scribes two real-world cases, Lynn and Mike, modified for the sake of anonymity.
Stories of change
Anne Grete Hersoug
It is the exploration of such cases rather than rigid scientific studies that has made the most important contributions to the development of methods for long-term psychological change, including the psychology of Acem Meditation.
Lynn and Mike had different reasons for wanting to learn meditation. Lynn was successful and intelligent but lacked selfconfidence and was often tormented by the fear that others would evaluate her negatively; she hoped meditation would give her more confidence and a less stressful life. Mike was much more self-confident—a competent and often quite dominant man, well respected in his job, but after an accident, he found himself frequently caught in a bad mood and more easily irritated than before. He now wanted a method that could help him cope with his new life and better tolerate frustrations and difficult emotions.
Despite many achievements in her professional life, Lynn often felt unsuccessful. She struggled to live up to expectations and challenges, and frequently felt exhausted. In social situations her selfdoubt was a burden. Her self-image was often negative, which troubled her a great deal. Lynn held an academic position at a university and had a high standing—better than she had ever expected, but even this wasn’t sufficient to make her feel socially secure. Beneath the veneer of success, self-critical issues overshadowed her positive self-esteem. She often doubted others’ approval of her. When her friends said they enjoyed the meal she served, she would quickly dismiss it: “Oh, it was just something simple I threw together.”
One day, a friend who thanked her for helping her with moving was taken aback by the immediate, determined response: “Oh, it was nothing.” Her friend felt put off by the dismissive attitude, and Lynn felt awkward, unable to sort her distorted social perceptions. She imagined others’ expectations of her to be very high, and too difficult to live up to. In her mind, she simply couldn’t trust the positive feedback she got from others, though she continued to attempt to appear to be self-confident.
After a prolonged divorce process, she lived alone with her three teenage sons. She was tired, but could neither sleep well nor relax. Unresolved issues with others kept swirling in her mind. Wishful thinking about an easier life helped briefly, but neither reduced her stress nor removed her perceived shortcomings and undesirable sides. There was a constant spin of stressful thoughts in her head, and one thing was clear: “This can’t go on for much longer!”
Determined that something must change, she started practicing Acem Meditation on a regular basis. Soon she looked forward to the half-hours of silence—precious moments that gave her something she had never before experienced: a calm mind. Personal themes emerged in the flow of spontaneous impulses, including fantasies like: Might her father have appreciated her brothers more than her— was he disappointed with her, because she was “just a girl”?
Insecurity and negative self-images were present in her meditation, as in her daily life. True to her characteristic style, she blamed herself and directed the aggression inward. Unresolved issues from her life continued to influence her meditation and were part of the myriad spontaneous thoughts that occurred during her meditation. She devalued the quality of her meditation in the same way she devalued herself: it wasn’t good enough. One day, she said to herself, “I can’t do it right, I knew it would be like this. Now I can’t even meditate.”
In a way, she was right. Her constant self-devaluation caused her to expend too much effort trying to improve the quality of her meditation, but with the opposite result. The effort and striving left her anything but relaxed. She was in the grip of her metathoughts: distorted judgmental thoughts about meditation during the practice. In the moment, it seemed to her that all her self-criticism reflected the truth rather than distorted views of her personality. However, in dialogues with her meditation guide and fellow meditators, she gradually became aware of how much her negative self-image influenced her, both in meditation and in life, even when there was no good reason to have negative thoughts about herself. She was still unable to imagine that she was capable of a non-judgmental attitude, but at least she started to question her own strictness. In meditation, she was sometimes even able to let go of her striving and instead repeat the sound without effort and strain, finally bringing a new sense of calm and relief into her sittings.
One day at a family party, one of Lynn’s cousins, whom she hadn’t seen for years, told her: “You look gorgeous!” This time Lynn’s spontaneous response was: “Thank you!” Surprised, she noticed that she had accepted the compliment without cringing or diminishing herself, although she was aware of several imperfect details about her appearance this evening: her hair was a bit untidy due to the wind; her nail-polish was chipped, her shoes unsexy, and she had not brought her new fashion handbag. Obviously, her response reflected a change: she had listened before she responded. Was her habitual “on guard” attitude gone?
