The week I went viral
Last week I put together a guided meditation for people with hangovers and have watched in wonder all week as it went viral across the world, seeing it morph as it travels via the Chinese whispers of the internet.
It started as an article about how meditation can reduce some of the psychological aspects of a hangover, with an accompanying 11-minute guided meditation. It specifically said it wouldn’t do anything for the physical side of a hangover, but via lazy journalism soon became a “hangover cure which totally eliminates your symptoms” and “starts working instantly”. It’s been translated into Romanian, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino and German, and has been run in the Netherlands, the UK, Kenya, Venezuela, Singapore, the US, NZ and Thailand.
I did a radio interview for Coffs Harbour, narrowly avoided a cross-examination by Kelvin MacKenzie on UK talk radio and chatted with a very supportive Brazilian journalist.
The technique was called “VERY unusual” by the Daily Mail which put it next to their right rail of shame where it garnered almost 800 comments. I was named an “Instagram favourite” by the Daily Mirror, derided as “another bloody Australian expert” by multiple commenters in the Daily Mail, told I was probably hungover from “too much chai tea and lentil juice” – which isn’t far off these days – that I probably have “half a shandy and feel fuzzy” and that my “idea of a big night is probably a light drizzle of weak champagne over my tofu pudding”.
If it got more people thinking about meditation and seeing it as something that could be relevant to them in the trenches of their daily lives rather than as an esoteric practice only for spiritual seekers then that will be a good result.
As always, you can find details on my intro talks here and upcoming courses here.
