When I was an ATP tennis professional traveling around the world, I had one core idea in mind: winning.
And when I realized I was struggling quite hard to be successful, this deep desire to be better pushed me to look at places noone in my entourage had some experience: NLP, sophrology (kind of relaxation), psychology, coaching, all of them brought their sets of tools that helped me to go one step further.
At the same time, when I reflect back about all those years, nothing has helped more to transform profoundly than meditation.
My First Experience
The first time I experienced meditation I was in Japan, in a remote place, playing a Future (first level of ATP tournament) for the 3rd year in a row. Far from everyone, this sounded like the perfect place to experience something new. Moreover, I was particularly overstressed at that time, arguing often with my girlfriend, struggling financially, and not seeing the path to overcome my mental struggle patterns on the court.
I had found a book about meditation, and started to dedicate my time in between trainings and matches to read and apply what they say. Without any expectation.
What happened then is that I started to become more aware of what was going on with me. I was feeling alone. Like a failure. Judging myself to be egoist for not helping others (a strong value coming from my parents). And hitting balls to “beat” someone every day didn’t make sense anymore.
From this awareness came the decision to make a pause in my tennis career and starting my coaching journey. One year later, I had passed my french license for tennis coaching, finishing major and having had the time of my life learning how to assist players to improve. And this thirst for knowledge continued along the years, with all sorts of coaching, till now assisting men to be the men they want to be.
The 5 Key Benefits of Meditation I discovered
Thinking back from this first experience till now, here are the 5 things I could say that have helped me:
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Building awareness in the present moment
Change can only happen when we realize what’s going on. You can argue that without meditation we can be aware of this, and yet, I would gently reply that with meditation we can go much deeper and see and feel the roots of our issues.
Which introduces my second point.
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Seeing and feeling my crap
People think meditation is about being zen and relaxing. While this ultimately can be a consequence, in my experience, meditation has been the best tool to replace my issues right in my face!
We all have tendencies to create our own stories with our minds, justifying ourselves, judging ourselves, pretending, lying, finding excuses, and more often than not, we’re not aware of them.
With meditation, no bullshit anymore! Just telling ourselves and feeling our own truth of the moment. For instance, I came to realize that I was addicted to all sorts of things.
Pretty much what Paul Cooper was saying as a first step to liberate ourselves emotionally in this interview.
Which leads to my 3rd point.
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Healing/ changing pattern!
When we feel how we feel, finally we can disengage from our mental construct.
Which means that the habits we use to have, the reactions we use to have, no longer have power on us. Well, with practice! At least I would say that we enter a space of choice instead of primal reactions. Big improvement!
Are you aware of what drives you nuts? Imagine now that you have the choice to still be your favorite nut-ball on fire, OR instead being integrated and abled to respond with a wiser part of you.
For instance, in order to get something from others, I used to either tend to be aloof so people get attention and ask me questions, or intimidating (when stressed). Now, most of the times (though I still have my moments of falling back), I’m able to stay calm, express what’s going on for me in the moment, ask if it’s ok for the people involved, and do all kinds of things like this that used to scare me in fear of being rejected.
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Making good choices
In addition to changing patterns, sometimes I’ve found myself struggling with choices. 10 years ago, I learned a meditation technique to make choices. I still use it from time to time, and I’ve learned that the more I do, the more I find my body-mind and spirit align. In other words, fulfilled.
A great example is when I met my wife. I had received an invitation to be part of a friend gathering. It was in Thailand, during a week I was supposed to work, I only knew one person, so on a logical level, it didn’t make much sense to go there. Then I used this meditation technique, and I knew that I was supposed to be there, that “something” important for me will happen. This something was actually a beautiful and color- dressed lady waiting for me at the airport, and, as we say, the rest is history!
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Profound changes
I’m now fortunate to live surrounded with people who place their spiritual development as a guide for their lives. It’s not as weird or scary as it sounds, it just means that we all want to follow our deepest truths and contribute to a better world.
I believe this is what actually happens when we have healed ourselves from our wounds and stopped living from our egos and minds: a sense of togetherness, a strong(er) desire for contributing to a better world and living our mission with courage and authenticity.
So, this is a feedback of my experience with meditation.
And you, what’s your experience with meditation? Have you tried it? Have you found other changes than the ones I shared? Feel free to ask/ comment in the section below.
To go further, your possible first steps
The friend gathering I met my wife was actually a meditation retreat. And Elena is now teaching simple meditations to use for busy people. This corresponds to my first and 3rd points in this article, helping us to be more present (also called mindful), less stressed, and able to respond vs react . Basically, it’s about training our minds to be the way we want to be.
She has created a new set of meditations that you can purchase, called Toothbrush Meditations, because you can do them every day while brushing your teeth or any random activity.
If interested or want to experience one of them for FREE, go here.
For long lasting changes and personal transformation, I invite you to have a look at the e-course Being The Man You Wish To Be. The goal is to transform, and I’ll share my meditation practice then. Fill the form and let’s discuss about it!
Wishing you, us, all, true success,
Benoit