Shelly Burgess is a longtime Heartfulness practitioner and a Heartfulness trainer. She has taught physics for the past twenty-four years at a suburban Midwestern high school where she serves as chair of the science department. She’s a wife and the mother to two very active teenagers. When free time exists, she likes to read, bike, and hike.

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Shelly Burgess

<h4>
  <strong><span style="color: #673092">SHELLY BURGESS</span>
    is a high school physics teacher and a meditation trainer. Here, she tells
    her story about losing sight of her purpose in the midst of the Covid
    pandemic, and how positive intention renewed her focus and allowed her to
    accept the last year through a lens of self-compassion, grace, and
    optimism.&nbsp;</strong>
</h4>

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<p>
  We’ve all had challenges since the pandemic began. Some challenges have
  certainly been greater than others, but we’ve all had our share of struggles
  and pain. An effective meditation practice can help us immensely with such
  life stressors. I know this, of course. I’ve been practicing Heartfulness for
  thirty years, so of course I was primed to ride out pandemic turbulence with a
  good measure of serenity and grace … except that I did a terrible job of
  meditating for over a year.
</p>

<p>
  It’s embarrassing, but I am admitting this for a reason. Let’s first rewind,
  so I can tell you why my terrible job of meditating led me to one of the most
  important revelations of my life.
</p>

<p>
  Allow me to introduce myself. I am a mother of two active teens, a wife, and a
  daughter. Like many women, I work hard at home to make life nice for my loved
  ones. I also teach advanced high school physics to teens with serious college
  aspirations. In a normal school year, I run myself ragged trying to give my
  children their best start in life and care for my family, while also striving
  to provide a world-class education to the hundred or so students who count on
  me at school. My responsibilities are pretty demanding, but my Heartfulness
  practice keeps me balanced, and I also enjoy sharing meditation with others as
  a trainer. I’m busy, but it works.
</p>

<p>
  Enter 2020, which was a period of upheaval. I make no suggestion that my pain
  has been anywhere near what others have suffered, but as the pandemic began I
  struggled. My children switched to online learning while I switched to online
  teaching. In one room, I led my classes through Zoom, and during breaks I
  checked on my kids and tried to keep them as motivated and happy as possible.
  So began the daily cycle. In order to give my own kids my all, while providing
  a superior education to my students, I was working longer and longer hours.
  While transitioning a lab course to a digital format, encouraging my suffering
  students, and holding my family together, I had less and less steam to keep
  myself running. Slowly my meditation practice began to erode. When I sat in
  the evenings to meditate, it felt like I had nothing left to set my meditation
  in motion because I had let myself become so run down.
</p>

<p>
  When my alarm went off in the morning so I could meditate before work, I
  couldn’t get up. I needed sleep. As the school year went on, and my workload
  and my family’s needs compounded, I slept fewer and fewer hours and had less
  and less to give. My meditation practice became a skin-and-bones version of
  its former self, but I had so much to do to serve others, what choice did I
  have, right?
</p>

<p>
  Three weeks before the school year ended, I was concerned that I couldn’t make
  it. I felt as if a panic attack was lurking around every corner, but I pushed.
  By this time, I felt that my spiritual condition was really run down, a shadow
  of its former state. This added to my anxiety. I love meditation. I love what
  it does for me. Now, not only had I not used it to get through the school
  year, but I felt like I had slid backward. My heart no longer felt like a
  glowing sanctuary. It felt like a racing heartbeat. It was distressing. Had I
  damaged myself physically? Yes, definitely. My body had lots of ways of
  telling me. Had I damaged myself spiritually? This was a real worry.
</p>

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<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
  <span style="color: #673092">
    I raise my children and serve my family with love <br />in line with my
    spiritual goal. <br />I serve my students with care in line with my
    spiritual goal. <br />I serve the hearts of those I encounter, <br />and in
    doing so, my own heart grows in purity.</span>
</h5>

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<p>
  Heartfulness offers us
  <a href="https://www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/a-users-guide-to-living-part-1/">ten universal principles</a>
  to help navigate life’s challenges in an ennobling way. The third principle
  suggests that we set a goal of the highest spiritual attainment. In a normal
  year, I think about this all the time. It helps me frame everything I do
  within that higher purpose. I raise my children and serve my family with love
  in line with my spiritual goal. I serve my students with care in line with my
  spiritual goal. I serve the hearts of those I encounter, and in doing so, my
  own heart grows in purity. At least, that’s the way it is in a normal year.
</p>

