Another blog about meditating

Meditation is one of those things people tell you will change your life. You download the apps. Put it off until evening. Til the next day. Next week. Maybe next month...OK maybe it’ll be my resolution for 2021.

While even only three minutes will be helpful, it’s easy to resist getting silent and still. In a world where doing a bunch of shit at once is the norm, it almost feels impossible, lazy or even scary. What happens when the TV is off. When there's no one to spend a Friday night with. When we’ve been laid off and don't know what will fill up our days...

”Why are you so petrified of silence. here you can you handle this….Did you think about your bills, your ex, your deadlines, or when you think you’re gonna die, or did you long for the next distraction” - Alanis Morrissette

This isn’t easy stuff. But it’s good stuff.  Let’s get into it.

When we fill up our days to avoid our thoughts, to avoid being alone, to avoid being bored, we act out of fear. We fill up our lives with mundane and useless things. We normalize feeling a certain way (even if it’s not good) to avoid doing the hard work. We stay in relationships or jobs to avoid hurting anyone. This is acting out of fear. And self preservation. And that’s OK. We are human, and this is what we do.

YOU get to feel good!

When you meditate, a deeper part of you may feel relaxed. Maybe you’re physical body will feel a sense of relief. Sometimes just reminding ourselves of how great we CAN feel is enough to get us started. You don’t need to complain your  life away. You don’t have to live on auto pilot. You don’t need to stick to those old toxic habits.
You are here to feel good. To figure out your calling. To be surrounded by people who support you and your vision. You are here to be your authentic self.

YEAH, but…

Acting out of fear, keeping you in your comfort zone, denying you the benefits of changing yourself for the better all come from the same place. Your frenemy, the ego.
Your ego wants you to stay comfortable where you are, and meditating will propel you into peace.
Your ego wants you to make excuses and not move forward. Meditation will connect you to your higher self who knows what you’re capable of.
Ego wants you to stay judgmental and in need of external validation. Meditation allows you to feel complete and whole just as you are.

LET’S get to it

There is a wellspring inside of you. This space called your “soul, higher self, whole self”, and it’s there, all the time. Love, joy, freedom and peace reside within, making you whole, no matter what. You questioning that right now is totally normal, say hi to your ego for me.

Meditation helps us on our journey back, so we can begin living from love instead of reacting from fear.

Our connection to this wellspring has been drastically altered by societal expectations, subconscious programing, childhood trauma. Examples of this are needing constant validation, affirmations, applause, more cute shoes, two desserts. Something lights up in our brain when we get that immediate high we get when someone tells us “good job”. That feeling of release when you light up that cigarette. That glorious sensation when you take that first bite of ice cream, knowing there’s plenty there to keep you company for a while. 

That’s ego. That’s years of conditioning. That’s habit, old programming. It’s the same voice telling you “fuck meditating. We have better things to do”.

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” - Deepak Chopra

LIFE on auto pilot

Hitting snooze 8 times before waking up. The meal you eat at your desk while scrolling through your phone. The beer (or spiked seltzer let's be honest) you crack open at the end of the day, without thinking about it. Auto pilot is living unconsciously. Of course we’re awake and conscious, but where is our mind in these moments?
Maybe a commute to work has become so normal, you let your mind wander and before you know it, you get to work and forget half the drive. Where does the mind go when we do the same thing over and over again?

Unconscious and habitual actions take us out of the present moment. Unconscious and habitual thoughts do the same thing. That negative reaction towards your spouse or colleague when things get a little tough? That anger that boils in you when someone pops gum, cuts you in line, is on speaker phone and driving you insane? What about that mean comment you make to yourself when you did something wrong?

These are all deeply rooted habits that, as Deepak says, make us prisoners of our past. 

REACT with awareness

We can’t find the solution in the same place the perceived problem was created. Once negative feelings and self attacking thoughts gather momentum, they become almost impossible to stop. The mind tends to feed itself stories from the past to support whatever is happening. “I deserve this cigarette, today has been insane”. “My co worker has been a dick for so long, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind!” or ”I always do the wrong thing. I’m such a screw up”
Judgmental thoughts and self criticism arise out of habitual ways of thinking and acting.

DETACH from the stories

Our aim, with meditation, is to live through more of an awareness, a curiosity. We want to detach from the stories of our past, or expectations of the future, and just notice our reaction. It sounds hard, I know. It isn’t easy, But with consistency, you’d be surprised by how little your ego will react, moving forward. 

YOU are not your thoughts

Thoughts are like propaganda - they aren’t real. While meditation consists of focusing your attention on your breath, you allow yourself to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind. Little by little, you let go of the struggle, and come to realize you are not your thoughts. The profound understanding that thoughts and feelings are transient come to mind, and you ultimately have the choice about whether or not to act on them. Bad moods and spirals tend to happen when our mind sinks into the drudges of despair. We cant fix anything here. The more we try to climb our way out of it, the deeper we sink into it. These spirals happen fewer an farther between, the more we bring awareness to our thoughts.

UNLEARNING what we think we know

Remember, at this point you’ve been thinking the same way for years. Unlearning this isn’t easy. But it’s possible. Focusing on your breath, noticing all five senses, bringing awareness to what is, in the exact moment you’re in, will be the first step out of the negative hurricane you’re experiencing. 

“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day — unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” -Zen proverb

YOUR authentic self

When you are connected to your authentic self, your true self, the self that lies beneath that layer of crap, you can be free. You no longer have to live in guilt, discomfort, anxiety. You trust in the timing of your life and trust in yourself. You become more clear about your needs, what's being met and what isn’t. Maybe you get clear about the boundaries you begin to set. You notice what you no longer want to spend energy on.

THE present moment

When the present moment isn’t being suffocated with projections from the past or fears of the future, it can unearth amazing potential. By just being what it is. Just because something didn’t go to plan (say hi to ego again for me), doesn’t mean there aren’t a million different opportunities. 

This is the tough stuff. 

LIVE and let live

Our ego feeds on three things. It needs control. It needs to be approved, It needs to judge. Once when tap into that wellspring of love, joy, freedom and peace, we don’t need to control, we can just let it be as it is. We don’t need approval, we know we’re whole just as we are. We don't need to judge, we live and let live. 

Close your eyes, take a deep breath in, and see what happens. 

:)