Mindless Meditation
From what I can tell, meditation is muy importante-quite possibly a central key to a content life. In my Life Certainties post, I named meditation as 1 of the whopping 5 core truths of importance I’ve discovered during my 40+ years on Earth. But still, I have found that I am hesitant to admit out loud that I meditate. This is partly due to the potential of someone calling me a fraud because, after about 5 years, all of my successful minutes of ‘quieting my mind’ combined would total close to 1 hour. It’s also partly true, though, because a stigma around meditation still seems to exist. This past summer, a co-worker who had witnessed my attempts at silencing my mind during lunch breaks referred to it as, “Going outside to do my thing.” I’ve had a friend say it just seems weird and another who says she is utterly unable to hush her chatter box brain. If my parents knew that I meditate regularly, I’m fairly certain that they would think I’ve converted to a different religion or, in the least, have become a hippy. Therefore, my desire & rare successful attempts at pausing my internal thoughts, may just make me the oddball.
I’ve heard meditation compared to the less commonly practiced part of prayer: the listening part. However, I can recall past prayers when I mixed desperation and pleading with silence and sobbing. In those moments, I couldn’t have been closer to the exact opposite of what I believe meditation to be. My goal during meditation is to turn focus away from responsibilities or needs; I aim to keep a very clear mind or hold only thoughts of appreciation or joy. When my mind traipses over to my to-do list or even to a worrisome or negative thought, I deliberately redirect it to clear or happy.
Being a spaghetti head, I find it easier to focus on a clear image, because what may start out as a happy thought can sometimes sneak in all types of other emotions and actions along for the ride. To clear my mind, I envision a picture that isn’t about anything. When I need a pure vision, I remember a moment from when I visited Tamarindo, Costa Rica. One evening as I walked away from the beach, I turned back for one last glimpse and took in the image above. The moment was delicious to all of my senses, so I captured a still frame of it in my mind that I rely on when needed. I’ve also imagined clear light energy connecting through me and up to Source. Anything beautiful that doesn’t hold a connection to something else seems to work.
Now, having read the paragraphs above, I may have led you to believe that I find meditation simple and that I have an alarm set to devote time to the practice on the daily. But no – I still drive to work and consider going in immediately to get an early start to the day. At night, I often consider meditating, but question if the extra time sleeping would be better spent. On the weekends, I barter with myself: would 20 minutes sitting with my eyes closed instead of cleaning the house, running errands or finishing a Netflix binge really be a productive use of my free time? It seems our minds are always ON…thinking every waking minute of the day (and even while we are unconscious); it ironically takes effort to not think about anything. I still struggle to step back from the bus’i’ness of life but I’ve seen the magic of meditation, so I am committed to the efforts toward nada.
Needless to say, when I lost my job in July, I became preoccupied with money. I kept faith that everything always works out for me, worked my ass off at side gigs and earned blood money. I envisioned money coming my way whenever the mood hit and I also gave concentrated effort to 15 minutes of meditation almost daily. (This equaled approximately 4 minutes of actual non-thought each time.) I credit the mixture of all of those components to me being open enough to receive the following blessings over the course of a few months:
- $20 bill in a windy parking lot
- $5 bill on the Planet Fitness floor
- $10 bill on the floor of a pub
- $450 check from my mortgage company for over payment in January
- $38.24 check from insurance company
- $35 earning from a yard sale that never happened
- $100 for a paint job that I didn’t ask for compensation
- $1,975.01 biopsy paid for with financial aid
- $560.24 insurance check just in time for the mortgage not to be late
Although I am still playing catch-up from a time period of no income, I cannot ignore the fact that I am on a very positive path that I am confident I will continue upon. Recently, during the aforementioned Netflix binge, I watched Eat, Pray, Love. The main character was directed by a guru to meditate with not only a smile on the outside, but also with a smile on her heart and liver. The fact that this scene was offered to me while I was forming the thoughts for this blog post didn’t pass me by. I have since given this advice a whirl. While I’m positive that Julia Roberts pulled this off way more gracefully than me, I have discovered that while envisioning smiles in all of these places on your body, you simply cannot be focused on anything negative or anything else at all, really.
As a writer, I’m guessing that I have mind chatter that could be labeled as EXTRA. Thankfully, the thoughts don’t lead me to admittance into a mental hospital, but, instead, the words and ideas are eventually strung together to create these blog posts that you can find here about every other week. Regardless of my productive inner noise, I realize the importance of rewarding my mind with awakened rest. Even beyond blessings of abundance, I have allowance of love, peace and travel in my future. My gift to me this season and furthermore is to honor myself with time to just be and to just breathe.
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