What it's good for
You don't need a crystal. You don't need an essence. You don't need a coach. It's all inside of you. What you do need to progress is a clear intention, set into focussed action. And that's were the first sentence of this thought excursion gets turned: Often times, I had all these thoughts inside of me, and only when speaking about them to someone, they cleared up.
Meditation
Meditation does not describe a state of not thinking, but rather the state of having thought through to the end. For a long time I thought I couldn't meditate because my mind wandered to the future, to the past, mostly ignoring the now. Until I realized that I just needed to focus on this mind; namely, any thoughts that I had not finished thinking and any feelings that I had not finished feeling or expressing.