The 13th of this month marked a year since I started regularly meditating. I’ve pretty much meditated at least once a day for the last year, and already I have no idea how I coped without. It is crazy to me to think that most people have never practiced meditation or mindfulness in their lives.

Firstly, meditation is, by its nature, incredibly personal. You’re going to be digging around in your own head and might not love everything you find. I started practice after suffering a mental breakdown and confronting the fact that I have OCD. When I first started ‘tuning in’, I immediately wanted the opposite, to block out the non-stop intrusive thoughts and compulsions that came with them. For so long I thought meditation was about controlling my thoughts, when the truth couldn’t be more different.

Meditation and mindfulness teach you that you are not your thoughts. You learn to detach yourself from living a life of stimuli = reaction, you learn to recognise your own actions and feelings and learn things about yourself you’d never have confronted otherwise. Some days I barely think about it. I meditate for 15 minutes on the train to work and feel incredible, optimistic and excited. Other days my thoughts won’t stop attacking and before I realise I’m counting and checking and falling into an OCD attack. The only rope I have to get out of that hole is mindfulness. Teaching myself that it isn’t me, it’s my OCD.

Believe me, the bad stuff won’t vanish. Earlier this year I ended up in an abusive relationship with a girl with BPD. It knocked me down, took the wind out of me, left me rattled and shaken physically. But mindfulness let me refocus my attention, to tune down the dark and focus on the light, to believe it when friends hugged me and told me it wasn’t me. For the first time in my life I realise I don’t need a girlfriend to be happy, in fact. An old friend remarked to me that ‘you know you’re loved mate’ and it hit me how loved I really am. I’d been blind to it, but now I see.

And the progress has been beyond night and day. A year ago I struggled to play my PS4 as my OCD demanded I check and recheck every game I owned. I couldn’t watch a show without checking the name titles of every episode. I was paranoid and terrified of judgement, often excusing myself from my desk to have mini panic attacks.

And I’m still a pretty anxious guy, sure. You don’t ‘unlearn’ what you’ve grown up as in a year, but I’m getting there. You take it day by day, and slowly you see the ball rolling. This time last year I was depressed, anxious, nervous. I felt trapped and wrote dark stories about suicide and indifference. To recap the last week, I’ve;

– Lost two pounds as I’ve been eating healthily

– Started a business with my best friend and bought a web domain

– Been offered two job interviews, both tomorrow

– Legally changed my name to what I’ve always wanted

If you’d told me this a year, even six months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. My OCD and my mind in general had me convinced I was this terrible, unlovable person. It would tell me my friends would all vanish after Uni, but in reality we’ve grown even closer. It would tell me my friends in California hated me, when this year one of them reminded me that these thoughts were ‘laughable’. To have someone I care about so much dismiss the things inside my head so easily, it was like having a ton of bricks taken off my back. It’s hard to realise how distorted and unrealistic your own thoughts are, and this year I’ve opened up, told all my best friends about my OCD, braced for the worst, and walked away smiling. I assumed they’d all label me as insane and cut me out, when instead my friends couldn’t have been more supportive. I don’t feel like I’m crazy anymore, I have a mental illness that isn’t who I am. I won’t let it be.

As my Californian friend put it, ‘Some people need this said to them because their brains don’t work properly – you are one of my best friends, and I love you unconditionally’. Before meditation I wouldn’t have accepted or believed him, but now, I feel more loved and accepted than ever before. He told me how much calmer and confident I seemed than when he’d last seen me a year prior, and it felt incredible. This time next year I’ll be even better. I can’t stress enough how much mindfulness has improved every part of my life. I smile more, feel more positive, strive and achieve more. I write articles like this. I’m not suicidal or depressed, I don’t feel lost at sea or out of control.

I use ‘Calm’ every day. It’s cheap and improves constantly. The app continues to run better and adds new meditations regularly. They’ve recently added walking meditation and it’s a whole new way of experiencing my favourite pastime. The leaves are brighter, the birds sing louder. I still have a long way to go, but every day I feel a little better, smile a little more. I’m in charge of my own mind, my own life. Meditation has helped me rediscover and love myself, and I urge everyone to give it a go. Or don’t, that’s cool too. You do you.