Day Seven

Enter: music producer and DJ Carly Wilford who recently launched a:live – a monthly series of dynamic guided meditation tracks aimed at reimagining the way we view meditation.

“I’m just the same as you,” Carly tells me after I explain my ongoing difficulties with meditation and how, by nature, I like being busy and on-the-go.

“I love anything adrenaline-fuelled. I’m a DJ, so pre-Covid, I used to spend my life flying all over the world, from one gig to the next,” she says. “I’ve been meditating for around 15 years. The thing is, people get so confused because of the way it’s portrayed – it’s not about emptying your mind and stopping thinking. It should be used as a way to reset – like how you would use ‘Alt Ctrl Delete’ on your computer.”

So, if meditation isn’t about eradicating all thinking, what is it about?

“Forget everything that you thought you knew about meditation. It doesn’t have to be restricted to sitting still – I meditate on the tube, in the gym, or sometimes when I walk the dog,” Carly explains. “There are no rules.”

Carly says she launched a:live after witnessing first-hand the mental difficulties of her fellow musicians – referencing both Avicii and Caroline Flack.

“I realised that we need to do more to help one another. I wanted people to be able to wake up on the days when things didn’t seem so easy, and be able to jump on a:live and either find someone to talk to, or find a meditation that might help them. Meditation can be a simple tool when you’re having a stressful day or it can take you a lot deeper into the stuff that you want help with. I think that’s why it’s so amazing and powerful.”

“I tried meditating for 10 minutes every day and found a method that didn’t involve sitting in silence”