These past two years, I went through a wild ride of emotional twists and turns.  Struggling to balance out the high's and lows, I found myself nosediving into the deep end.    

One minute, I'm holding up a bottle of Dom Pérignon, with my best friends/bandmates on Sir Richard Branson's private island, under a full moon after "our greatest gig ever", and the next minute, I'm holding onto my sister's hand while she feeds oral chemo to her three year old son (Hunter).  Within just a few months, I went from zero to sixty and back to zero, losing myself within the gears. My mind and body quickly became stuck in overdrive, and my blood felt like it had nowhere to go.

It took several more volatile months and an intense band breakup 'til I finally felt the sea floor. I remember one morning, I looked in the mirror and I swear I saw Shrek.  

There was just nowhere else to go, but up.  

After a few insecure but helpful therapy sessions, some yoga, and Eckhart Tolle, I kept thinking that there must be something else I can add to this mix. 

Having been a Beatles fan since birth via my mom, I was always intrigued with stories of their trip to Northern India in the late sixties to learn Transcendental Meditation.  I've tried to meditate here and there in the past, but now I felt a deep urge to finally learn the practice.  After some research, I found the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Foundation not far from my home.

The hard part wasn't the 10 mile drive, or the mental and physical requirements of the week-long training, but rather the fear of walking into something new.  All that fear of the unknown, just about om'd me out.  

Well, it's been 10 months since I learned TM and I find myself back on the trail, continuing up the mountain.  Am I all fixed? Definitely not. But I do feel much more balanced and even. I'm also noticing that I'm much less reactive to my emotions, and much more in touch with me again. I still have many more years of practice ahead of me, and thousands more hours of life, love, and music to learn, and many more peaks and valleys to go, but I think I'm back on my way, living better from the inside/out.  

A friend of mine once told me, "when it's good, just wait, and when it's bad, just wait." Now, I know how he feels.