The last two weeks have been particularly challenging for me to keep my mind in a good, calm and restful state. If you’ve been following along my little journey through life, you know I’ve had a wee bit of stress. But then, haven’t we all? Couldn’t we all benefit from a little more centering of our mind, body and soul?
So I thought I’d seek out some new practices in trying to keep me centered in the calm of my life’s storms. And what better way than meditation? Many experts (okay – celebrities) have spoken so highly of the role meditation plays in their lives. So if Oprah, does it, we should too, right? Truthfully, I’m just desperate for a little sanity, a way to add some serenity to my dramatically unpredictable days.
On October 1st, I set out to try my daily meditation adventure. How hard can this be anyway? Stop laughing. If you’ve tried meditation, you know just how hard this can be.
In our world of constant connection, noise, and distraction, centering your mind, body and soul in silence is extremely difficult. And terrifying. Because if I’m not distracted, then I have room for thoughts. And thoughts make room for feelings. And feelings are hard. But I’m determined to make some sense of it all and find some inner peace.
The first thing I did was look up the definition of meditation:
med·i·ta·tion [med-i-tey-shuhn]
noun
Okay, I can do reflection. I can go deep in thought. Then I read more and find out I’m supposed to do all this while I concentrate on my breathing, keep out the distracted thoughts and blank my mind.
Whaaaaat?
Oh boy. This should be interesting. But I decided to give it a try anyway.
It was the middle of the afternoon, almost 80 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze. On Oct. 1st, in Minnesota! What a great day to begin my meditation adventure! I’d also heard that you are supposed to find a location with zen like qualities when you meditate. With that in mind, I decided to go sit on a lounge chair outside on my patio. Then I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the light breeze through my hair. Perfection.
I sat on the chair. Am I supposed to unnaturally fold up my legs in front of me and place my arms, palms up, on the tops of my legs and say, ‘Ommmmmmm’? Nah. My neighbors might think I’m some kind of weirdo if I did that. Instead, I just sat down as one normally would in a chair, closed my eyes, relaxed my shoulders and tried to focus on taking deep breaths. Inhale 1-2-3-4…exhale 1-2-3-4…inhale 1-2-3-4…exhale 1-2-3-4. Then I tried to empty my mind, focus on the sun shining on my face…in 1-2-3-4 and the wind blowing through my hair…out 1-2…what the hell, is that a bug landing on my nose?
Distracted. Let’s try this again.
Settling into my stillness. Focusing on my breathing again. In 1-2-3-4…out 1-2-3-4…in
1-2-3-4…out 1-2…UGH, my boob itches! Hey, grab your phone Heather, let’s recreate the boob itches moment during meditation so I can write a blog about it (everything is potential content people, everything…and everything is better with some pictures).
GAH! Distracted. Do over.
Focus Heather. Stillness. Breathe. In 1-2-3-4…out 1-2-3-4…in 1-2-3-4…out 1-2-3-4…crap, I forgot to stop at the dry cleaners…in 1-2-3-4…out 1-2-3-4…(sirens wailing from a nearby street) I hope everyone’s okay…in 1-2-3-4…out 1-2-3-4.
A couple minutes into meditation, after the above distractions, I did start to feel my body and mind relax a bit. Yet, I still had trouble focusing. Nonetheless, I completed day one of meditation…even if I did only last for about 3 1/2 minutes total.
The next day I decided to try a new location and time for meditation. The goal was to get up before anyone else in the morning and do it while the house was still and quiet. Yeah. That never happened. The alarm went off, I hit snooze, three times…and then I ran out of time. So, I tried it at night, when the house was still and quiet. The only problem was, I did it laying in my bed. I was really purposeful about laying flat on my back, imagining my body melting into the bed (I’d read this tip somewhere people – I didn’t make it up on my own), slowing my breathing, closing my eyes…
Zzzzzz…..zzzzz…
Oops. I fell asleep. So that doesn’t work.
