Domestic Violence Meditation: My Personal and Professional Flip

Home in Meditation

In my twenties, I longed to live in an ashram, but my upbringing oriented me toward marriage and family. My whole life was about meditation, from my personal daily meditation practice to teaching self-regulation, biofeedback and meditation in my clinical psychotherapy practice.

In my thirties, I finally settled down with the man I had children with, because I was pregnant. Had I not have been pregnant, I never would have married that man. From the beginning, I knew I could not spend my life with him. But once flooded with pregnancy and his coercion that I abort the pregnancy or marry him, I leaned in and convinced myself it was God’s will.

Personal Commitment Hidden in Professional Endeavors

During those years of building a family, I continued to embrace my alliance with meditation as the essential essence of my identity even though I loved being Mom.

My then partner (now my ex) hated my meditation practice from the core of his being. I would retreat into a dark room, close the door and within the hour come out glowing in happiness, felt not flaunted. (On second thought, it radiated from me effortlessly and naturally.) Within moments, however, I was met with an avalanche of verbal emotional abuse around how I was…