Mingo.Life

It was 06:20 hours on a Sunday morning. The sun had barely risen, and the roads were empty. I was driving to work. Day 1 of my new job, some 8-10 years ago now, and I had just finished the training academy before moving on to a probation phase. This was it. This was the real thing. I was about to put on my big boy pants, buckle up and face the harsh realities that awaited me, and I couldn’t have been more nervous.

I remember commuting down to the end of a dual carriageway and waiting at a set of traffic lights. I was about 10 minutes away from arriving at the staff car park. My young and inexperienced hands gripped the steering wheel so hard they turned white. My knee was moving restlessly. The trepidation of not knowing what lies ahead is something we all have in common as fellow human beings, doesn’t matter how tough you are.

As H.P Lovecraft once said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

As I sat at those traffic lights, I fiddled with the car radio – it was an old car, back when you actually had dials and buttons to press. I flicked through the radio channels idly. Manufactured chart nonsense, doom-laden war headlines, and breakfast presenters so chipper I wanted to drive into a lamppost.

Then I landed on Classic FM.

I wasn’t really into classical music at the time, but as I flicked over the presenter said something that stuck with me: “And now… a Moment of Calm.”

It was a simple feature. They’d just stop everything and play a short piece of gentle classical music. No fanfare, no waffle. Something soft. Slow. The kind of music that doesn’t demand your attention, it just… is. No noise. No breaking news. Just two minutes of stillness. Think Adagio For Strings, but perhaps even more laid back.

It wasn’t dramatic, it wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t a ‘pump-me-up’ gym vibe, but somehow it was exactly what I needed. I focused on my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like they say. Anxiety loosened it’s grip just enough. And by the time I pulled into the car park, I was calm. Focused. Walking into Day One like I might actually belong there.

Looking back, that was probably my first accidental brush with meditation, although I wouldn’t have called it that at the time. Back then, “meditation” sounded like something you did cross-legged in linen trousers while burning sandalwood. But this? This was something else. Tactical Calm. Functional stillness. Just enough breathing space to steady your footing before the next step.

Fast forward a few years, many more scars both physical and mental, and a few more sleepless nights, and I found myself chatting to my friend Joe upon his return from a Buddhist Monk meditation retreat in Thailand. Now, Joe’s the kind of bloke who used to think “self-care” meant adding protein to your pint and then playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 until the sun came up. But somewhere along the way, he’d stumbled into meditation, and somehow he hadn’t actually burst into flames. In fact, he looked better for it. Calmer. Sharper. A lot more collected than me, a man trying to hold the world together with duct tape and coffee.

So, I gave it a go. Ten minutes, he said. That’s all. No mantras, no whale music, no levitating, no candles. Just sit down, shut up, and breathe. Ten minutes. That’s it.

And to my surprise, it worked. Not all at once, not like flicking a switch, but slowly. I’m still fairly new to this and I am still very much learning as I go, but even a few weeks in I started noticing the space between my thoughts again. The moments where I could step back instead of reacting like a pressure cooker. The calm crept back in. My fuse got longer. My head got clearer.

Now, it’s a habit. Ten minutes a day. That’s all I give it, and all it really needs. I sit, I breathe, I listen to the chaos in my head without trying to fix any of it. Just observe. Don’t react, just bring yourself back to the present when your mind drifts. And somehow, it makes everything else easier to carry.

If you’ve never tried it, here’s your invitation. Not because I’ve suddenly become one of those “rise and grind” lifestyle gurus, but because I’ve lived through what it feels like when your mind is in overdrive and everything feels like too much. I’ve been there, in the dark places where those thoughts creep in. I’ve screamed into the void, and become so stressed that my body physically shuts down on me… And now, I’ve seen what ten minutes of silence can do. Ten minutes of doing nothing, in a world that never stops. There will always be another email, another appointment, another notification, so maybe all those things can wait Ten minutes too.

There’s all sorts of apps and guides out there. Frankly, it’s a minefield of information and white noise. I’ve started using the Samsung Health Daily Calm, and got on quite well with it, but equally some days I just set a timer and sit, and listen to the birds in the garden. You will find your own way, and that’s okay too.

My task to you today then? Give yourself that small gap. Just ten minutes. Not for the sake of being zen, or spiritual, or whatever buzzword’s trending, but just to bloody breathe. To do nothing, and reset. To remind yourself you’re still in control, even when the world says otherwise.

Worst case? You waste ten minutes. Best case? You get your head back.

I’d call that a decent trade.