It has been precisely 365 days since I’ve started meditating, so I thought a quick write-up would be in order.

Now, when I say meditate, I should be specific – I’ve been sitting on the floor with my eyes shut for 20 minutes every day, for a full year – that’s pretty much it! That, and the helpful audio instructions from the headspace app in my phone. Nothing crazy – it just tells you to sit down, and close your eyes, and it guides you through a routine, from scanning your surroundings, to scanning how you feel, to focus just on your breath, and then to focus on nothing at all, and then it brings you back.

The realisation that, in the confines of your home and the beforehand set timespan, you are safe to let go of all your worries, and that for that moment there is just you and you alone, and everything else can wait, is what has kept me coming back each day ever since. It’s like dancing like nobody’s watching, without dancing and anybody watching.

It was most intense in the beginning – that feeling of ridiculous impossibility – that I can just sit there and feel good and don’t have to do anything at all. That I am obliged, infact, I told myself, to do nothing, and that by doing nothing, I’m doing a favour to everyone. The release valve in the head popped off and I laughed and chortled, tears dripping. It seemed preposterous – I felt like I’m cheating- nobody has time for that. But it felt like drinking the nectar of the gods.

As time goes, of course, you get accustomed, but that time for yourself – just yourself alone – that doesn’t go anywhere. And as days keep going by, you start to find more time for yourself in those moments that seemed busy before. Instead of walking your dog and thinking about work, you just walk your dog, suddenly. And you look at the hill and you see just the hill, and you feel the wind, and somebody has not picked up their dog’s poop and you look at that and think – that’s a dog’s poop, and then you move on, and you think – I’m Zen as fuck now, and you are at least a bit more Zen as fuck as you were. Here’s that buzzy word – mindfulness – it’s kinda pretty awesome.

Ok, but so what does that mean – meditating 20 minutes a day for a year – have I changed? A bit. But not in any way you’d expect. What people sometimes expect, is that I’d become more like what they want me to become like, whatever it is. I’m still very myself though. Bit more awesome, of course. Bit more content, bit more understanding, bit more kind, bit more easy going, and a bit more creative.

And, I hate to break it to you, but I still can’t levitate.