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By Bryce Rogow
A lot of my friends say I’m a walking contradiction: on one hand a
spiritual seeker; I’ve studied meditation at a Zen monastery in Japan, am a
yoga teacher, and I’ve been learning mind-body medicine from some of the
top healers around the world.
On the other hand, I’m a veteran of four combat deployments to Iraq as a
corpsman, or medic, with the U.S. Marines. After getting out of the
military, I was diagnosed with PTSD, and after some time of feeling lost
and hopeless, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing, intent
on learning the most effective techniques for cooling the fires of mental and
physical distress.
My first deployment with a U.S. Marine recon battalion (the Marines’
version of Special Forces) led me to the second battle of Fallujah in
November 2004, a massive assault on a city that has been described as the
most intense urban combat U.S. forces have seen since Hue City in
Vietnam.
All of us who deployed carry with us images that stay with us for the rest
of our lives, images we have to learn how to live with.
For me, the first image of that kind came after my first buddy in my unit
was killed while digging up an IED (improvised explosive device)—one of
the homemade bombs insurgents would bury in fields and roadsides.
the homemade bombs insurgents would bury in fields and roadsides.
My method for preserving my own mental function, in addition to
becoming addicted to the painkillers we medics had available, was to accept
the fact that I was already dead, and so I would constantly remind myself
that nothing that happened to me would matter, because I was already dead.
When I received my honorable discharge from the U.S. military in 2008,
I was surprised to have survived the war. I expected a huge flood of relief
when I was released from any possibility of future deployments, but that
relief never came. I walked and drove around U.S. cities with the same
tense fear I’d experienced in Iraq.
I spent a good deal of time heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs,
including drugs such as clonazepam prescribed by well-meaning
psychiatrists at the VA, drugs that were extremely addictive and led to a lot
of risky behavior.
After getting out and realizing I needed to start helping myself, I decided
that I wanted to learn meditation from an authentic Asian master, so I went
to Japan to train at a traditional Zen monastery, called Sogenji, in the city of
Okayama, Japan. Spending hours in the half-lotus position reminded me of
the “stress positions” we used during enhanced interrogations after
waterboarding became forbidden.
I am profoundly grateful to Shodo Harada-Roshi, a true modern Zen
master, for facilitating that experience. However, after leaving the
monastery, I realized that I would not be able to maintain that level of
meditation on my own, that I would need faster and easier ways, and a
better understanding of mind and body, to make meditative practices a
useful part of my life.
I was really amazed, then, to come across, one day while researching on
the Internet, a man, Dawson Church, who had already put together such a
program, a “meditation of meditations” he calls EcoMeditation.
When I first came across his EcoMeditation, I simply read from the web
page and followed the steps, and within two minutes found myself
activating all these healing resources and entering a state of profound
relaxation and well-being that I’d previously achieved only after hours, if
not days and weeks, of meditation.
Bryce has become a passionate advocate for the use of EcoMeditation in the
Department of Veterans Affairs. He believes that simple, low-cost self-help
Department of Veterans Affairs. He believes that simple, low-cost self-help
methods should be available to all veterans.
Thousands of people have now followed the seven simple steps at
EcoMeditation.com
and had the same profound and immediate experience of
peace that Bryce had. As we investigate their physical changes, we find that their
cortisol drops, along with their heart rate (Groesbeck et al., 2016). Their levels
of immune hormones rise, as does their happiness. Depression, anxiety, and pain
drop significantly. Inner peace reduces stress and produces beneficial changes in
the body down to the level of gene expression.
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