Meditation is an ancient healing tool that modern science has been exploring in recent years.  New research keeps coming out about the many positive effects of meditation.  From my experience, I believe meditation can improve the quality of your life, help you keep your focus on healing, manage stress, engage more successfully in healthy behaviors, stay aligned toward your goals, adhere more to treatment if that’s what you’re doing, stay positive, and also give you what the scientists call a  psychoneuroimmunological boost!  People with Hepatitis C need every boost we can get, and Applied Meditation gave me the focus, insight, and persistence I needed.  Even when I barely had the energy to pop the tape in the player, that was all it took to relax, revitalize and stay on my healing path.

I had been participating in an Applied Meditation group with Margo Adair for years previous to my diagnosis, as a general problem-solving and life management tool. Before I started treatment, we sat down, discussed my health and healing issues, and Margo made a meditation tape for me that I listened to regularly.  When I reached a differentstage in my healing journey, we made another tape.

These Applied Meditation tapes kept me focused on healing as my priority.  In meditation I communed with my body. I learned to trust my intuition and to use it to find out what my body needed.  For example, talking with my itchy skin lead me to find the remedies that soothed it and helped me stop scratching myself raw.  I got insights into why I felt certain ways.  Through meditation I realized my constant “hunger pangs” was not neurotic cravings but an acid stomach.  And the healing symbol I created in meditation got me through some hard times.

I liked to listen to the meditation tapes after dinner, when I had some alone time.  I always felt better after listening to them.  The meditative state comes easier with repetition, so making listening part of my routine really helped.  The tracks on the CD didn’t change, but I did, gaining different insights and working on different issues with each listening.