<p>
  This year? It took until May to realize that I had been serving the wrong
  master, so to speak. My goals had become mundane: “I have to write multiple
  versions of this test to make it fairer, in case kids try to cheat.” “I have
  to come up with a way for students to run this experiment at home using
  household tools, and then create an online format for them to post their
  data.” “I have to hang out with my kids while they do their homework so they
  feel supported.” “I have to cook dinner and do laundry!”
</p>

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<div class="block-image">
  <figure>
    <img width="327" height="500" alt="rediscovering-my-purpose2" class="has-img-center lazyload"
      src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/rediscovering_my_purpose2_8a3e3e2799.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T12:21:45.659Z" />
  </figure>
</div>

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<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
  <span style="color: #673092">When I serve others in tune with my spiritual goal,
  </span><br /><span style="color: #673092">I do a better job – I am more loving and more
    balanced. </span><br /><span style="color: #673092">The self-care that comes with my
    meditation </span><br /><span style="color: #673092">practice allows me to be better in all
    my roles, </span><br /><span style="color: #673092">and better to myself.</span>
</h5>

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<p>
  Ah … the pressing immediacy of meeting responsibilities. I had allowed this to
  become my goal.
</p>

<p>I didn’t even see it coming.</p>

<p>
  By not attending well enough to my heart, by not balancing my mind regularly
  enough through d meditation, by letting myself become so mentally exhausted
  that I got sidetracked from my goal, I “served the wrong master.” For a year.
  And where it led me was not good at all. I could barely even tap into that
  glowing goodness that was formerly an ever-present reservoir in my heart.
</p>

<p>
  Well, the story would have had a terrible ending if I had stopped there and
  given up! And who wants a lousy ending to a story? So now comes the good
  stuff!
</p>

<p>
  First, I dived back into my daily practice, along with lots and lots of
  positive suggestions. The good news: I can tell I’m rebounding. The bad news:
  I still have a way to go. The bottom line: There’s always hope.
</p>

<p>
  Second, I’m proof that Heartfulness works, because when I let my practice and
  my goal slip, I saw the dark side of losing sight of them.
</p>

<p>
  And that leads to my huge revelation: Third, serve the right master, remember
  my goal. When I do this, everything else falls into balance. Losing sight of
  it led me down a dark path. Returning my focus has offered me a way back.
</p>

<p>
  Does that mean I should not serve my family and my students? Not at all. In
  fact, when I serve them in tune with my spiritual goal, I do a better job – I
  am more loving and more balanced. The self-care that comes with my meditation
  practice allows me to be better in all my roles, and better to myself.
</p>

<p>
  One last little gem popped into my memory as I re-established my practice. A
  doozy of a positive suggestion came to me, and it has made a huge difference.
  Decades ago, a Heartfulness meditator known as sister Kasturi said something
  to someone, and eventually it reached my ears many years later. She told this
  person that we can do spiritual work in the past. In other words, if we make
  suggestions in the present, we can reset our past selves. Wild, right?
</p>

<p>
  So I sat down and tried it. I made the mental suggestion in May that all
  along, throughout the school year, I had been serving everyone heartfully, in
  tune with my goal. The amazing thing was that as I made this positive
  suggestion I could feel pieces of the past year shifting back into balance,
  like a mixed-up puzzle where the pieces assemble themselves. I was resetting
  my goal for my past self. I felt it working. So cool. So wonderful. So
  grateful.
</p>

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<div class="block-image">
  <figure>
    <img decoding="async" width="669" alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
      src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/rediscovering_my_purpose3_74b7a897c4.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T12:23:10.956Z" />
  </figure>
</div>

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<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
  <span style="color: #673092">The main point is that I realized I don’t want to <br />ever
    give myself
    wounds again. I love my practice. <br />It keeps me balanced and takes me to
    my goal.</span>
</h5>

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<p>
  What is the moral of this story? Let’s be clear that I do not believe there’s
  a “get out of jail free” card if I just redouble my efforts and make positive
  suggestions from the present to my past self. This is not the lesson, although
  I am grateful that I’ve found what I needed to heal my wounds. The main point
  is that I realized I don’t want to ever give myself wounds again. I love my
  practice. It keeps me balanced and takes me to my goal. Like Dorothy says at
  the end of
  <em>The Wizard of Oz</em>, “I’m not going to leave here ever, ever again.” I’m
  lucky to have this nice moral to my story, because it could have been much
  worse. I have pretty good grounds for feeling optimistic, and I’m grateful to
  be home.
</p>

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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>

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