It was not quite that simple. Her negative self-image was not wiped out of her mind, and would at times still influence both her meditation and daily life. But it passed more quickly than before. This gave her some hope: might she not forever have to struggle to prove that she could do better and be a brighter light?
Lynn had not expected that meditation would provide a quick fix, but it did not take the eternity she had imagined before she noticed some change. In meditation, metathoughts continued to enter her mind, but now she was more often able to identify them. She had begun to realize that the disparaging thoughts about herself were not the ultimate truth, at least no more than all the other thoughts she had during meditation. The instruction in Acem
Meditation is clear: metathoughts should be handled like all other thoughts, not be given the authority to dictate one’s reactions. Although Lynn still had metathoughts telling her that her sound was not repeated properly, that it was not good enough, she no longer acted on this notion, but met those thoughts with a free mental attitude, just like other thoughts. In her meditation, the automated link between thought and behavior had been gradually loosened through miniscule incremental changes. With time this became apparent in other situations as well. It did not happen because of a decision or strong will, but because a basic attitude had been slightly modified during meditation and manifested as altered behavior: Lynn could now spontaneously appreciate a compliment. In her everyday life, rumination about her perceived shortcomings did not quite disappear, but as her mind became more open, there were fewer distortions of her self-perception.
Mike was devoted to his career as a project manager in an international company. As a leader, he was firm and made decisions quickly, without hesitation. His central drive was: “I must succeed!” Achievements mattered more than anything else. When he won approval from others, he felt more self-confident for a while. He liked to think that he knew best.
One day, while on vacation far away from his homeland, Mike’s head was injured in a climbing accident. He then found himself in a new situation, with frequent fatigue and headaches. Without his former level of energy, Mike was unable to meet the demands of his job the same way as before. He was used to an exciting life, which he had always expected would be even better in the future. Enthusiasm and a high level of energy had been his style.
Mike had been used to seeing his occasional aggression—and sometimes outbursts—as a source of vitality that made his days more colorful. Now, minor annoyances and frustrations became intolerable. The threshold was low; his irritation was more easily triggered and often displaced toward innocent people around him. The exciting life he had taken for granted belonged to the past. Life seemed gloomy, with little to look forward to.
With less support for his positive self-image, Mike ended up also having fewer positive feelings for others. On one occasion he even loudly declared, “I don’t like other people!” The fact was, however, that he no longer felt good about himself. He needed something that would turn his life around, or at least that is what he thought.
One of the many things he tried was Acem Meditation—it wouldn’t hurt, he thought. When he discovered that it made him feel more relaxed, he decided to continue the practice. However, residue from his life was part of the spontaneous flow of thoughts during meditation. There were also repressed emotions, which he tried to keep out of his mind; better not be bothered by them. Sometimes he felt that this method was not for him. “It seems so simple for the others, but not for me.”
Mike’s habitual know-it-all manner had worked well in his job and had nurtured his self-confidence. His busy life had helped him to keep unpleasant emotions at a distance—some of them under the threshold of consciousness. This made him feel less vulnerable. After the accident, however, this defensive attitude no longer worked for him, neither in his life nor in his meditations.
In meditation, he often felt as if he were navigating in the fog without a clue. Nevertheless, he kept going; his style was not to give up, and he had a strong willpower. “If the others can deal with challenges in their meditation, why can’t I?”
He gradually became aware of the impatience that hung over him like a cloud covering everything in his life. It made him restless in meditation and impatient with other people. It had been there since childhood. Early on he had decided that he did not want to be like his father; he wanted to be self-sufficient. He had been a tiny guy and needed to compensate to feel stronger. After the accident, however, he had become more dependent on others—almost like the father he despised so much, and the tiny guy he had once been.
He became irritable, but underneath the irritation there were also feelings of sadness and pain. He felt weak and vulnerable. He disliked such soft emotions and tried to keep them at bay. Close relationships had never been easy for him, they were outside his comfort zone. He started to see that this had limited how he related to others. It was a dilemma. With meditation practice, he was less often aggressive towards others, which was fine, but he did not want to be without the vitality and creativity he associated with this aggression.
As a more genuine side of him came to life in meditation, however, he started to write stories, which became his new passion. He wrote primarily because it gave him pleasure, but after some short stories were published in magazines, he completed a novel, which eventually was accepted for publication.
