Has Meditation Actually Fixed Anything? | 3 Years of Practice, Still Broke (An Honest Answer)

I've been meditating daily for 3 years. I'm still broke, still grinding 60+ hours a week doing deliveries, still struggling financially. So... does meditation actually work?

In this episode, I answer questions I've never seen before about spiritual materialism, whether meditation "fixes" your external life, how to reconcile spiritual surrender with survival responsibilities, and why I'm really doing this podcast.

Topics include:
- Why "raising your vibration" is spiritual materialism
- Has 3 years of meditation changed my external life?
- How to practice when you're grinding to survive
- The gap between spiritual ideals and real-world responsibility
- Is Standing Nowhere a spiritual practice or just a project?

Referenced: Ram Dass, Chogyam Trungpa, Third Patriarch of Zen, Alan Watts

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📌 EPISODE 11 MENTIONED:
"Why I Flipped Off a Driver 45 Minutes After Meditating (And What Anger Actually Is)"

Standing Nowhere explores contemplative spirituality through real-life experience, authentic struggle, and honest conversation. No bypassing. No pretense. Just presence.

Transcript

Introduction: Answering Unseen Questions

Q1: Spiritual Materialism & Raising Your Vibration

Q2: When Anger Teaches Us (See Episode 11)

Q3: When Honesty Becomes Its Own Trap

Q4: Surrender vs Making Shit Happen

Q5: Has Meditation Actually Fixed Anything?

Q6: Can You Practice When You're Just Surviving?

Q7: Is Standing Nowhere Practice or Project?

