Sheela Singla, PhD (Neuroscience), IMTA CMT-P, is a UCLA-Trained Mindfulness Facilitator, UCLA Semel Institute, Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC).
Sheela’s Story
I grew up in a household where education was strongly emphasized, and I followed that path to get my PhD in neuroscience from Stanford in 2007. I was fascinated with the brain and how it plays the main role in orchestrating the organism from birth to death. Awareness, arising most likely from the brain, of our sensory experiences, and of who we are, is awe-inspiring.
Drinking and Vaping
The road has not always been smooth. Not knowing how to work with the stressors of graduate school, I began drinking heavily. This continued until 2016, when I quit drinking for good when I realized how loved I was by my family and how much love I had in me for them. This love has since grown to love for all beings. I saw that with that love, I could tolerate being bored, angry, and anxious without drinking to get rid of boredom, anger, and anxiety. I didn’t know it at the time, but this insight was a central teaching from mindfulness, that we don’t need to “get rid of” anything we feel. It’s interesting and healthy to sit with whatever we’re feeling and allow it to be, to feel the sensations. Everything that arises, including boredom, anger, and anxiety, passes away.
My addiction to sense pleasures (alcohol and vaping a e-cigarette, both of which I no longer use) led to harm to myself and others. Initially I quit drinking when I realized how loved I was, and that being loved gave me the capacity to accept boredom, anger, and anxiety. I didn’t need to drink or vape to experience sense pleasures to get rid of the suffering. Suffering (boredom, anger, and anxiety) passes through on its own when the body sensations are felt with kindness. I also learned how to respond to others whose actions may have led to anger and/or anxiety in a healthy way. Since then, I have realized that loving awareness is my true nature (and yours too), and that this loving awareness has boundless capacity to hold suffering and respond with compassion. As the Buddha pointed out, suffering is part of life. Whether through illness, failure, or loss, suffering happens to everyone. Without suffering, we would not have compassion.
Mindfulness
A few months after I quit drinking, I took up mindfulness meditation. I loved the peacefulness that mindfulness meditation brought and I meditated diligently for 5 years before completing a 200 hour mindfulness meditation teaching certification program with UCLA. I’ve taught at the Coppell Public Library, Allen Public Library, and with Presence is Here Now in small groups. Now I’m a mindfulness teacher and small business owner. Mindfl Tea aims to bring together tea and mindfulness for your health and well being. With Presence is Here Now, I want to help you live a life of happiness.