Acem Meditation opens the mind and provides space for the free flow of spontaneous thoughts, often revolving around everyday impressions. Although the content of this flow may seem trivial, it is often linked to underlying psychological issues. In meditation, the only necessary tool is the meditation sound, repeated with a free mental attitude. This repetition does not take place in a vacuum, but interacts closely with the mind’s spontaneous activity. This interplay is guided by three basic principles:
1) Let it come! Lynn’s fight with negative self-evaluation made her strive and struggle in her meditation in a way that hid the underlying insecurity. So did Mike’s compensatory attempts at being on top of things. The advantage of Acem Meditation lies in its simplicity. It took time before Lynn and Mike understood what they were doing wrong, but once they did, their minds began to open up to parts of themselves that had been pushed away and neglected—the first step toward becoming a more integrated person. 2) Let it be! When we discover a problem, we want to solve it easily and immediately. However, it would not have helped Lynn to try to convince herself that she was a successful person when her feelings told her otherwise. Nor would it have helped Mike to attempt to run away from the painful emotions emerging from beneath the cloud of restless irritability in his mind. They both needed to become more intimately acquainted with the emotional climate inside them. In the long run, nothing would have changed if they had not learned to co-exist with these parts of themselves—the second step toward becoming a more complete and integrated person.
3) Let it go! Lynn needed to let go of her self-deprecatory tendency and Mike to let go of his constant wish to act as if he were in control. After a long process involving both meditation and discussions of their practice, both eventually realized that they did not need to continue to be the way they had been. Letting go is not simply an act of will, but the result of a long process that builds on the self-knowledge acquired in the two previous steps. It is the third and last step toward becoming a psychologically integrated person.
In the meditation process, each individual micro-change is usually unnoticeable, but each prepares the ground for major changes over time. Lynn had been unaware of all the incremental steps along the way, and yet there was an accumulated impact in her daily life. She began to see that she had been her own strictest judge. She intuitively grasped that she had a choice, and this helped her feel more secure both about her meditation practice and about herself. This shift of perspective eventually enabled her to let go of much of her self-blame and embrace a more confident approach to her life.
Mike was a complex person who needed more time to figure out how to meditate without effort. His impatience and irritability whenever the sound disappeared and his conviction that he had to use force to bring it back reflected deep-seated patterns in his life, where he tended to push away and exclude difficult emotions. As increased self-awareness shed light on his blind spots, he began to experience a more varied emotional repertoire. He gradually found ways of repeating the meditation sound with a free mental attitude amidst the turmoil inside him. This represented a shift of perspective that helped him to meet both himself and others with more tolerance and empathy. He no longer felt the same need to be the one who always knew best. Not bad for a guy like him, he thought.
It was Lynn’s and Mike’s enhanced meditation skills that made their shifts of perspective possible. Guidance and dialogues stimulated the process. It was a change from within that made them not only more relaxed, but ultimately more content with their lives.It is the exploration of such cases rather than rigid scientific studies that has made the most important contributions to the development of methods for long-term psychological change, including the psychology of Acem Meditation.
Lynn and Mike had different reasons for wanting to learn meditation. Lynn was successful and intelligent but lacked selfconfidence and was often tormented by the fear that others would evaluate her negatively; she hoped meditation would give her more confidence and a less stressful life. Mike was much more self-confident—a competent and often quite dominant man, well respected in his job, but after an accident, he found himself frequently caught in a bad mood and more easily irritated than before. He now wanted a method that could help him cope with his new life and better tolerate frustrations and difficult emotions.
Despite many achievements in her professional life, Lynn often felt unsuccessful. She struggled to live up to expectations and challenges, and frequently felt exhausted. In social situations her selfdoubt was a burden. Her self-image was often negative, which troubled her a great deal. Lynn held an academic position at a university and had a high standing—better than she had ever expected, but even this wasn’t sufficient to make her feel socially secure. Beneath the veneer of success, self-critical issues overshadowed her positive self-esteem. She often doubted others’ approval of her. When her friends said they enjoyed the meal she served, she would quickly dismiss it: “Oh, it was just something simple I threw together.”
