I Became a Meditation Teacher to Correct a Family Curse, Here’s Why
By Glenna Lee
After practicing meditation for many years and focusing my intentions and attention, I now live a largely mindful life. And that gives me added joy, composure, and attentiveness that benefits me, those around me, and the earth. But what does all that really mean?
Before I meditated, I was aware that I had a problem. It wasn’t necessarily my problem, it was a burden of three generations of women who came before me. The anxiety I wore underneath my skin had been imposed upon me by my ancestors.
My great-grandmother immigrated to America, unescorted and penniless, because any unknown future in America would be safer than what she had suffered in Eastern Europe. In my family, she is known as the matriarch of worry. She worried about everyone, not just herself and her family, but even neighbors and strangers who she’d come across in her day-to-day life.
My great-grandmother passed down her fears and anxiety to my grandmother, who then passed worry down to my own mother. My mother and grandmother modeled panic for me throughout my young life. They had a million and one ways to worry and embodied their fears with anxious expressions, utterances, pacing, tears, muscle tension, headaches, teeth grinding, and ulcers. Worry was not only my primary foundation to cope with issues—it was my only one.
But at some point, decades later, as a mother of growing daughters, I knew I had to renew myself and discover other ways to cope besides “we scare because we care.” How else was I going to raise two competent daughters to navigate life? I wanted them to know that panic and worry were never the answers to solving a problem. Never. Preparedness largely prevents problems. Skills solve problems. A productive mindset offers solutions. Self-compassion leads to problem solving. And the basis for utilizing our skill sets and productive thinking is mindfulness. Mindfulness brings clarity to any situation so that we may enter it with an open heart, balance, and vision.
I read thinkers like Thich Nhat Hahn, Sylvia Boorstein, Pema Chodron, and Ram Das; and poets like Mary Oliver, Hila Ratzabi, and Emily Dickinson. And I practiced. I practiced daily and virtually with an online platform called Pause 2B Present. I practiced weekly in nearby woods, forest bathing with Cindy By Nature. I even transformed my social media to a more mindful, spiritual platform where I could read and share inspirational thoughts about living a balanced life. I ate mindfully, bringing my breakfast outdoors in nature, enjoying the food slowly, without a screen or conversation to distract me (with a wool blanket over my legs to keep me warm in the winter). I studied to become a naturalist and a forest therapy guide, bringing humans back into nature to literally root and ground ourselves.
Most importantly, I began to function mindfully. When my teenager told me she was going to her first party, or my tween told me she was going trick-or-treating in another town with some older kids, late at night, I embraced instead of braced.
I knew I had to renew myself and discover other ways to cope besides “we scare because we care.” How else was I going to raise two competent daughters to navigate life? I wanted them to know that panic and worry were never the answers to solving a problem.
I am in awe of how I transformed myself as a meditator. In place of my matriarchs’ worries and fears, I now live with peace and logic. My wish for myself and my daughters is to fully attune ourselves so we can enjoy meaningful, full-bodied, and enriched lives. I could keep them safe at home, but I can’t give them the social life they are developmentally ready for, or the divine awe of experiencing something new. Living mindfully allows me to separate emotion from logic so that my children can grow up living fruitful lives.
I still share something vital with my mother as well as my grandmother and great-grandmother—love. Each was or continues to be a deeply loving human being, devoted to caring for others. My great-grandmother, a poor immigrant, would never let anyone go hungry. My grandmother and mother dedicated their careers to caring for children, each having served as doctors at a time when few women held that role.
As for me, I became a meditation guide so that I, too, could care for another generation of humans and equip them with the ease, joy, and divine attentiveness that the skills of meditation can provide.
And guess who attends each one of the weekly Zoom meditation classes that I lead? My beloved mother. After 73 years of worry, she’s learning to chip away at her own foundation of fear, because of her love for me.
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Glenna Lee has been a certified meditation guide, mikvah guide, and educator for 20 years. In an effort to chip away at repairing the world, she is currently studying to become certified as a naturalist and forest therapy guide. Glenna is an instructor with Zibby Classes and will be teaching Meditation for the Creative Mind. She also teaches through the JCC of Manhattan, The Mid-Westchester JCC, leads meditation and poetry circles in the woods, and oversees a 100-women-strong, intergenerational organization called Sisterhood.