Closing: You Are As Old As Time

Jacob 0:01

Has meditation actually fixed anything in your life? Are you measurably happier, more successful, better off financially? Or is it possible that all this inner work is just another way to spend time while life stays exactly the same? I'm Jacob, and today on Standing Nowhere, I'm answering questions I've never seen before about spiritual materialism, the gap between surrender and survival, and whether any of this actually works when you're grinding 60 hours a week just to keep the lights on. Let's find out. This is a busy week for me. I've got a lot of hours to put in, and the only time I'm going to have to record this episode is today, Friday, January 2nd. I hope your new year has started off on the right foot. To save some time, I basically had Claude generate some questions for me, which I have not seen in advance, and we're going to have uh Claude give them to me right now, and we're going to jump right into it. So I hope this episode ends up being interesting and not a total dog turd, but we'll find out right now, I suppose. Question number one from Claude. Let's start here. You're scrolling social media and you see another post from a spiritual teacher or influencer talking about, quote, raising your vibration or quote, manifesting abundance, or how they've quote, transcended suffering. What is your honest, unfiltered reaction to that kind of content? And why do you think it bothers you or doesn't bother you the way it does? During the process of finding yourself and calming down and becoming quiet internally and really investigating the self. Like they say, uh, what was it, an old Greek saying, know thyself. You know, the whole the the big question in life is learning who you are, what you are, where you come from, what this mystery is. And the only way of doing that is really calming down and getting quiet, learning how to be with what is. And when people begin that journey, myself included, there is a beginner, sort of a newbie phase, I think that we go through. Um when I was raised in the Christian faith, uh, there was the phrase baby in Christ, their babies in Christ, and that would refer to people who would, you know, start the process and um they were really excited about it. And um when it comes to raising your vibration, manifesting abundance, transcending suffering, these are terms that get thrown around a lot. And I think that Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said it best that there is like a spiritual materialism phase that we go through. Uh, for example, if you look at Ramdas, uh Richard Alpert, huge uh inspiration of mine, but look at his early career in the spiritual realm. You know, he started as a professor at Harvard, tried mushrooms, and realized there was more that met the eye than what you know people were um taking to be reality at the time. There was more than the material realm. And he went on a journey to India, found uh a guru. When he came back, he was dressed in a dress with beard, you know, full beard and beads and things like that. So that was kind of like his quote unquote baby in Christ phase, or um, you know, being new to the journey. And he was still very educated, he was very authentic with it. I just think that when people begin a spiritual journey or their spiritual journey and start asking these questions, there's a little bit of ego, traces of ego that will follow with you. Yes, I'm raising my vibration, I'm I'm manifesting, I'm changing my vibration. You know, all these words will start to come up. So I don't exactly roll my eyes when I see it. I try to remember I've been there. I probably am still there from the perspective of um somebody like Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche or even Ramdas. Um, you know, I'm I'm just a baby in this process. I I just personally started meditating about three years ago. For me, the big thing that I try to avoid, though, is spiritual materialism, thinking that I am a holy person in some way or different from other people. Like when I look at other people when I go out and about during my day, do I look at people with judgment? Like, oh, look how unconscious that person is, and and things like that. You know, when I was younger, I used to think highly of myself, like I was I was more intelligent than the average person, and blah, blah, blah. And I've come to realize there are many forms of intelligence, and it's real easy to let what you're good at go to your head. Um, I might be logical smart, but I lack a lot of uh other types of intelligence. I mean, I'm 42 and I do DoorDash full time, so I can't be that smart, right? But honestly, uh, when I see these things, I just remember these are people that are probably beginning their journey and they're new on the path and they're excited about all the buzzwords. And um overall, I I think it can turn people off from it. So we just have to be careful with that. Even in the Bible, it says when you pray, go into your bedroom by yourself, close the door, pray in private, don't shove it in people's faces. So some people uh they they their ego will kind of adopt their spiritual practice as their identity. And I think that that's what I think of when I see things like raising your vibration, things like that. In from my perspective, it also kind of waters down the spiritual uh path um by falling into these cliches, as if spirituality could be limited to a simple vibration or something like that. I mean, technically everything in the universe is a vibration, yes. Now you see me, now you don't. If you've ever seen the yin-yang, you know, there's the the yang, the bright, the evident, the form, and there's yin, the dark, the mysterious, the unmanifested, and they vibrate. Even these sound waves coming out, you are crests and troughs of a sound wave. So, yes, everything does vibrate. Everything is now you see me, now you don't. But um, yeah, these terms, I don't know. They just they just strike