One day, a friend who thanked her for helping her with moving was taken aback by the immediate, determined response: “Oh, it was nothing.” Her friend felt put off by the dismissive attitude, and Lynn felt awkward, unable to sort her distorted social perceptions. She imagined others’ expectations of her to be very high, and too difficult to live up to. In her mind, she simply couldn’t trust the positive feedback she got from others, though she continued to attempt to appear to be self-confident.
After a prolonged divorce process, she lived alone with her three teenage sons. She was tired, but could neither sleep well nor relax. Unresolved issues with others kept swirling in her mind. Wishful thinking about an easier life helped briefly, but neither reduced her stress nor removed her perceived shortcomings and undesirable sides. There was a constant spin of stressful thoughts in her head, and one thing was clear: “This can’t go on for much longer!”
Determined that something must change, she started practicing Acem Meditation on a regular basis. Soon she looked forward to the half-hours of silence—precious moments that gave her something she had never before experienced: a calm mind. Personal themes emerged in the flow of spontaneous impulses, including fantasies like: Might her father have appreciated her brothers more than her— was he disappointed with her, because she was “just a girl”?
Insecurity and negative self-images were present in her meditation, as in her daily life. True to her characteristic style, she blamed herself and directed the aggression inward. Unresolved issues from her life continued to influence her meditation and were part of the myriad spontaneous thoughts that occurred during her meditation. She devalued the quality of her meditation in the same way she devalued herself: it wasn’t good enough. One day, she said to herself, “I can’t do it right, I knew it would be like this. Now I can’t even meditate.”
In a way, she was right. Her constant self-devaluation caused her to expend too much effort trying to improve the quality of her meditation, but with the opposite result. The effort and striving left her anything but relaxed. She was in the grip of her metathoughts: distorted judgmental thoughts about meditation during the practice. In the moment, it seemed to her that all her self-criticism reflected the truth rather than distorted views of her personality. However, in dialogues with her meditation guide and fellow meditators, she gradually became aware of how much her negative self-image influenced her, both in meditation and in life, even when there was no good reason to have negative thoughts about herself. She was still unable to imagine that she was capable of a non-judgmental attitude, but at least she started to question her own strictness. In meditation, she was sometimes even able to let go of her striving and instead repeat the sound without effort and strain, finally bringing a new sense of calm and relief into her sittings.
One day at a family party, one of Lynn’s cousins, whom she hadn’t seen for years, told her: “You look gorgeous!” This time Lynn’s spontaneous response was: “Thank you!” Surprised, she noticed that she had accepted the compliment without cringing or diminishing herself, although she was aware of several imperfect details about her appearance this evening: her hair was a bit untidy due to the wind; her nail-polish was chipped, her shoes unsexy, and she had not brought her new fashion handbag. Obviously, her response reflected a change: she had listened before she responded. Was her habitual “on guard” attitude gone?
It was not quite that simple. Her negative self-image was not wiped out of her mind, and would at times still influence both her meditation and daily life. But it passed more quickly than before. This gave her some hope: might she not forever have to struggle to prove that she could do better and be a brighter light?
Lynn had not expected that meditation would provide a quick fix, but it did not take the eternity she had imagined before she noticed some change. In meditation, metathoughts continued to enter her mind, but now she was more often able to identify them. She had begun to realize that the disparaging thoughts about herself were not the ultimate truth, at least no more than all the other thoughts she had during meditation. The instruction in Acem
Meditation is clear: metathoughts should be handled like all other thoughts, not be given the authority to dictate one’s reactions. Although Lynn still had metathoughts telling her that her sound was not repeated properly, that it was not good enough, she no longer acted on this notion, but met those thoughts with a free mental attitude, just like other thoughts. In her meditation, the automated link between thought and behavior had been gradually loosened through miniscule incremental changes. With time this became apparent in other situations as well. It did not happen because of a decision or strong will, but because a basic attitude had been slightly modified during meditation and manifested as altered behavior: Lynn could now spontaneously appreciate a compliment. In her everyday life, rumination about her perceived shortcomings did not quite disappear, but as her mind became more open, there were fewer distortions of her self-perception.
Mike was devoted to his career as a project manager in an international company. As a leader, he was firm and made decisions quickly, without hesitation. His central drive was: “I must succeed!” Achievements mattered more than anything else. When he won approval from others, he felt more self-confident for a while. He liked to think that he knew best.
