What is the single biggest change you have made in your life?

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In my 20s, I was living a fast paced, unhealthy lifestyle. I was having episodes of depression and anxiety, but not knowing what to do about it -  I'd have panic attacks and then just keep myself busy so I wouldn't have to think about it. 

Looking back, I was on the run, filling my schedule with as much as possible to just escape myself. It took its toll. I literally woke up one morning with all the symptoms of a heart attack and was told by the doctor that I had had a breakdown due to stress. I was quite ill for about six months and during that time I did a lot of soul searching. What has happened to me? What’s going on with my life? 

An old school friend told me about a Buddhist monastery. This wasn't a completely wild idea to me, because I grew up with Buddhism, so I decided to go. It was only meant to be for a year. 

Did you ever think that you would stay?

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It was a one year retreat - you go to a monastery for a year, you get your head together and then you go back to normal life. My friend did her year and left, as did most people. But some stayed longer and wanted to go deeper. I was one of those people. 

After my first year, I took vows for a second year and then a third year. It was only after short term commitments for about four years that I really thought, this is actually what I want to do with my life. It was a scary feeling, because it was a big leap from what I was doing before but it just also felt right, and I decided to take lifelong vows. 

My story is quite extreme, I suppose, but then it suits my character. I've always been quite an extreme person. 

What was the internal change that happened for you alongside this huge lifestyle change? 

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There’s a huge shift in mindset. This isn’t a shift that only comes with drastic change, it’s the mindset shift that everybody who meditates tries to reach. It’s about taking responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions and reactions. 

Many people feel that their life is out of control in some way. In meditation, you're given tools through which you can start to transform your mind. To be given those tools and to then feel that you're more in the driving seat when it comes to your reactions and thoughts is incredibly empowering. 

It's almost like you're remodeling your internal landscape so that you can handle the external landscape differently. 

This is one of my passions, talking to people about how meditation is more than just a relaxation exercise. It's actually a complete restructuring of how you think and feel about life. You change your life through changing your mind.

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What is your response to people who say that meditation doesn’t work for them?

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There are so many people who believe their lives and their minds are too busy for meditation.

Let me tell you, I lived in a monastery for many years and my mind was still going at 1000 miles an hour. It’s not really about your surroundings. The mind is a busy thing and we have a lot of thoughts; a lot of emotions; a lot of distractions. 

The key message here is, don't even try to quieten your mind. That's not the point of meditation. I think people struggle to meditate because they have an assumption that what they're trying to aim for is mental quietness, so the whole thing just starts to feel like a very stressful, impossible process. 

Let’s try to think about the process in a much more creative way: you're not trying to chase the thoughts away, you're trying to work out how to not let them control you. 

A very typical meditation technique is to focus on your breathing. Of course, within a few seconds, you start thinking about other things. And then the job of the meditator is to just gently notice that you've got distracted and return to the breath. The returning is what counts. Every time you return to the breath, it's like lifting weights at the gym. You're getting stronger.

Is fear always a negative emotion that we should be learning to avoid or is there something we can learn from it?

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It would be helpful if we could understand negative emotions better and learn how to be less driven by them. If we make choices based on fear, those choices are generally not healthy. 

Can we look inside and start to understand our fear better? 

In my book, I talk about fear quite a lot, because I'm really interested in how much our culture is influenced by fear on so many levels. 

We’re on our phones all the time, we're on the internet, and the information that we read tends to have a fear-inducing effect. It’s almost become the norm now that information is conveyed in a fear-inducing, anxiety-riddled manner. 

I don't think it's good that we're living lives where there's a constant sense of impending doom. As biological creatures, we need a certain amount of fear to survive. You need that fight or flight to get yourself back to safety, but it's gone out of control - we're going into fight or flight every time we read the news or every time we get a notification on WhatsApp. At work, so much of what we do is about putting out fires and dealing with crises, and looking at what might go wrong all the time. 

It creates quite a depressing culture where we're always just looking up for danger. Where's the inspiration and creativity when we're just so lost in that level of anxiety? And I do think we can transform that through meditation, so that we can be aware of dangers and risks you need to be to be alive and to survive, but it doesn’t engulf our day-to-day living to such an extent.

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What is your view on ‘toxic positivity’? 

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When I hear the term ‘toxic positivity’, I think of suppression or denial, where you just grit your teeth and say, it's all wonderful. There is something a little bit fake about that. 

I think being positive from a meditator’s point of view is about learning to be flexible and adaptable, but it’s also about being able to look at distress or discomfort with compassion and resolve that within oneself. It’s also about being honest with oneself, rather than pushing feelings away. 

So I think toxic positivity is when positivity is artificial, forced and suppressive, whereas real positivity is where you learn to handle the good times and bad times with more of a calm, cool head. It’s about being able to deal with things effectively; to be able to handle one's own negative emotions, suffering and discomfort and not run away from it. 

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Meditation and mindfulness have become big business in recent years. Do you think this is a good thing?

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Mindfulness in the corporate world is something I've been quite active in for more than 20 years now - long before it became a buzzword. I am so inspired to see how much it's become mainstream and I'm interested in helping people move beyond some of their misconceptions about it. 

I remember once I went to a company to teach meditation and they said, but what if we become too relaxed? I found that hilarious. They were worried they would lose their ‘edge’. 

I always try to explain that meditation is actually about optimising mental performance, so you can be more present, more creative and less distracted. 

An interesting shift in people's attitude to meditation is that it used to always be about stress reduction and mental focus. That is still the case, but I find it exciting that people, especially in the corporate world, are now also thinking about it in terms of resilience and better communication and compassion. 

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Do you think the concept of ambition has changed in recent years (particularly post-pandemic)?

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A question that often comes up is, if I meditate will I become less ambitious? There can be a fear that it will make us too easy going - if you're more connected to the present moment, what about the future? Will you still be able to plan and achieve things? 

I always try to explain that it’s actually about learning to be more present, so that you can really get the most out of life. Then when you make plans and set goals, they can come from a stronger place. 

Perhaps then ambition can come more from a less toxic place. Perhaps it becomes something less needy and egotistical; more focused on asking, what is my value in this world? What can I do to make the world a better place? 

I do think the covid experience globally, awful as it was, brought about a shift in people's attitude about their own health, wellbeing and how much they value their time. Now, everyone is thinking more about the bigger picture. I think this is why people are wanting to meditate more, because they want to get more in touch with themselves and what is really important to them, rather than just staying surface-level all the time.