me as somebody uh new on the path and somebody that I should love with all my heart and engage with them and not judge them or anything. So, yeah, that's my honest, unfiltered reaction to that kind of content. Okay, ready for question number two, Claude. Let's see what it says. It is thinking here it is. Question number two There's this idea in a lot of spiritual circles that anger is something to transcend, that it's a lower vibration, quote unquote, emotion we need to move beyond. I said that wrong. Let me uh let me repeat that again. Uh, there's this idea in a lot of spiritual circles that anger is something to transcend, that it's a lower vibration, quote unquote, emotion that we need to move beyond. Uh, but what if anger is actually showing us something important? What if the goal isn't to transcend it, but to listen to it? When was the last time you felt genuinely angry, not irritated, but angry, and what was it trying to tell you? Oh boy. Well, the question from Claude is when was the last time you genuinely genuinely felt angry, not irritated, but angry, and what was it trying to tell you? Gosh, let me rack my brain for a second. The last time that I was angry, really angry, it was probably it was probably on the road, if I'm being honest, because I drive a lot, and it was probably somebody who cut me off. You know what? I actually did a whole episode about anger and what it teaches us. Episode 11. If you want the real answer to this question and a story about me absolutely losing it on the freeway 45 minutes after meditating, check that one out. Link in the description. Question Question number three from Claude. Let's see. Question number three. Sometimes people hide behind spiritual language to avoid their real shit. We call that bypassing. Well, what about hiding behind being too real or too honest to actually change? Like the person who's so proud of their self-awareness that they never actually use it to transform anything, or someone who's deconstructed everything so thoroughly that they're paralyzed and can't build anything new. Have you ever noticed yourself getting stuck there, where your honesty or your clarity becomes its own comfortable trap? Yeah, I can relate to this. Um, for me personally, I my first step over the last three years was really drilling down on calming down and and meditating and being still and silent and um creating a space within myself because my head was so noisy and I would follow every thought. So I could be in a terrible mood depending on what was coming up in my head. I mean, I still can, I'm not immune to that, but it's that's why they call it a practice. But for me, after I created that space, I basically learned the skill where I could be with my suffering and not do anything about it to change it, but learned how to just sit with it. But like my situation now, for example, I have to work an insane amount of hours, and if I don't do the thing I need to do to get out of it, I'm never gonna get out of it. So yeah, I've learned how to be with pain and be with uh being financially broke and um, you know, f chronic financial stress. But if I don't do anything to get out of it, you know what I'm saying? Like I can it it it's tough because you can learn how to be with something and then you you get into a the ego will kind of hijack your spiritual pract your spirituality or your spiritual practice and say, Well, things are bad, but I'm with it. And it could be generally true. You know, you can find a place where you can be with your pain, but overall, the more aware you are, the more mindful you are, the more the reality will start to really dawn on you. Um because your your brain, when it when it when your mind produces thoughts, it's not like 100% of your thoughts are bad or untrue. Your brain will think things that need to happen. It's the the troubleshooter that interacts with reality in the present moment, and you have to listen to it uh when it's giving you good advice. The thing is, you don't know whether it's good advice or true or not unless you're mindful. So, me personally, in my mindfulness practice over the last three years, yes, I've learned to be with my pain and my dark chronic financial stress period, but the one thing I've learned is that I need to do the thing to get out of it, which is uh massive job applications and um not overthinking. I I can hyper catastrophize and think every job is going to be terrible, everyone's gonna be mean when I get there, it's gonna be for humiliating pay, all kinds of dark thoughts can appear. Anyone thinks those thoughts when they find a new job, but at the bot the bottom line at the end of the day, you have to do the thing. So having that space within yourself to overcome your issues that are holding you back is the first part, and then bringing that mindfulness with you while you're taking the steps. I think it was Maharaji who told Ramdas that spirituality, your spiritual path, uh, it needs to constantly be in motion like a river. Otherwise, it's like a stagnant pool where mosquitoes come and lay their eggs, and um, you know, it's like dirty shit water, basically. So you need a flow, flowing water. You need to keep your life moving. Einstein said life is like riding a bicycle. You need to keep moving to retain balance. So let's see. Ready for question number four? Was that question number three already? Wow, okay. He says, Here's something I'm curious about. Most spiritual traditions talk about letting go of the ego, surrendering control, accepting what is. But you're also a father, a husband, a guy working fifty plus hours a week, trying to keep the lights on and put food on the table. How do you reconcile surrender and not attachment with the very real uh responsibility of having to make shit happen for the people who depend on you? Where's the line between spiritual surrender and just giving up? One of the big misconceptions with spiritual traditions is that you become this passive gelatinous