One day, while on vacation far away from his homeland, Mike’s head was injured in a climbing accident. He then found himself in a new situation, with frequent fatigue and headaches. Without his former level of energy, Mike was unable to meet the demands of his job the same way as before. He was used to an exciting life, which he had always expected would be even better in the future. Enthusiasm and a high level of energy had been his style.
Mike had been used to seeing his occasional aggression—and sometimes outbursts—as a source of vitality that made his days more colorful. Now, minor annoyances and frustrations became intolerable. The threshold was low; his irritation was more easily triggered and often displaced toward innocent people around him. The exciting life he had taken for granted belonged to the past. Life seemed gloomy, with little to look forward to.
With less support for his positive self-image, Mike ended up also having fewer positive feelings for others. On one occasion he even loudly declared, “I don’t like other people!” The fact was, however, that he no longer felt good about himself. He needed something that would turn his life around, or at least that is what he thought.
One of the many things he tried was Acem Meditation—it wouldn’t hurt, he thought. When he discovered that it made him feel more relaxed, he decided to continue the practice. However, residue from his life was part of the spontaneous flow of thoughts during meditation. There were also repressed emotions, which he tried to keep out of his mind; better not be bothered by them. Sometimes he felt that this method was not for him. “It seems so simple for the others, but not for me.”
Mike’s habitual know-it-all manner had worked well in his job and had nurtured his self-confidence. His busy life had helped him to keep unpleasant emotions at a distance—some of them under the threshold of consciousness. This made him feel less vulnerable. After the accident, however, this defensive attitude no longer worked for him, neither in his life nor in his meditations.
In meditation, he often felt as if he were navigating in the fog without a clue. Nevertheless, he kept going; his style was not to give up, and he had a strong willpower. “If the others can deal with challenges in their meditation, why can’t I?”
He gradually became aware of the impatience that hung over him like a cloud covering everything in his life. It made him restless in meditation and impatient with other people. It had been there since childhood. Early on he had decided that he did not want to be like his father; he wanted to be self-sufficient. He had been a tiny guy and needed to compensate to feel stronger. After the accident, however, he had become more dependent on others—almost like the father he despised so much, and the tiny guy he had once been.
He became irritable, but underneath the irritation there were also feelings of sadness and pain. He felt weak and vulnerable. He disliked such soft emotions and tried to keep them at bay. Close relationships had never been easy for him, they were outside his comfort zone. He started to see that this had limited how he related to others. It was a dilemma. With meditation practice, he was less often aggressive towards others, which was fine, but he did not want to be without the vitality and creativity he associated with this aggression.
As a more genuine side of him came to life in meditation, however, he started to write stories, which became his new passion. He wrote primarily because it gave him pleasure, but after some short stories were published in magazines, he completed a novel, which eventually was accepted for publication.
Acem Meditation opens the mind and provides space for the free flow of spontaneous thoughts, often revolving around everyday impressions. Although the content of this flow may seem trivial, it is often linked to underlying psychological issues. In meditation, the only necessary tool is the meditation sound, repeated with a free mental attitude. This repetition does not take place in a vacuum, but interacts closely with the mind’s spontaneous activity. This interplay is guided by three basic principles:
1) Let it come! Lynn’s fight with negative self-evaluation made her strive and struggle in her meditation in a way that hid the underlying insecurity. So did Mike’s compensatory attempts at being on top of things. The advantage of Acem Meditation lies in its simplicity. It took time before Lynn and Mike understood what they were doing wrong, but once they did, their minds began to open up to parts of themselves that had been pushed away and neglected—the first step toward becoming a more integrated person. 2) Let it be! When we discover a problem, we want to solve it easily and immediately. However, it would not have helped Lynn to try to convince herself that she was a successful person when her feelings told her otherwise. Nor would it have helped Mike to attempt to run away from the painful emotions emerging from beneath the cloud of restless irritability in his mind. They both needed to become more intimately acquainted with the emotional climate inside them. In the long run, nothing would have changed if they had not learned to co-exist with these parts of themselves—the second step toward becoming a more complete and integrated person.
