Blog 18 – Finding the Time to Meditate
So you may have noticed that we added three more points to the weekly challenge.
- Drink water. (Fun facts – Every time I hear the word “water” I hear Neil Young shouting the word, like Morgan Freeman saying “penguin.”)
- Read. (I recently purchased 2 books – Strength Training Anatomy and Going Right.)
- Meditate. (The reason we’ve all gathered here today. Now generally speaking, people fall in to one of two categories when it comes to meditation. The I-could-do-this-shit-all-day camp or the I-DON’T-HAVE-TIME-FOR-THAT-SHIT CAMP. – Yes, the ALL CAPS vs. no caps is intentional. Get it? Because the meditators are already meditating, so they are calm, and non-meditators ARE YELLING… AAARRGGGHHH!!! – The funny thing here, though? Everyone starts in the latter. Even yours truly. That switch came about 3-4 years ago, and really it wasn’t a decision to meditate or not. It’s just kind of been a progressive understanding about meditating; starting with a conversation with friends; then to a few YouTube videos to other online resources; then through a Palouse Mindfulness course – free online for those interested – and finally on to a better understanding of what meditation is and is not. Really what I learned is that I’ve meditated all of my life in some form or another. I just never thought about it as meditating. Add to that my new found understanding and I-could-do-this-shit-all-day.
My favorite daily meditation routine is almost first thing in the morning – Fritz has a little bladder – and as I go to bed. My morning meditation is something I’ve actually done my entire life. I wake up … and do nothing. That’s right, literally nothing. It used to frustrate my parents like you wouldn’t believe. I’d wake up and just sit in my bed cross-legged until the last possible second to get out the door to school. My family still gives me a hard time about it. Now, it looks like sitting on my patio and watching the birds and squirrels come up for breakfast – for the record, I am also a huge fan of journaling first thing in the morning. At night, it’s a general rotation of a few varying types – counted breath, landscaping/imagery, or body scans are usually the go to. I’m not so great at the middle of the day stuff, but sometimes do a meditation as pain management for my arthritis and I do really enjoy a good guided meditation with headphones in. None of this is everyday, but it’s most and I can there’s a huge difference in the flow of my day and my ability to fall asleep if my day starts with less intention than I need.
In reality, the list of types of meditations is relatively short – google “headspace types of meditation” – but the ways to accomplish them are many and they all accomplish, or are intended to accomplish, a greater connection to self by setting a little time out of your day for Number 1. )
Any questions about the new challenges?
D