blob that just surrenders and doesn't do anything. Surrendering and non-attachment doesn't mean that you don't take action. It means that you're not attached to the outcome of the action, that you surrender to what is. Right now, let's be real. I'm in a financial shithole, I have a shit ton of work to do to get out of this shithole, and somehow during my days, I need to figure out time to apply for jobs, take care of other things, uh, and like, you know, and whatnot. But what I do is I know that I have to do the thing, I do the thing, and I'm just mindful while I'm doing the thing. I try to, you know, come to the sensations of my body. If I'm thinking a thought, I try to make sure that I'm aware that I'm thinking the thought. You know, you can do little practice moments during the day where you just kind of like bring your awareness to your mind and be like, oh, okay, I'm not thinking anything right now. Let's keep watching and see when a thought appears. No thought yet. Oh, there's a thought. I got pulled away for about 10 seconds there, but now I'm back. And it it it's I mean, that's one of the funnest things about meditation. If you guys listening don't meditate, I highly suggest you try it. You're basically sitting there, experiencing your breath, your posture, and then thoughts will come into your head. So it really just comes down to uh surrendering where you you realize that you're not the doer, that there is no doer, that there's just action happening, and that you're not attached to the way things turn out. So you still try your hardest, showing up, going to work, not wanting the uh eviction notice to come, not wanting the lights to get shut off, you know, in my case, but understanding that there's only so much you can do, and then you surrender the rest, you surrender the results beyond that. All right, question number five. Let's go somewhere uncomfortable. You've been meditating daily for years now. You've done the work, processed the trauma, sat with the silence, but has it actually fixed anything in your external life? Are you measurably happier, more successful, better off financially? Or is it possible that all this inner work is just another way to spend time while life stays exactly the same? What would you say to someone who looks at your life and says, If meditation and spirituality work, why are you still struggling? Oh boy. That's a that's a that is a tough question. Um, and it's one that I ask myself. I've asked myself, you know, I've been meditating for three years, and I'm I still haven't found a job. Um, to be honest, I haven't actively looked that entire three years. You know, the first year and a half, almost two years, I made pretty decent money doing gig work. It's only the last year, year and a half that it's really the rug has been pulled out from under me uh financially, at least for the income, which has made things worse. I mean, I've been struggling a lot financially for years, but but yes, uh Claude brings up a good point. It's been three years now meditating. I'm still really, really struggling financially, but honestly, you know, I'm 42. So if if you think of it, I started uh meditating in my my late 30s, 38, 39. Um it takes time to work on yourself. The biggest the biggest change has been internally. Yes, I have been much happier internally, but externally there has been some changes. Like my relationships with others have been strengthened greatly with my mindfulness practice. I am more present when I'm with people, I'm listening more than I'm talking, I'm more genuinely interested in what they have to say, I'm less um reactive, you know, um, on the road if people cut me off, or even in person, you know, if people try to get under my skin, certain family members, I won't say who, um, not my wife or any of my immediate, immediate family, but some maybe friends or family members sometimes may try to get under my skin with this or that. I'm able to catch those moments and uh let them go and not react, but respond. And the same thing, like if I'm trying to promote the podcast on social media, trying to interact with people, and I see a triggering post, it's real easy to just catch it. And sometimes I'll even catch my thumbs starting to type, and then mid-mid-paragraph, I'm like, why am I why am I responding to this person? There's no point at all. I just catch my ego, and it's like, okay, hello, you know, let's let's put the phone down, let's back out, back away. I used to get real debate-y online, and uh I would respond to every possible trigger and be a trigger myself to a lot of people, I'm sure, and that's that's changed. That's external. I mean, that's uh it's all connected to the internal. The uh external reflects the internal, right? But overall, the way I I interact with people, my relationships, whether casual acquaintances, friends, or family, they all feel a lot healthier. And um, you know, what would I say to someone who looks at my life and says, If meditation works, why are you still struggling? Um Meditation is not there to do anything. Meditation is not there to make your life better, it's not there for any of those purposes. Although those are common side effects of meditation, but that's not its purpose. Its purpose is to wake you up to what is happening, and then from there. Your awareness guides you automatically. Um just being present with your life is really all you need at its core. And the more you practice that, the more you'll find compassion flows from you naturally, and wherever you're supposed to end up is where you end up. Yes, I do need to get my financial situation straightened out, but it's a work in progress, you know? There's there's momentum. There was momentum going a certain direction when I came into meditation, and that momentum takes time to shift into a new direction. But, anyways, I hope that answers that question. We'll move on to question number six. We've got two left, seven total. All right, question number