3) Let it go! Lynn needed to let go of her self-deprecatory tendency and Mike to let go of his constant wish to act as if he were in control. After a long process involving both meditation and discussions of their practice, both eventually realized that they did not need to continue to be the way they had been. Letting go is not simply an act of will, but the result of a long process that builds on the self-knowledge acquired in the two previous steps. It is the third and last step toward becoming a psychologically integrated person.
In the meditation process, each individual micro-change is usually unnoticeable, but each prepares the ground for major changes over time. Lynn had been unaware of all the incremental steps along the way, and yet there was an accumulated impact in her daily life. She began to see that she had been her own strictest judge. She intuitively grasped that she had a choice, and this helped her feel more secure both about her meditation practice and about herself. This shift of perspective eventually enabled her to let go of much of her self-blame and embrace a more confident approach to her life.
Mike was a complex person who needed more time to figure out how to meditate without effort. His impatience and irritability whenever the sound disappeared and his conviction that he had to use force to bring it back reflected deep-seated patterns in his life, where he tended to push away and exclude difficult emotions. As increased self-awareness shed light on his blind spots, he began to experience a more varied emotional repertoire. He gradually found ways of repeating the meditation sound with a free mental attitude amidst the turmoil inside him. This represented a shift of perspective that helped him to meet both himself and others with more tolerance and empathy. He no longer felt the same need to be the one who always knew best. Not bad for a guy like him, he thought.
It was Lynn’s and Mike’s enhanced meditation skills that made their shifts of perspective possible. Guidance and dialogues stimulated the process. It was a change from within that made them not only more relaxed, but ultimately more content with their lives.It is the exploration of such cases rather than rigid scientific studies that has made the most important contributions to the development of methods for long-term psychological change, including the psychology of Acem Meditation.
Lynn and Mike had different reasons for wanting to learn meditation. Lynn was successful and intelligent but lacked selfconfidence and was often tormented by the fear that others would evaluate her negatively; she hoped meditation would give her more confidence and a less stressful life. Mike was much more self-confident—a competent and often quite dominant man, well respected in his job, but after an accident, he found himself frequently caught in a bad mood and more easily irritated than before. He now wanted a method that could help him cope with his new life and better tolerate frustrations and difficult emotions.
Despite many achievements in her professional life, Lynn often felt unsuccessful. She struggled to live up to expectations and challenges, and frequently felt exhausted. In social situations her selfdoubt was a burden. Her self-image was often negative, which troubled her a great deal. Lynn held an academic position at a university and had a high standing—better than she had ever expected, but even this wasn’t sufficient to make her feel socially secure. Beneath the veneer of success, self-critical issues overshadowed her positive self-esteem. She often doubted others’ approval of her. When her friends said they enjoyed the meal she served, she would quickly dismiss it: “Oh, it was just something simple I threw together.”
One day, a friend who thanked her for helping her with moving was taken aback by the immediate, determined response: “Oh, it was nothing.” Her friend felt put off by the dismissive attitude, and Lynn felt awkward, unable to sort her distorted social perceptions. She imagined others’ expectations of her to be very high, and too difficult to live up to. In her mind, she simply couldn’t trust the positive feedback she got from others, though she continued to attempt to appear to be self-confident.
After a prolonged divorce process, she lived alone with her three teenage sons. She was tired, but could neither sleep well nor relax. Unresolved issues with others kept swirling in her mind. Wishful thinking about an easier life helped briefly, but neither reduced her stress nor removed her perceived shortcomings and undesirable sides. There was a constant spin of stressful thoughts in her head, and one thing was clear: “This can’t go on for much longer!”
Determined that something must change, she started practicing Acem Meditation on a regular basis. Soon she looked forward to the half-hours of silence—precious moments that gave her something she had never before experienced: a calm mind. Personal themes emerged in the flow of spontaneous impulses, including fantasies like: Might her father have appreciated her brothers more than her— was he disappointed with her, because she was “just a girl”?
Insecurity and negative self-images were present in her meditation, as in her daily life. True to her characteristic style, she blamed herself and directed the aggression inward. Unresolved issues from her life continued to influence her meditation and were part of the myriad spontaneous thoughts that occurred during her meditation. She devalued the quality of her meditation in the same way she devalued herself: it wasn’t good enough. One day, she said to herself, “I can’t do it right, I knew it would be like this. Now I can’t even meditate.”
