meditate daily

Not really a mindfulness meditation – I pulled out my chakra guided meditation CD (Carolyn Myss, I believe – hope I spelled her name right). I enjoy chakra meditation because it effectively links mental, emotional, and physical awareness.

I did forget, though, that this meditation is really designed to be used as one drifts off to sleep. The end of it just sort of trails off. Sort of weird to get up from my blanket after being told to “release my consciousness”. Ha. Still, I’m glad I did it. I needed some centering and some self-examination after the past few days – I’d really been letting this emotional confusion and frustration overtake me and get me down. It was helpful to be reminded that there is a reason all this is happening, and that I do have a choice as to how I will respond and deal with it – that I’m not ruled by my attitudes and emotions.

It doesn’t really feel PRODUCTIVE, but then, is it supposed to? I’ve only been doing 10 minutes at a time, just concentrating on my breath. I read a short Pema Chodron reading just before I do the meditation work. Need to work on the physical act of sitting, or get myself a better cushion, or something. Maybe get up earlier? Anyway, I’m not going to pass any judgements on it until I’ve been doing it for several weeks.

...in my bedroom. Thankfully my little meditation table fit into my car – I’m glad, because it looks great where it is. Now I just need to make use of the area.

I’m going to try to meditate for 10 minutes every morning for the rest of the week.

Finally. After all that hemming and hawing. I actually sat down for 10 minutes. And get this: when the bell sounded at the end of the session, I was surprised. It went by so quickly.

And it was good. I was glad to sit, though there were some moments of awkwardness as I tried to find the correct position. Due to poor posture habits and tight hips, this took a bit of time. I also feel that I can’t breathe as deeply as I should be able to – or that I can’t breathe as deeply sitting as I can lying down. Most of my breathwork has been done in Corpse Pose, so sitting meditation just feels different. It will take some time for the position to feel familiar, though it was not uncomfortable by any means.

I started by noticing my senses: what did I see? Feel? Hear? Smell? Taste? Then noticing the parts of my body that felt awkward. Then I tried doing tonglen. It kind of worked. But my mind is not yet used to focusing, so I’m not sure it worked well. 10 min. is not enough time to really get inside someone else’s (or my own) suffering. So I need to start smaller, I think, by observing my thoughts and letting them go.

Also, I need to do some more reading – I’ve not done as much recently, and I need some direction of some kind if I’m going to be sitting daily.

Finally, I changed this goal to “meditate daily” because how can I learn to meditate if I don’t? And, won’t I always be learning how, in some sense?

However, I can’t seem to stop reading ABOUT meditating, and thinking about it. This seems like a good thing to me.

I’ve been reading another book by Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare You, which I’m finding intensely illuminating. We hear platitudes about the two main human emotions (love and fear), and how they are opposites, etc. etc. But it’s really amazing to me (when I look honestly at myself) how many of my decisions are based on a desperate, scrambling fear, and not based on rationality or love as I try to convince myself they are.

Something else I’ve gathered from the book so far is the idea that meditating to change one’s self is a mark of aggression, and not helpful. It makes more sense the more I think about it, but it blew me away to realize this. I realized then that this is a part of why I have been so resistant to actually sitting down – I felt that I was doing it to improve myself, and yet that didn’t seem like the point. Now I’m thinking: the point is not to change myself, but to give myself an opportunity to see myself (and everything/everyone else) with clarity and compassion.

I have been encouraged by this book, and also by The Barn at the End of the World (which showed me that even serious practitioners struggle, something I find immensely heartening). I don’t think I’m ready to jump into meditation just yet, although I’m getting closer and closer. I want to make sure that I am doing it for the right reasons, just as I waited to be baptized when I was a teenager until I was sure that I understood the decision I was making.

Not that I didn’t before. But crises help!

Not a huge crisis, but something has come up at work that’s going to require a lot of effort from me in the next few weeks. And I’m going to have to be on top of my game. And it will likely be quite stressful.

So…I’m going to try to combat this stress and streamline my mind by meditating every morning.

I’ve been doing very poorly with this goal. I don’t really understand it. It’s just sitting. Why is it so hard to do?

I think daily is a bit much for me, too.

This weekend was a mixed success. I did a great session on Saturday; ten minutes, but I should’ve just kept going. Incidentally, what do you two use to time your sessions? I’ve been using my alarm clock, but a small timer might be more convenient.

Sunday I tried to sit. But I was really fatigued; we’d had a gig the night before, and I ran around all day doing errands. Couldn’t concentrate at all. Ended up doing corpse pose for 15 min., which was quite nice. Thanks for reminding me of that, chel – I need to be more aware of when I really need a restorative pose. The other advantage to corpse pose is that I can do a longer session, because it’s so comfortable. I really need to make myself an eye pillow.

I felt sick when I woke up – still kind of do. I think it’s easier for me to deal with mental distractions than physical ones.

Still, I sat down. It was not a great session by any means, as I felt sorry for myself much of the time. But I think if I can just get in the habit of sitting every day, the rest will come in time.

With some success. It was both harder and easier than I thought. The hard part was getting out of bed and DOING it – even though my meditation space is right next to my bed! However, I think morning is the way for me despite that struggle. I wake easily, so I’m not tempted to sleep instead of meditate. I just like staying in my comfortable bed until I HAVE to get out.

Anyway, 10 min. is a great place to start – challenging enough, but not impossible. It felt good. However, I was surprised at how much my body protested at the sitting position. It was a comfortable position that I’ve used before, but I felt quite stiff for some reason.