meditate twice daily

Meditated a while after getting up. Again in the afternoon. I’m still not ‘regular’ about it – but that’s much less important to me these days than that I do it enough so that I don’t spend any large part of my day spaced out or stressed – since my anxiety issues have become disruptive in the last six months, I’m making being present more of a priority since I know for a fact that it helps a lot with anxiety. And frankly the more I do it the more I recognise that it feels better than many of the things I’ve been used to doing in order to self-soothe – like eating, mindless surfing, or watching TV.

I started trying to meditate perhaps 6 or 7 years ago – back then it was something interesting to try. Then it became something I thought I ‘should do’, and then something I enjoyed doing but kept putting off because of I was also a little afraid of it (the way we often put off things that will make us happy because some part of us doesn’t feel we deserve it). Nowadays it’s becoming more and more something I slip into naturally several times a day – not really as a result of my being more disciplined but as a result of learning to listen more to my body in general (getting scared over health issues will encourage that) and realising that I want to because it’s the exact opposite of feeling stressed and numb. The body wants to be present. I don’t set spiritual goals as far as meditation is concerned – it took me several years of meditating on and off before I even realised why I really wanted to do it – and it was for very simple reasons, like wanting to feel good, wanting to feel like myself, wanting to be more myself with other people, wanting to be able to feel love better instead of being tensed up and walled-off all the time. As time goes on and I understand myself better, it’s less a ‘should’ and more something my body naturally wants. What gets in the way? Guilt. Or being too rigid. Or worrying about doing it ‘right’. Meditation is something you give yourself, and it’s meant to feel good, because it’s learning to get back to that most basic and most sought-after of things: feeling alive and feeling gladness and appreciation in what is. You can’t force these things: you can only gradually discover that you want them.