In a way, she was right. Her constant self-devaluation caused her to expend too much effort trying to improve the quality of her meditation, but with the opposite result. The effort and striving left her anything but relaxed. She was in the grip of her metathoughts: distorted judgmental thoughts about meditation during the practice. In the moment, it seemed to her that all her self-criticism reflected the truth rather than distorted views of her personality. However, in dialogues with her meditation guide and fellow meditators, she gradually became aware of how much her negative self-image influenced her, both in meditation and in life, even when there was no good reason to have negative thoughts about herself. She was still unable to imagine that she was capable of a non-judgmental attitude, but at least she started to question her own strictness. In meditation, she was sometimes even able to let go of her striving and instead repeat the sound without effort and strain, finally bringing a new sense of calm and relief into her sittings.
One day at a family party, one of Lynn’s cousins, whom she hadn’t seen for years, told her: “You look gorgeous!” This time Lynn’s spontaneous response was: “Thank you!” Surprised, she noticed that she had accepted the compliment without cringing or diminishing herself, although she was aware of several imperfect details about her appearance this evening: her hair was a bit untidy due to the wind; her nail-polish was chipped, her shoes unsexy, and she had not brought her new fashion handbag. Obviously, her response reflected a change: she had listened before she responded. Was her habitual “on guard” attitude gone?
It was not quite that simple. Her negative self-image was not wiped out of her mind, and would at times still influence both her meditation and daily life. But it passed more quickly than before. This gave her some hope: might she not forever have to struggle to prove that she could do better and be a brighter light?
Lynn had not expected that meditation would provide a quick fix, but it did not take the eternity she had imagined before she noticed some change. In meditation, metathoughts continued to enter her mind, but now she was more often able to identify them. She had begun to realize that the disparaging thoughts about herself were not the ultimate truth, at least no more than all the other thoughts she had during meditation. The instruction in Acem
Meditation is clear: metathoughts should be handled like all other thoughts, not be given the authority to dictate one’s reactions. Although Lynn still had metathoughts telling her that her sound was not repeated properly, that it was not good enough, she no longer acted on this notion, but met those thoughts with a free mental attitude, just like other thoughts. In her meditation, the automated link between thought and behavior had been gradually loosened through miniscule incremental changes. With time this became apparent in other situations as well. It did not happen because of a decision or strong will, but because a basic attitude had been slightly modified during meditation and manifested as altered behavior: Lynn could now spontaneously appreciate a compliment. In her everyday life, rumination about her perceived shortcomings did not quite disappear, but as her mind became more open, there were fewer distortions of her self-perception.
Mike was devoted to his career as a project manager in an international company. As a leader, he was firm and made decisions quickly, without hesitation. His central drive was: “I must succeed!” Achievements mattered more than anything else. When he won approval from others, he felt more self-confident for a while. He liked to think that he knew best.
One day, while on vacation far away from his homeland, Mike’s head was injured in a climbing accident. He then found himself in a new situation, with frequent fatigue and headaches. Without his former level of energy, Mike was unable to meet the demands of his job the same way as before. He was used to an exciting life, which he had always expected would be even better in the future. Enthusiasm and a high level of energy had been his style.
Mike had been used to seeing his occasional aggression—and sometimes outbursts—as a source of vitality that made his days more colorful. Now, minor annoyances and frustrations became intolerable. The threshold was low; his irritation was more easily triggered and often displaced toward innocent people around him. The exciting life he had taken for granted belonged to the past. Life seemed gloomy, with little to look forward to.
With less support for his positive self-image, Mike ended up also having fewer positive feelings for others. On one occasion he even loudly declared, “I don’t like other people!” The fact was, however, that he no longer felt good about himself. He needed something that would turn his life around, or at least that is what he thought.
One of the many things he tried was Acem Meditation—it wouldn’t hurt, he thought. When he discovered that it made him feel more relaxed, he decided to continue the practice. However, residue from his life was part of the spontaneous flow of thoughts during meditation. There were also repressed emotions, which he tried to keep out of his mind; better not be bothered by them. Sometimes he felt that this method was not for him. “It seems so simple for the others, but not for me.”
