Meditate Your Way Through the Lockdown
Day 39: May 4, 2020
Global cases: 3,643,771; Deaths: 252,241
Egypt cases: 6,813; Deaths: 436
Malak Abd El Ghaffar
Integrated Marketing Communications sophomore
A sudden black cloud covered Planet Earth. Everything nearly stopped as an evil viral disease invaded every corner of the world, leading to the spread of anxiety, stress, and panic between people. We are currently facing a super stressful phase in our lives, locked up in our houses, stuck with our family members, and having tons of assignments, quizzes, and midterms to complete.
A stress reliever is needed and since we cannot go out in order for this phase to pass by eventually, hence, peaceful meditation is the only way out.
Honestly, I am a 24/7 stressed/anxious kind of person. Everything that surrounds me stresses me out easily and makes me panic – mostly academic stuff. I have looked into several ways of therapy, however, as ironic as it may seem, meditation was not one of them.
This is my very first time to try guided meditation. I chose a specific type of meditation that really suits the unpleasant phase we are all currently in – “Uncertain times” on YouTube.
To be honest, at first, my target was to try this meditation only for the sake of an assignment given in a psychology course. I did not focus on what the instructor in the video was assigning me to do, I overall did not feel anything. However, I suddenly stopped and asked myself: “What if this thing is truly beneficial? What if this successfully cures my anxiety? What if this becomes my escape whenever my life is stressing me out?
I started considering all of these questions. This was when this meditation started to hit me internally. I started to focus on what the instructor is actually saying. I started to process the guidelines, understand them, and feel them moving something deep inside me. I started to feel what this therapy is all about.
For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
After I was done with my 15-minute escape from the world, I felt free – free of all the worries that were killing me mentally and physically. It was a transformative freedom from feeling weak and dead from the inside to feeling super strong and joyful from the inside. I also feel freed from not having the energy to do anything from my tasks to having the energy to conquer the world.
it was like a short 15-minute break from all the worries, stressors, drama, and everything around me. In this break, I felt like there was a small war inside me. A war that occurred between all the stresses that were inside me and this meditation. Apparently, the meditation won.
This meditation provided me with positivity that I urgently needed and could not find anywhere. It helped get rid of every negative thought. This definitely would not be my last time to meditate. However, it is my first step toward beating my endless anxious mind and body.
