Mindfulness for Beginners: Start Where You Are

How I Discovered Meditation

When people picture someone beginning meditation, they often imagine a calm person searching for a little more peace. That certainly wasn’t me.

It was 1982, and I was living in communist Romania under Ceaușescu’s regime. I was a boxer—young, restless, and convinced I could solve most problems with my fists. I got into bar fights, fell in love too easily, and often spoke my mind when I should probably have stayed quiet.

In those days, Romania’s secret police, the Securitate, kept ordinary people under constant surveillance. They were especially suspicious of young people who questioned the regime, talked about escaping to the West, or knew someone who listened to Radio Free Europe. Many were interrogated, imprisoned, or tortured in an effort to force them to inform on friends, relatives, and neighbors.

I became one of their targets. More than once, officers arrived during the night and took me away for interrogation. Sometimes they questioned me for days, demanding information about people they believed opposed the regime or were planning to flee the country. Those experiences taught me what fear feels like, but they also taught me something about resilience. I never gave them the information they wanted because I had nothing to betray.

Living under that constant pressure left its mark. I believed everything would change once I escaped Romania. If I could just reach freedom, I thought, life would finally become peaceful.

Around that time, a friend introduced me to meditation. He was a black belt in karate, one of the calmest people I knew. I assumed meditation was for monks or unusually gifted people—not for someone whose mind never stopped racing.

Still, I gave it a try.

I sat down. Closed my eyes. Focused on my breathing.

Nothing happened.

I tried again. Still nothing.

I honestly thought I was failing. I had no books to learn from, no videos to watch, and no apps on a phone. Back then, information wasn’t easy to find. Mostly, it was just me, a chair, and a mind that refused to slow down.

A few years later, I escaped Romania and started a new life in Hungary. There I attended my first Silva Method course, followed by other seminars. Little by little, the pieces started coming together.

That’s when I finally understood something that seems obvious now.

Meditation isn’t about forcing your mind to become empty. It’s about noticing what’s already there—the fear, the anger, the hope, and the constant stream of thoughts—and learning that you don’t have to obey every one of them.

Looking back, I smile at the younger version of myself. In Romania, I believed strength meant fighting with my fists. Today, I know that sometimes the hardest fight is sitting quietly with your own mind until it finally begins to settle.

Both kinds of fighting take courage. But only one brought me lasting peace.