What meditation felt like for the first time in Ubud

At the end of 2024, I took myself to Bali. The experience I anticipated most was a meditation class in Ubud — my first real encounter with meditation.

Rain in Bali arrives without warning and clears just as quickly. Before class, I ate a bowl of green curry and walked into Yoga Barn through the smell of wet grass.

I had imagined meditation as an attempt to empty the mind. Instead, the class asked us to notice what was already there: breath, tension, fear, memory and the stories we repeat about ourselves.

For the first time I understood that entering a meditative state did not mean becoming blank. It meant becoming honest enough to remain with what surfaced.

One line from the class stayed with me: ‘You are afraid of your light, not your shadow.’ We filled both sides of a page with what we feared, wanted and resisted. I kept mine carefully.

A small coincidence made the day feel complete. The woman who had helped Sina with my chakra reading that morning appeared again as the assistant in the afternoon class. Some connections are difficult to explain.

Meditation did not hand me a finished answer. It made me more willing to listen. When I became more truthful with myself, I could sense that what I had been searching for was already somewhere within me — capable of guiding me towards the life I wanted to reach.