six. Here's something most spiritual teachers won't touch the relationship between spiritual practice and privilege. It's easier to meditate when you're not worried about eviction. It's easier to be present when you have health care. It's easier to talk about non-attachment when you've never had to choose between gas money and groceries. Does spirituality actually work for people who are grinding just to survive? Or is it or is com excuse me, or is contemplative practice something that only really makes sense once you've already got your basic needs handled? Where does standing nowhere fit in that conversation? This is a great question because it it's very true. It's very, very hard to be present and mindful when you're going through the ringer. The reason we practice, uh particularly me in the morning, is you practice when there's a calm moment in your day, when you're not doing anything, and you can practice being with yourself, being with the present moment. You bring that presence with you throughout your day when you experience hardships and challenges and things like that. So there's never going to be a moment where everything is perfect and then you can be present. Life is always going to be messy with its ups and downs, but you just have to be as present as possible while you're in the shit. So for me personally, that's all my meditation experience has been over the last three years is being present with my feelings when I get an eviction notice, or when I can't take my wife out on a date, or when I can't take my kids on a vacation, or things like that. All the feelings that I have over these last three years dealing with all this crap, that's my practice right now. I think it was Rob Doss who said, whatever, where whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you're experiencing right now is exactly what you need to get free. So whatever your situation is, it does not matter. I mean, it matters, but it doesn't matter in terms of it hindering or helping your spiritual situation. And if you think it does, that's just ego talking. So whatever you're going through, you just need to be present with that, be mindful of it, be with it, and not put a label on it. This is good, this is bad. It's okay to have preferences, like I would prefer to make more money, I would prefer to have a job that offers healthcare, time off, et cetera, but that is not reality right now. So I'm with what is, and I just keep moving on. And where does Standing Nowhere fit in that conversation? Well, this podcast is all about real life lived experiences with people going through the tough times. It's not about everything's perfect, let me tell you how to be spiritual. It's like these are tough times. This is reality, this is the present moment. So, yeah. Ready for question number seven. Question seven, final question. All right, last one, and this might be the hardest. You've been doing this podcast now for months, putting your story out there, being vulnerable, exploring these deep questions. You're building something, creating content, trying to reach people. But here's the tension. Is standing nowhere a spiritual practice, or is it a project? Are you doing this because it's part of your path, your calling, your authentic expression? Or are you doing it because you hope it leads somewhere? An audience, recognition, maybe eventually income, a way out of the delivery grind. And does it matter? Can it be both? Should it be both? What's the honest answer about why you're really doing this? For me, it is a spiritual practice and a project. I am doing it because I've wanted to do a creative project for a long time. At the same time, I'm very passionate about my spiritual practice, about the spiritual path in general. So for me, I was so passionate about this, about meditation, mindfulness, about these great teachers and thinkers who have come before us for millennia. And I wanted to connect what they've taught to everyday lived reality experience of today, 2026. So it is a project and it is a spiritual uh practice. To the second part of the question, are you doing this because it's part of your path, calling, or authentic expression? Yes, absolutely, it's part of my path. I believe it's my calling. I've been told by people all throughout my life, you should get into radio, you should do voiceover work, you should do something with your voice. So here I am. Not just because everyone told me that, but it was like, imagine only hearing that through most of your years, you know. It's just and hearing your own voice when you when it's played back to you, it's like, yeah, I it just seems like I have a knack for it. So yeah, it's my calling. And then I I told the story about two and a half years ago. I was doing a delivery, and on the way to the person's house, I you know, I was delivering alcohol. On the way there, I was basically in tears, like, what do you want me to do with my life? God, Maharaji, whoever you prayed to. And on my podcast, right after um asking that prayer, the podcast that I was listening to, the person was telling a story about them asking their guru, Maharaji, what should I do with my life? And then he pointed to him and said, Broadcaster, you're gonna be a broadcaster. And I was like, Wow, that's weird. I was just calling out to the universe, tell me what to do. And then this person immediately tells a story about them going through the same thing, and they were told to be a broadcaster, basically get into radio and podcasting. I was like, Wow, okay. So I dropped the alcohol off to this person, I get their signature, I leave, and the person texts me and says, Hey, I don't know if this is appropriate for me to say, but have you ever thought about getting into podcasting? You have a really nice voice, and I think it would suit you well. I thought, wow, there's a double uh universe wink immediately after me asking the universe what to do. And, you know, I don't try to look too closely for miracles