The next day, I stopped worrying about getting fancy in my meditation location and just sat on the couch for a few minutes when I had the time and focused on my breathing. I tried less hard this day…and it actually worked better. My thoughts were still interrupted, but hey. There was some improvement.
Day Four. Ooooh…I know, I’ll see if there are any great meditation apps out there that could help guide a beginner with chants, calming music or nature sounds. So I pulled up the app store on my phone and searched ‘meditation’. Over 2,000 choices. Huh. Who knew there were so many digital meditation options? I picked one with good reviews, downloaded and prepared myself to try once again. But the soonest I had time during the day was in the parking lot of Noah’s school, while I waited to pick him up. So I opened the app, set it for a five minute meditation with voice and background music and hit play.
Relaxing music starts, I close my eyes. I start to focus on my breathing, when the soothing and breathy female voice begins the meditation:
Let’s begin by finding a comfortable position…and now close your eyes…this is time to do nothing, but simply be… letting go of everything you’ve been doing, letting go of everything you think you need to do…simply be aware of what’s going on…right now, in this moment…naturally with the eyes closed, the awareness settles down somewhat…you may be more aware of what’s going on within you…thoughts, emotions, sensations in the body…
I start to giggle. I can’t stop giggling…both from her voice and ‘sensations in my body’? What the heck? This feels like a sex tape, not a meditation! And I’m sitting here in the school parking lot.
Oh. Hell. No. This does not work for me. I can’t help but feel like it’s a SNL skit. Then it dawns on me…it reminds me of the Delicious Dish NPR skit…you know the one.
Seriously. Am I EVER going to get this mediation thing down? It’s got to work at some point, right? The good news is meditation has been around for years…like over 4,000 years, if not double that, according to some reports. So anything that can last that long, can’t be THAT hard, can it?
Then in doing research for this post, I found this, The Seven Myths of Meditation by Deepak Chopra, the modern day meditation guru. This article will save me and my attempt at meditation. There’s hope for me after all! Check this:
Myth #2: You have to quiet your mind in order to have a successful meditation practice.
…We can’t stop or control our thoughts, but we can decide how much attention to give them.
…When thoughts arise, as they inevitably will, we don’t need to judge them or try to push them away. Instead, we gently return our attention to our object of attention…
Oh, this is BRILLIANT! I especially love this:
…Although we can’t impose quiet on our mind, through meditation we can find the quiet that already exists in the space between our thoughts…
Because in the end, isn’t that what we’re all looking for when we are troubled, stressed, or sad? To find the space between our thoughts that centers us in harmony and brings us to a place of calm, peace and balance?
That’s what I’m looking for anyway. And at least now I know that if I get distracted, from sirens, boob itches, to do lists, etc…it’s okay. I just need to re-center my mind and find that space between the thoughts. With enough practice, I suspect the space between my thoughts will get bigger and the peace in my life will be grander.
One thing is for sure, I’m deleting that app with the breathy voice. I just can’t take it. I’m pretty sure during meditation you’re not supposed to uncontrollably giggle.
Namaste my friends…namaste
P.S. Almost every time I typed the word “meditation” in this post, I mistakenly either typed mediation or medication. If you were Freud, what do you suppose that would mean? That meditation is really a form of mediation between my mind and spirit? Or that I just need to take some medication to calm my mind. Perhaps both? Hmmm…maybe you’ll even find one of these unintentional word swaps in the post. If so, I’m leaving them. That just makes this all the more hilarious.
P.P.S. Looking to start meditation yourself? Here are some links I did find helpful in getting started. For. Realz.
Mayo Clinic on Stress Management and Meditation
8 De-Stressing Meditation Apps
Thich Nhat Hanh’s 4 Mantra from the OWN Network
Peace.
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I love it. Just your attempts kept you busy from negative thoughts! Maybe it’s in the trying that works? Ha ha! Hugs