Guest Post - How Meditation Changed My Life - By Susan Ashley Hunt

Health & Wellness    |    Posted By Jenny Griffith

Today, I am going to share some deep words written from the amazing Susan Ashley Hunt. Susan and I have known each other over the past 7 years. She is someone who is following her truth. She has set the tone to invite others to delve deep into their souls to find enlightenment through her creative and healthful business, Live Lightly. Her words in this post are quiet moving.

- Jenny

How Meditation Changed My Life

Susan Ashley Hunt

Thoughts in walking meditation:

I stood at point “A” walking towards my visualization at point “B”. In my visualization, I was kneeling on the tile floor. My knees, sore from the cold hard tile. I had one hand on the toilet seat and a toothbrush in the other. With watery eyes and a determined mind, I stuck the handle of the toothbrush just far enough down my throat so I would gage. And up my dinner would come. I couldn’t use my finger. I might leave scars from my teeth on my knuckles; then my family would know I was purging again. My mind disassociated from the feelings of my body, yet satisfied I had managed to purge at least ¾ of my dinner. In my walking meditation, I walk towards the image of myself vomiting, feeling all of the inner body sensations that would arise. As I walk towards her, and stand over her seeing the pain in her face and the fear in her knuckles as she gripped the toothbrush. The numbness in her eyes as she looked into her own face, and the regret as she left the bathroom as if nothing had happened. I wanted to reach out and help her. Not to tell her that she was beautiful and that she should stop this, but help her find a new way to express herself. Allow her to realize she had other ways of processing the fluctuations of life. I wanted to whisper in her ear your darkest, loneliest patterns are what connects you to the human experience. They are a messenger guiding you home to your authentic ground of being. Your truth is huge, potent and divine you can’t pretend to “keep it down any longer” that isn’t even working physically or metaphorically. You purge more than once a day, because you aren’t sure how to get rid of things you don’t need, emotions that aren’t yours and a life that you don’t want, not because your nature is inherently flawed.

We all have layers of idiosyncrasies that create patterned thinking and behavior, and I am no different. As a Cancer Pisces with a lot of water and fire in my chart, I am ruled by emotion which was a difficult truth to realize in my younger years. Most of my behavior could be categorized as extreme, and that certainly reflected my inner state of being. I found meditation and yoga as a teenager and followed it around the world. Studying Eastern Philosophy in college and traveling overseas to live in ashrams and spiritual centers for months on end.

When you first step on the path of contemplation and meditative practices, the journey resembles a “self-help” journey. You begin to see yourself in an alternate light and are willing face uncomfortable truths about yourself. Some are surface level and quite easy to change and others feel karmicly deep like wounds on the soul. Seeing as extreme behavior was my M.O. as a young yogini I decided to examine and confront some of my most deeply held beliefs of suffering right away.

Sue A Hunt:

A Cancer Pisces, Susan Ashley Hunt is a minimalist and Buddhist. Sue, her husband Dan and wolf dog call the high desert Taos, New Mexico home. They travel and rock climb all over the U.S. They spend as much time in nature as life allows.

"The depth of contemplative practice is a multi-dimensional portal. Expanding the body/mind’s visceral understanding of mindfulness, and spiritual expansion. " - SA HUNT

Sue teaches teacher trainings, national workshops and international yoga retreats. Sue has her Bachelors of Arts in Hinduism and Buddhism from Trinity College, CT. She continued her graduate studies in Consciousness Studies and Transpersonal Psychology. Her deep contemplative practice stems from her immersion in the teachings of Swami Sivanada Radha at Yashodhara Ashram, Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism and Kundalini. Susan studied yoga therapy at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai India.

It is deeply transformative to work 1:1 in the space of vulnerability, honesty and non-judgement. So many of us practicing yoga; it’s my soul’s calling to facilitate the journey of living a mindful, connected and contemplative life. One of which we reclaim our power and act from a place of grounded equilibrium. 

SAT NAM