Jim McLaughlin has lived his life as a practical man. He’s a business consultant who served 10 years in the U.S. Navy, has never used illegal drugs, has been married 32 years and has two children, both professionals.
Buddhist meditation wasn’t on his radar when he started trying to tame some of the chaos in his mind. But in his late 50s, he was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder.
“I’ve had it all my life. I just never realized it,” he says. “It’s why I needed to flit like a butterfly from thing to thing to thing.
“I needed something to quiet all those voices in my head. I was having problems keeping my business going. There were feelings of unworthiness.”
Three years ago, he heard a scientist, Daniel Goleman, on a public-radio talk show discussing a practice called mindfulness meditation. He spoke not in religious terms, but like a scientist talking about a new discovery. McLaughlin read Goleman’s book “Destructive Emotions” and decided to try meditation.
Today, three years after joining the St. Louis Insight Meditation Group, Goleman says meditation has changed his life. He practices meditation about 30 minutes a day, four to five days a week.
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