Welcome to Adrian Baker Meditation Coaching!
Hi I’m Adrian.
My purpose in writing this blog is to empower you to transform your life through the practices of mindfulness meditation. In so doing, I will share my life’s journey as openly and honestly as possible: I want you to learn from my mistakes as well as my successes.
After a decade of studying meditation in Asia and completing a two years mindfulness meditation teacher training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, I’d love to tell you that I’ve worked through all of my issues and that I have it all figured out now that I’m a mindfulness meditation teacher.
But that wouldn’t be the truth. I’ll admit to you now that I’m still a very flawed human being. However, if you compare me to the person I was before I started practicing meditation: I’m a completely different person. Moreover, I love the process of learning and growing; I enjoy the challenge of becoming more conscious of my own patterns, trying to let go of those habits that no longer serve me and to replace them with new mindsets and routines that have a more positive impact on others and on my own evolution.
At the same time, I’m also more at peace with my flaws and limitations; I’m accepting of the fact that my shortcomings are just as much a part of who I am as my perceived strengths are. This is just part of being human: being limited. Yet for too long this mental well being proved to be elusive; true happiness always seemed to be just around the corner. I found myself fueled by an insatiable feeling of restlessness, searching for things outside of myself to provide me with a sense of self worth and meaning.
Growing up in the midwestern region of the United States, I was the last person whom you would have expected to practice meditation, let alone to teach it.
I was a hyperactive child in an academically competitive school in which I couldn’t keep up. I spent much of my time in school staring out the window daydreaming.
I can still vividly recall the feelings of embarrassment and humiliation when a teacher called on me, everyone turned around and I had absolutely no idea what the question even was, let alone the answer. I can still recall people, even my own friends, calling me stupid.
Everything changed when I got on Adderall for my ADHD. Literally overnight, I went from being a straight B student to a straight A student. I never looked back.
I set my sights on goals which I previously thought were unattainable and I achieved them: I went to an ivy league university, I got masters degrees from The London School of Economics and Stanford, a job at Goldman Sachs, where I worked on Wall Street and made obscene amounts of money, a position in politics proximate to people of power and influence in Washington, DC.
Human beings can be a complex mix of motivations and this was also the case for me as well. These pursuits were motivated in large part by sincere intentions, and I was driven by very intrinsic motivations as well: I really loved to learn, I really was fascinated by politics. However, I also bought into a belief that is popular in American culture, and in many other cultures that are heavily achievement orientated: that perceived success—as determined by the dominant culture—will provide you with the happiness that you are really seeking.
Yet most people find that this happiness proves to be elusive. It always seems to be just around the corner. They attain it briefly, then it’s gone, leaving us perpetually with the feeling that we have never fully arrived at our intended destination. Mindfulness meditation would later teach me that this had a lot more to do with how my mind was relating to the world, rather than anything deficient in my external circumstances.
While an achievement mindset is wonderful it can also lead to an approach to life that is very acquisitive. How many people do you know whose lives are filled with professional success and material abundance yet they seem to be perpetually dis satisfied, constantly complaining about how things just aren’t quite right, or how other people, or themselves, never measure up to their standards for how things should be?
If you’re being honest with yourself, are you convinced that it is circumstances outside of you--your career, your relationships, material possessions, pleasurable experiences--that will make you feel validated and whole on the inside?
Or do you think that your own purpose and happiness comes from within and that you make meaning by bringing these qualities, like love and compassion, to your career and to your relationships?
My search for answers to these questions began in earnest when I was 29. Like most of us, it took a crisis for me to take a really hard look at myself.
The first big crisis was that I finally burned out from two high pressure jobs: first in finance and then in politics. By the time I was in DC, I coped with the stress of my work life with substance abuse, primarily alcohol. I felt increasingly isolated, depressed and anxious. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I certainly didn’t want whatever I had.
In 2010, I left my life in the US behind and moved to Thailand, knowing no one. Within a few months, I discovered meditation and yoga and quit drinking entirely. It put me on a path towards mental and physical health that I’ve been on ever since.
Another crisis arrived a few months later when my father died suddenly in a car accident. It made me appreciate how precious and precarious our life is, and it gave me the determination to make the most of my time on this earth.
Think back to a time in your life when you had to face an extremely challenging event, perhaps even a tragedy: how did it feel at the time vs how you see it in retrospect now?
All of us know that personal growth comes through significant challenges, but when it comes to our emotions and our pain, we don’t really want to go there, do we?
As my teacher Spring Washam says: “All of us want to be reborn but none of us wants to die.”
Acknowledging, allowing and investigating the stories and emotions and behaviors that are holding us back can be really painful. Even when we are aware of our issues, we’re really attached to our conditioning, especially to our suffering.
But going through our suffering is the only path to freedom, peace and joy. This is what mindfulness meditation can help you to do.
It took me a long, long time to begin to get in touch with the emotional pain that I was burying underneath many of my compulsive behaviors, including my alcohol abuse. For example, even after I was on a healthy life path, regularly meditating and practicing yoga, it still took me many years to admit that underneath all of my searching for happiness outside of myself were deep seated feelings of unworthiness. It took me a long time to get in touch with that deep seated feeling of “this isn’t enough; I’m not enough,” and to learn to see through that belief for the delusion that it really was.
All of us just want to feel loved and accepted for who we are, and a lot of the fears that dictate our life--the decisions we make or do not make to avoid potential pain and rejection--spring from this deep seated desire for love and acceptance.
Mindfulness meditation has helped me to turn towards those parts of my heart and mind that I didn’t want to face: to look at these feelings with clarity, courage and compassion and to transform unhealthy habits into healthy ones.
Meditation has helped me to live more joyfully and with more ease, to love and accept myself, to have more empathy and compassion for others.
Meditation can do the same for you.
Whether you’re dealing with burnout and stress from a demanding career, looking for ways to build healthier relationships, or trying to find more happiness and inner peace, you will find useful resources for these issues on this blog. Sometimes we really need to start with the basics, like how can I address my poor sleeping patterns or my unhealthy relationship to food?
As someone who has transformed his own life through mindfulness meditation, and continues to enjoy the process of doing so with each passing day, I want to help you transform yours.
If you’re interested in undertaking this journey together, please sign up below for my newsletter.