Mindfulness practice… a voice of my own

I’d like to share an experience that occurred during my mindfulness practice today. A not that long ago memory surfaced out of the blue, something that I had not really thought about for a long time, and also something that I had not registered in my conscious mind as that significant at the time it had occurred. So, about nine years ago after I had published my little book ‘Let me be’ I had been thinking of trying to exhibit the original artwork and other drawings, and one way of going about it was to visit some of the art galleries that I had visited in the past and ask. On such one occasion while I was visiting a small art gallery in the centre of Athens – specifically, the artist exhibiting her artwork was Christina Kalbari – I asked about the possibility of my presenting some of my work and was given the phone number of the owner. A little while later as I was walking down the stairs to exit the gallery I heard people shouting outside and as I opened the door to exit I was shocked to see a man holding a gun, a meter away from me, and two policemen trying to sort of convince him to hand his weapon over. The whole scene was surreal; I mean this was a sunny morning in Athens, not a scene from some film, and here I was waiting for this man to hand over his gun so that I could leave. It shook me a bit, but I shook it off and went on to the next thing, and interestingly, I forgot all about phoning the owner of the gallery. During my meditation today the sensations held in my body from that day surfaced along with a string of memories of times when as a child, teenager, but also later in adulthood, my expression or voice had been discouraged or oppressed through debilitating stories or severe punishment (Tonya Alexandri, 2017).