The latest lifestyle, fashion and travel trends
The latest lifestyle, fashion and travel trends
Stress is the “epidemic of the 21st century,” according to the World Health Organisation. Yet many of us continue to do more in less time, despite by-products of our ‘always on’ society, such as brain fog and burnout, increasingly getting in the way.
Meditation, one of the oldest mindfulness techniques in the world, could probably benefit everyone right now.
As a self-confessed overthinker, prone to bouts of anxiety, I have always suspected that I would reap the benefits of regular meditation, but there’s one thing that always puts me off – the idea of having to empty my head of all thoughts. It doesn’t feel remotely possible.
Will Williams, founder of Beeja meditation, says he has the answer to this, and wellness warriors like Jasmine Hemsley and Madeleine Shaw credit his method for clearing their minds and helping them to unleash their best version of themselves.
Intrigued? I was.
Beeja meditation is inspired by the Vedic school of meditation, which is based on the power of sound (or mantras), and has been around for thousands of years, originating from the Himalayan region of Northern India. In his book, The Effortless Mind, Williams explains how he has adapted it for the modern world.
He discovered meditation in his twenties while living a hedonistic lifestyle in the music industry which involved lots of partying, late nights and, also, work stress. Ultimately, he says, meditation cured his chronic insomnia.
“I first started meditating in 2008,” he tells me from his plush flat overlooking Hoxton Square. “I spent the first year working hard and partying harder just because I could. I realised it was the best hangover cure.
“[But] It’s the best life tool I know of to make your story better. If you can access [the right] technique, that you find easy, and it’s something you can integrate into your life without much drama, it will help you to live your life in the best possible way.”
Williams runs meditation workshops, in which, having met you in person and read your energy, he, or one of his six other coaches, selects a “personalised” sound for you from an ancient repository of “beejas”. This sound is supposed to resonate with your brain and nervous system and should be able to guide you into a peaceful and profound state, even if it’s full of stimulation and noise.
If you haven’t done one of his courses (me) you can use what he describes as a “generic sound” – incidently the one he gives me to try is “Beeja”. This kind of mantra will be available under the ‘learn to meditate’ function of the new Beeja App, which launches on Monday. Users will be able to choose from a bank of options a mantra that best resonates with them.
Once you have your so-called mantra, you then repeat the sound softly to yourself in your head for 20 minutes with your eyes closed. And that’s it!
Unlike some other forms of meditation, you’re not required to do the impossible and clear your mind of thoughts entirely, you just let them drift in and out.
“You don’t have to try and force it,” Williams says. “There are all these people out there not being able to clear their mind because they’re trying to practise monastic techniques in a very non-monastic environment, then they get frustrated and most give up because it doesn’t feel good to be rubbish at something.”
In fact one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to meditation, Williams says, is overcomplicating it, adding that he regularly teaches children as young as five, who are “much easier to teach than adults” precisely because they don’t do this.
Another, he adds, is that people tend to take a “high performance approach” to it. Don’t try too hard, he says. “Learning to do it in a relaxed way generally tends to give the best results.”
He recommends that you practice this meditation for 20 minutes twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.
To people who say they don’t have the time to fit 40 minutes of meditating into their day, Williams argues that committing to regular practice will actually mean you get more done over the course of a day.
“You become so much clearer, you’re more productive, you don’t procrastinate, don’t get brain fog or tired in the middle of the afternoon, you’re interpersonal skills are improved, it makes finding solutions easier,” he says.”It can help your relationship food, even jet lag.
“When we live these stressy lives our brain starts to function in fight or flight mode, it can make us aggressive, irritable, angry, withdrawn, anxious. If you give your brain that consistent experience, then your brain can neuroplastically restructure itself and revitalise the nervous system,” he continues.
The mantra is supposed to help you reach a restful place wherever you are, be it a coffee shop, the Tube or an airport.
Williams notes in his book that this isn’t the first time mantra meditation has become popular in the western world. The Beetles famously took up Transcendental Meditation, which is also based on the power of sound, having met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who popularised the movement in the 60s. Williams argues that while the origins of the techniques are the same, the primary distinctions lie in how he and his team “intuitively” allocate sounds to make the mantras more personalised, so that it’ll resonate with your nervous system deeper.
“The ancient Indians were masters at knowing how different sounds activate different parts of your brain,” he says. “We know listening to music and certain frequencies does something to your brain, but our understanding still feels quite rudimentary compared with what the ancients understood.”
Williams isn’t reinventing the wheel, though, he says, with Beeja, he has cherry picked techniques from a range of meditation traditions that he spent years investigating in India and around the world.
There is something to be said for taking an ancient practice and making it accessible, which is clearly why Williams is resonating with stressed out London bankers and lawyers – his largest pupil group, followed by creatives and media types.
“It’s not just a white middle class thing,” he says, adding that there are people from “all walks of life” taking his courses, from tradespeople to kids.
Once we’ve finished our chat, it’s time for my own practice. Having never properly meditated before, I’m apprehensive about whether I’ll manage to calm my wandering mind or if this might be slightly awkward. While sitting on opposite mustard sofas, eyes closed, shoes off, Williams guides me into a meditative state and gently whispers “Beeja,” which I then silently say over and over in my head.
Weirdly, having something to loosely focus on did seem to help me gradually let go of other thoughts and my eyelids start to feel heavier and heavier. The 20 minutes passes in a flash, and it didn’t feel awkward at all.
I left his flat into a sweltering East London and decide to walk home, mood thoroughly lifted. It’s left me wondering, what would my own “personalised” mantra sound like? But Williams tells me that will remain a mystery, unless I do the workshop, he is very clear on that.
The Beeja Meditation Timer App launches on Monday August 5 beejameditation.com/beeja-app
