. After all, I did just lose the price of a sweater on it. I can confidently say this is the best $70 I have ever spent, accidental and otherwise.
I’ve been meditating now for over a month and I feel like a new person. My focus is greater. I am less anxious. I practice gratitude more and can find peace in moments of chaos, like the time a massive bag of cooked rice exploded on every inch of my kitchen—I would have normally cried instantly, but since it was directly after a 15-minute meditation, I just smiled and cleaned.
The premium version of Calm app includes countless meditations in various packages like Anxiety, Mindfulness at Work, Commuting, Relationships, Sleep (you will be *Drake voice* out like a light), and much more. The robust music selection of binaural beats and soundscapes has put Spotify on my auditory back burner. I normally can’t listen to music and read at the same time, but throw on Calm’s 1h 2m of “Water Falling” and I’m in there like swimwear. And have ya’ll heard “Crackling Campfire?”—banger alert! If I have earbuds in or my bluetooth speaker playing in my apartment, there is an 80% chance I’m bumpin’ Calm.
Tamara Levitt is the head of content and voice behind Calm. She’s a seasoned spirituality practitioner, and her flows are punctuated by messages that truly stick. Consider this completely unpaid app review my sincerest introduction. Readers, Tamara. Tamara, readers. If I had to choose any voice to hear at the end of a long day, this goddess tops my list.
I could go on longer, but take it from me: you can’t know the beauty of meditation until you put in the work yourself. Now cough up that $70 and follow your breath.