meditate daily

Life is a whirlwind of change right now. BUT

I’ve just started the uberman polyphasic sleep cycle (20 minute naps 6 times a day only)—now I will have ZERO excuse of lack of time! And I’ll need it to help focus through the adjustment week.

It’s kindof ridiculous that I don’t make just 15 minutes for meditation when I get so engaged with other projects (in this case getting myself hired for an internship—successful!)

I’m making 15 minutes a day for yoga sun salutations, though, which (in the mindset and focus I do it with) gives a similar result to meditation, but really isn’t quite the same.

Distractions, excuses. Will be back to it tomorrow or so as usual, now that I’ve got the position, and am in a lull between working to prepare & impress and working on the actual job.

I’m doing some really interesting strategizing right now.

But I made a mistake of hoping to do a 45-minute meditation, because when I ran out of time for that, somehow I didn’t do any meditation at all. Twice! So I’m back to expecting 15 or 20 minutes meditations. Having realistic hopes/expectations helps you actually do it…

Thought I’d focus on breath and body today. Not much to report, since I only had 9 minutes left to do it. But I feel better. I notice how tired I am, having not slept much last night. Notice that I’m a little overfull, too.

I’m hoping tomorrow I can justify making time for an extended 45-minute meditation…

I felt like singing instead of meditating, so I decided to combine the two. I chant Aum (Om) on every outbreath, or nearly so, for 15 minutes.

As a kind of focus meditation, I guess the results are predictable: my attention feels more pointed and directable. I don’t feel more aware of everything, I’m highly aware of whatever I’m focusing on. In this moment, typing. The words on the screen and sound of the keyboard all popping up crisply and “registering” immediately in my head. In fact, I’m having difficulty now trying to open up and be aware of the whole room—awareness is constricted but vivid wherever it points.

It was interesting, about 7 minutes in, figuring out how to produce the sound(s) that would make my whole core resonate, from my, eh, reproductive organs and rear end through my gut (near my spine) and up through the lung cavities and throat and face and the skull. It seemed like getting the back of my throat to relax and resonate was most key in getting the rest of the body to vibrate, too.

I had learned Aum chanting through an Art of Living course, a huge international foundation that I highly recommend, but with a grain of salt on some teachings.

Meditated again for the first time in 1.5 weeks, after a flu, four finals, and a funeral in another part of the country, during the course of which I dropped my usual goals and just did what I had to do.

The main thing I notice is how my hands became comfortably warm. I was cold all day. Otherwise, my mind wandered to all sorts of loose ends (need to return this, wait for that, organize so-and-so), but there were times when I just felt myself and my breath and heartbeat.

Now I’m all relaxed and warm (but not too warm!) for bed. =)

Actually, I think I’ll continue my daily meditation journaling here. A lot of benefits came from it, not the least of which is accountability to it every day. =)

First day, today, later—

It’s a habit now. =) I won’t be posting daily anymore here, but if you want to read about experiences, and add me on Livejournal.com, user by the same name:

http://odyssey-spirit.livejournal.com/

user odyssey_spirit

Most of the meditation stuff is friends-only (not public) because it gets pretty intense and personal.

I’m also happy to answer Q’s from my own experience (meditating daily since the beginning of the year, with some breaks when its effects got too intense too fast). If it interests anyone, I’ve been trained in and use the deep Art of Living breathing & meditation technique, almost daily now. I can’t teach you it, but can advertise its benefits, and encourage you to take an Art of Living course yourself. I also “like” object focus meditation, mind-awareness sitting, and full-body-awareness sitting.

This is a given. Been doing it basically successfully for 2 full months now, and no intention or desire of stopping. So much benefit that it has a definite commitment in my day. Considering it successfully established!

Lost track of days; I’ll calculate it later.

But have meditated every day for a while now except for missing Saturday, but even Saturday I was at a spiritual youth leadership empowerment program-thing (lol, YES!+ by Art of Living) anyway for 4+ hours. So that kindof makes up for it…?