or synchronicities, but I thought that was something. So, yeah, this is something that I consider my path, absolutely, my calling, and an authentic expression of myself. And then the question also asks, are you doing it because you hope it leads somewhere? An audience recognition or maybe eventually income, a way out of the delivery grind. And the answer to that question is also yes. I do hope that it leads, quote unquote, somewhere. Um, I hope that because when I record these episodes, I don't want them to just be a uh like a vanity project for me. Wow, look how good I am at doing podcasts. You know, I'm still working on my technique, both with speaking, the microphone, editing, uh, figuring out what I'm gonna talk about. So I do love that aspect in that I am growing and learning and creative expression, a hobby, etc. But I also want the other half of this, which is an audience. I want to interview people and let them have this platform to tell their story so that we get a nice variety in the mix. Recognition, I I'm not look, I'm not doing this for recognition per se, in in uh terms of inflating my ego or anything like that. I just want to use what I have for something that would benefit other people. And I hope that there is recognition in a sense that the podcast grows and gets recognized and and whatnot. But as far as like fame and popularity, honestly, I could not care less. Um if anything, it's kind of nice not to be a celebrity, and I'm certainly not anywhere near celebrity status yet. So um, if this podcast does explode and I get a lot of recognition, I'm okay with that. But I would be very humble about it and realistic because I'm just like anyone else that's listening. I am no different than you, and um, you know, recognition or fame is not part of the um the reason that I'm doing this. And if it was, I'd be chasing likes, and I wouldn't have started a podcast about spirituality because there's a lot of easier podcast uh topics or themes that would get me. I mean, if I started a political podcast after six months, it this thing would probably be way bigger than it is now, you know. So obviously recognition was not at the forefront for why I started doing this. When it says maybe eventually income or a way out of the delivery grind, absolutely. I have no uh shame in admitting that I am hoping someday this does turn into an income. If I'm putting my time and effort and work into a project that other people are getting value out of, sure. I mean, that I'm sacrificing my time for something that is, yes, fulfilling to myself just on its face, but I want a way out of this delivery grind so I can make better content and reach more people and do more things and express myself. Um doesn't everybody. So, yes, I absolutely hope that someday this can turn a profit. And I hope that it's uh fair and balanced in the way it does. I don't want to be spamming too many ads later because eventually I probably will add advertisements to this. I already have a Patreon set up where people can enjoy ad-free episodes when I eventually do that, but right now everything is ad free and free of charge. So, yes, I hope that someday eventually it does come with an income. As far as whether it matters, I think it does. Why you start a project is important. If I started this podcast exclusively to make money and become famous, I think the quality uh of the content would be different, I think the subject matter would be different. Um you know, the honest answer to answer the last part why I'm doing this is because I have discovered something that has really helped me wake up to what I really am, what this existence is all about, and it's added profound meaning and passion to my life. And I know that there's a lot of people out there suffering, and if they knew how to relate to themselves better and be present with themselves better, their life becomes better. When you're awake and you're conscious and you're mindful of what you're doing, everything just is better. It just works out the way it's supposed to. It does matter if your intentions are altruistic, that's I think that's gonna produce a much better product, a much better podcast. Um and I I think they can coexist just fine. You know, um, I think Alan Watts, you know, my great inspiration spoke on this where he said, Um, I love what I do and I wish I could do it for free for everyone. But the reality is I can't go around speaking for free because I've got to have some money to survive. And that's okay to ask for that. So the school that wants him to come speak for free, he has to pass up because he needs an income, you know. So it's the same with me. And I'm not looking to strike it rich. I just want to make enough to work 32, maybe 40 hours a week tops, and be able to spend the rest of my time with my family and be able to take a couple of weeks off every year paid, you know. That would be a dream to me. So that's my final answer. And I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who's listening and uh supporting the podcast. If you if you can take a second to like the podcast or give it a subscribe or a follow if you haven't already, leave a review. That really helps the podcast grow, and I would greatly appreciate it. If you have a uh question that you want to send to me, you can go to standingnowerpodcast at gmail.com, shoot me an email, and uh I'll respond to it. I'm working on a way to get voice messages on this thing too. But to close out, I just want to say again, thank you so much to everyone, and always remember that you are a distinct part of this whole thing that we call existence, and that no matter what you're going through, it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You are as old as time. You've always been here, and you always will be, and you got nothing to worry about. And remember, it's like the third patriarch of Zen said the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. I love you. I'll see you next time.