The Slow and Faltering Path to Meditation – Kay

About This Speaker Tape

A New Zealand meeting room, a chair, and a head that would not shut up. Kay came for weight loss, not a spiritual life, but the food was a "great persuader" that eventually pushed her to a breaking point. Even after the weight dropped, the desire to die remained. She spent years going through the motions of the steps, spending hours on her knees in prayer while feeling hopeless and useless.

The wreckage manifested as debilitating migraines that left her bedridden for days. The turning point wasn't a sudden epiphany, but a Saturday morning AA meeting and a tape. Kay discovered that simply keeping her eyes shut and persevering—even while the ticking of a clock drove her mad—was enough. By redefining meditation as a simple pause to breathe and think of a Higher Power, the migraines vanished. She moved from the category of someone who couldn't meditate to someone who simply does it imperfectly.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Kay admits she only came to the rooms to lose weight.
• 2:10 Discussion of the wreckage of the past and the process of making amends.
• 3:15 Step 11: Kay describes 'going through the motions' of prayer on her knees.
• 5:20 Kay reads a passage from 'As Bill Sees It' regarding the neglect of Step 11.
• 6:40 Description of the debilitating migraines and the 'head that would not shut up'.
• 8:10 Kay describes her struggle to sit still in the AA meditation meeting.
• 9:30 A breakthrough conversation with her sponsor about the definition of meditation.
• 11:15 The 'miraculous' disappearance of the migraines following her meditation practice.
• 13:00 Kay discusses her current spiritual practice of reading before meditating.
• 14:30 Laughter: Kay shares a joke about transcending dental medication.