{"id":221979,"date":"2025-05-04T02:19:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T02:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alternative-medicine\/how-meditation-changes-your-identity\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T02:19:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T02:19:26","slug":"how-meditation-changes-your-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=221979","title":{"rendered":"How Meditation Changes Your Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

\"HowUntil last month, I\u2019ve been wearing eyeglasses since I was 7 years old. I liked them at first because they made me look like Brainy Smurf, who was clearly smart.<\/p>\n

But as I grew older, so did my nearsightedness. By my awkward teenage years, my glasses became\u00a0coke bottle telescopes.<\/p>\n

While contact lenses helped with my looks, they didn\u2019t change that I was more or less blind without them.<\/p>\n

But through corrective surgery, 35 years later, I can now SEE.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share some of my process\u00a0with you because I feel it sheds light on how we create our identity and how meditation<\/a> can facilitate our transformation.<\/p>\n

But first, let me back up. I need to give you a little background.<\/p>\n

Perception <\/h2>\n

When I was around 13 years old, it dawned on me that people saw me through a lens that was not of my making.<\/p>\n

What does that mean?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an Asian-American male who grew up in a predominantly white upper middle class suburb of Detroit. In this cultural environment, there wasn\u2019t much reflected\u00a0in our shared media\u00a0that looked like me.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t bother me initially until I realized\u00a0others didn\u2019t have much reference\u00a0to place me\u00a0either.<\/p>\n

To overly generalize (and unfortunately, not that much), the scant images of an Asian man in mainstream America were either\u00a0that of\u00a0a mysterious\u00a0ass-kicking\u00a0martial artist or a nerdy\/goofy\u00a0worker bee.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t that pleased with the selection, but I definitely gravitated towards the former than the latter, and the thick glasses weren\u2019t helping me on this spectrum.<\/p>\n

I discovered meditation<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0landscape of consciousness\u00a0about\u00a0the same time.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t really know what I\u00a0was doing at all. I was just compelled by an agonizing\u00a0scream inside telling me there was more to the world that I could not see.<\/p>\n

Within a few years, through books,\u00a0conversations with my best friend, and some guidance from my plucky kung\u00a0fu teacher (I know, the irony kills me), my inner\u00a0vision\u00a0started to open up\u00a0in flutters.<\/p>\n

New Vision <\/h2>\n

When I arrived at the clinic on the day of my\u00a0surgery, I had to sign multiple waivers. Each of them confirmed from a different perspective that yes, I understood there were no ultimate guarantees re the outcome.<\/p>\n

Yes, I understood that I was electing to undergo a non-reversible procedure with my only set of eyes. And yes, my guts were\u00a0lurching with each line and box I initialed.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0hour before the actual surgery\u00a0I was sitting in a quiet and luxurious pre-operation waiting room. The\u00a0warm\u00a0lighting was low and my chair was\u00a0a big\u00a0soft recliner. But\u00a0I was\u00a0actually\u00a0on an express train with the brakes ripped out roaring towards a yawning abyss.<\/p>\n

I thought about what brought me to that moment.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, I went on a 5-night solo retreat to mark my 40th birthday<\/a> and call forth\u00a0a new vision for the next decade.\u00a0Since then, I continue to be surprised by how my life has flourished in almost every dimension.<\/p>\n

I saw deeply how\u00a0becoming stronger in any one area (physically, professionally, spiritually, etc.)\u00a0empowered\u00a0the other areas because confidence cannot be contained.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0success started to compound\u00a0over time\u00a0and I became fortunate financially, I got the idea for the eye surgery a few months ago.<\/p>\n

That\u00a0I could manually transform a core aspect\u00a0of my physical and psychological make up was\u00a0audaciously compelling.\u00a0I could engineer a change where my life would never be the same again.<\/p>\n

Seated in that big puffy recliner waiting to go under the laser\u00a0razor, that moment had finally come. Taking the\u00a0same posture as I do in my meditation\u00a0practice, I let go into my decision to carry me through these uncharted waters to the other side.<\/p>\n

The actual procedure of cutting away a small portion of my corneas was painless and took altogether less than 15 minutes.\u00a0The next days were more uncomfortable and revealing.<\/p>\n

Imaginary Perception <\/h2>\n

While I could \u201csee\u201d\u00a0immediately, I kept thinking I had either had my glasses or my contacts in. I\u2019d catch myself and then marvel that I was seeing through my own eyes for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d forget again and\u00a0have to repeat convincing myself that I wasn\u2019t looking through some kind of corrective lens.<\/p>\n

I had to contemplate\u00a0after\u00a0multiple rounds of this back-and-forth. It struck me how the image I held in\u00a0my mind of myself shaped my experience\u00a0to a more profound degree than I appreciated.<\/p>\n

More than just a habit, I was surprised to see how challenging it was to accept that I could really see. Even when I\u2019d look in\u00a0the mirror, an obstinate and irrational thought\u00a0jabbered: \u201cyou\u2019re wearing contact lenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

If my mind could fixate so doggedly\u00a0on an imaginary perception so contrary to reality, it\u00a0led\u00a0me\u00a0to\u00a0examine\u00a0other images I see\u00a0about myself: my body, my capacities, and my place in the world.<\/p>\n

How real and substantial are they actually?<\/p>\n

In light of this surgery, the array of self-images that normally go unnoticed have started to feel like some kind of spacesuit I\u2019m walking around in. As I realized when I was a teenager, many of these images were given to me.<\/p>\n

Even back then, I knew they were insufficient to reflect who I truly believed myself to be.<\/p>\n

My\u00a0former\u00a0spiritual teacher\u00a0once used\u00a0the metaphor of letting go of a\u00a0false self-image like a turtle\u00a0deciding to leave\u00a0its shell\u00a0and the exhilaration of feeling rain on its exposed body for the first time.<\/p>\n

In these recent days, I\u2019ve appreciated how that expresses the vulnerability I\u2019ve been feeling. It feels\u00a0both\u00a0raw and freeing to not know how to see myself.<\/p>\n

Meditation<\/a> has been essential\u00a0to my integration\u00a0process. It is a\u00a0miraculous\u00a0place where I can shed this spacesuit of images and ideas and rest in who I really am. And that is uncharted territory and an adventure\u00a0in high gear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until last month, I\u2019ve been wearing eyeglasses since I was 7 years old. I liked them at first because they made me look like Brainy Smurf, who was clearly smart. But as I grew older, so did my nearsightedness. By my awkward teenage years, my glasses became\u00a0coke bottle telescopes. 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