How do I get started?

December 6th, 2007

I came across your web site back in Feb. I had a heart attack then and while recovering I was looking for information about how to heal my heart and found this site. Since the heart attack I have had panic attacks and been in and out of the hospital, thinking I was having another attack.The doctors put me on lots of medication including Xanax. My drinking increased and I started eating the pills like candy. By July the dam busted. My mind and heart seemed to explode. I was awake for several days, as I could not sleep. It was if I had been poisoned. I began to hallucinate. I immediately quit the pills and the drinking but this state of mind continued for several weeks. It was very frightening for a couple of weeks. I thought I was losing my mind.

Things have calmed down. There are still some residual effects, like my ears ring all the time. It is almost as is I had been struck by lightning or electrocuted and I am feeling the after-effects. I was in the care of a psychiatrist. He said my symptoms sounded impossible and bizarre. I know since that time I have lost all desire to drink. I have gone off almost all medication (no anti anxiety pills or other mood alterants), as I decided I had to know the real me and what I was really working with to start getting better.

The only option I have right now is to begin to really know myself and to develop a conscious relationship with the divine. I have been trying to consciously surrender my will to God for many years. I believe that when God spoke spoke to Moses through the burning bush and said “I AM that I AM” he was telling us directly his name. I AM has been a focus of my meditation for sometime. I lost sight of my aims and fell to the side of the path.

I wonder now if my experience was some kind of divine wake-up call. Though it was painful and frightening, I have regained a part of myself I thought I had lost and I want to start back up the path now. I don’t think it has been a coincidence that I discovered you all when I did. Your emails to me have been a great source of support and encouragement since this all began with my heart attack last winter. I am 49 year old man. I am a social worker living in Kansas. I want to begin studying with you all via the internet at the beginning, course 100. Can somebody tell me how to begin?

Thank you for being there.

Rick Sargent

Dear Rick,

There is always time to start again. Your experience with heart attack, alcohol and pills may have been what you needed to realize the way to the divine is through the heart.
Heart Rhythm Meditation will definitely help you, but you also need the help of a meditation coach - what we call a mentor. Or, if you take one of our webcourses, you can have personalized feedback from a teacher through daily emails.
We would like to meet you in person and feel the effects of what you’ve been through so we could better recommend what to do next. Perhaps you could come to one of our seminars or to a group retreat, such as our upcoming Winter Retreat in Santa Barbara, CA, Feb 17-22, 2008 or individual retreat. In any case, learning Heart Rhythm Meditation through our book, a webcourse, or a seminar will reconnect you to the source you seek.

Meeting some of the other wonderful people on this path will restore the spiritual community you also need.

With love,

Puran & Susanna

Entry Filed under: The Heart, Emotional health, Health, Meditation