Mike’s habitual know-it-all manner had worked well in his job and had nurtured his self-confidence. His busy life had helped him to keep unpleasant emotions at a distance—some of them under the threshold of consciousness. This made him feel less vulnerable. After the accident, however, this defensive attitude no longer worked for him, neither in his life nor in his meditations.
In meditation, he often felt as if he were navigating in the fog without a clue. Nevertheless, he kept going; his style was not to give up, and he had a strong willpower. “If the others can deal with challenges in their meditation, why can’t I?”
He gradually became aware of the impatience that hung over him like a cloud covering everything in his life. It made him restless in meditation and impatient with other people. It had been there since childhood. Early on he had decided that he did not want to be like his father; he wanted to be self-sufficient. He had been a tiny guy and needed to compensate to feel stronger. After the accident, however, he had become more dependent on others—almost like the father he despised so much, and the tiny guy he had once been.
He became irritable, but underneath the irritation there were also feelings of sadness and pain. He felt weak and vulnerable. He disliked such soft emotions and tried to keep them at bay. Close relationships had never been easy for him, they were outside his comfort zone. He started to see that this had limited how he related to others. It was a dilemma. With meditation practice, he was less often aggressive towards others, which was fine, but he did not want to be without the vitality and creativity he associated with this aggression.
As a more genuine side of him came to life in meditation, however, he started to write stories, which became his new passion. He wrote primarily because it gave him pleasure, but after some short stories were published in magazines, he completed a novel, which eventually was accepted for publication.
Acem Meditation opens the mind and provides space for the free flow of spontaneous thoughts, often revolving around everyday impressions. Although the content of this flow may seem trivial, it is often linked to underlying psychological issues. In meditation, the only necessary tool is the meditation sound, repeated with a free mental attitude. This repetition does not take place in a vacuum, but interacts closely with the mind’s spontaneous activity. This interplay is guided by three basic principles:
1) Let it come! Lynn’s fight with negative self-evaluation made her strive and struggle in her meditation in a way that hid the underlying insecurity. So did Mike’s compensatory attempts at being on top of things. The advantage of Acem Meditation lies in its simplicity. It took time before Lynn and Mike understood what they were doing wrong, but once they did, their minds began to open up to parts of themselves that had been pushed away and neglected—the first step toward becoming a more integrated person. 2) Let it be! When we discover a problem, we want to solve it easily and immediately. However, it would not have helped Lynn to try to convince herself that she was a successful person when her feelings told her otherwise. Nor would it have helped Mike to attempt to run away from the painful emotions emerging from beneath the cloud of restless irritability in his mind. They both needed to become more intimately acquainted with the emotional climate inside them. In the long run, nothing would have changed if they had not learned to co-exist with these parts of themselves—the second step toward becoming a more complete and integrated person.
3) Let it go! Lynn needed to let go of her self-deprecatory tendency and Mike to let go of his constant wish to act as if he were in control. After a long process involving both meditation and discussions of their practice, both eventually realized that they did not need to continue to be the way they had been. Letting go is not simply an act of will, but the result of a long process that builds on the self-knowledge acquired in the two previous steps. It is the third and last step toward becoming a psychologically integrated person.
In the meditation process, each individual micro-change is usually unnoticeable, but each prepares the ground for major changes over time. Lynn had been unaware of all the incremental steps along the way, and yet there was an accumulated impact in her daily life. She began to see that she had been her own strictest judge. She intuitively grasped that she had a choice, and this helped her feel more secure both about her meditation practice and about herself. This shift of perspective eventually enabled her to let go of much of her self-blame and embrace a more confident approach to her life.
Mike was a complex person who needed more time to figure out how to meditate without effort. His impatience and irritability whenever the sound disappeared and his conviction that he had to use force to bring it back reflected deep-seated patterns in his life, where he tended to push away and exclude difficult emotions. As increased self-awareness shed light on his blind spots, he began to experience a more varied emotional repertoire. He gradually found ways of repeating the meditation sound with a free mental attitude amidst the turmoil inside him. This represented a shift of perspective that helped him to meet both himself and others with more tolerance and empathy. He no longer felt the same need to be the one who always knew best. Not bad for a guy like him, he thought.
It was Lynn’s and Mike’s enhanced meditation skills that made their shifts of perspective possible. Guidance and dialogues stimulated the process. It was a change from within that made them not only more relaxed, but ultimately more content with their lives.