Ruminations on Meditation

Onto Day 2 of my mediation challenge!

Or should I say Days 2-8 as I couldn’t find enough time to do the suggested one meditation a day, so I now have to cram seven at once, which I’m pretty sure is not recommended by Oprah. Or Deepak. Or anyone for that matter. 

But at least I haven’t quit. 

The total time of seven meditations is now over two hours long, 95% of which I expect to be music without words over a pretty nature photo. But thankfully, I notice that there are ‘cliff notes’ under each segment that encapsulate the theme which, I convince myself, is better than nothing.

Day 2: Empowered Me. The theme is ‘equanimity ‘, which this English major had to look up. As it turns out, it is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind, otherwise known as ‘nearly impossible’. I move on to Day 3.

Day 3: Confident Me. The meditation is, are you feeling burnt out, distracted and disconnected from the world? I answer YES! and jump to Day 4. Not because I’m too lazy to see what the answer is, but because I’m starting to get the hang of this meditation thing; enough to know they never really give you an answer that doesn’t involved looking within yourself or asking the universe.  

Day 4: Refer to Day 3, as I’m now so distracted all I seem to grasp is something about two caterpillars turning into butterflies as I pour my 3^rd cup of coffee and break into full blown hot flash.

On Day 5, I got fired from meditating. At least it seemed that way as I didn’t get my daily taunt, aka reminder, of my failed attempt to do this thing. I can’t lie, I was a little relieved. But I also wondered if Oprah is indeed so powerful she knew that I wasn’t taking it seriously and deleted me from her program.

On Day 8, I got flurry of emails for days 5-8 and was glad it seemed to be a computer glitch, nothing personal. Feeling a little bad about not concentrating more, I try to go back to the Day 4 mediation to see what I missed, but they have blocked access, because who in their right meditation mind would go back several days to cram? Geesh!

Days 6-8 are: Resilient Me, Fearless Me, and What Do I Want, which totally throw me off as they didn’t use the word “Me” in Day 8. I then begin to wonder why “Me” is so important to meditating in the first place, as it seems pretty selfish and suddenly…HELLO McFLY… I think I get it. 

It’s so simple really. 

In this fast paced blur of where we need to be, whom we need to be and what we need to do, it has become almost impossible to find a moment in the day to just breath, and remember who we are deep down in our core.  

We are all so different, but we are all “me” in our own way.

And ‘me’ thinks… no, ‘me’ KNOWS… that I’m not cut out for this meditation thing.

Namaste, my friends.

Namaste.

Thoughts on the Run

Just when I thought I couldn’t fit one more thing into my schedule, my workplace decided to offer lunchtime yoga classes, making it super convenient for me to squish yet another activity into my overbooked life, ironically one that is suppose to teach me how to relax.

For those of you who have never taken yoga before, it is a lot more than just strangely unnatural poses that cause pain in places you never knew could hurt while you appear to be barely moving. It’s also about something called mindfulness; learning to be “in the moment”, and not allow outside thoughts or worries to interfere with your practice.

Multi-tasker that I am, I decided that instead of spending an hour doing yoga and another hour running, perhaps I could combine the two and go on a mindful run. Which was a miserable failure, as evidenced by my thoughts on the run, which follow:

Stay mindful. Be the run. Why can’t February just borrow a day from January and have 30 days instead of 29 and get rid of this leap year crap? Did I lock the door when I left? Boy, am I glad I had two cups of coffee today.

Oops, back to my run. Feel the earth beneath my feet. Feel the rock that is already in my shoe.

Why is the first mile always so hard? Shoot, did I set the DVR to record Big Brother? I wonder how long could we could live on just water and vitamins. What’s for dinner?

Deep breathe. Be in the moment. Unlike the house the house I run by with a week’s worth of newspapers piling up in the driveway screaming we are on vacation at the moment. Consider moving them but don’t want to be arrested for trespassing. Consider someone may have had a medical emergency and this is a cry for help. Consider calling police, but realize there are no street signs so I have no idea where I am. Thought there was a law all streets had to be clearly marked, so I repeat the phrase STREET SIGNS continuously until I get home so I don’t forget to look it up.

Be the run. STREET SIGNS. Fill my lungs with fresh air. What on earth is that awful smell? See a cute little dog carrying a giant stick. Then realize the awful smell is because cute little dog with giant stick’s owner doesn’t think she needs to clean up after her dog on the running path. Try to send her thoughts of loving compassion and forgiveness, but instead blurt out a sarcastic “that’s nice”.

Be the run, even though I gulped two giant mugs of coffee before my run and there is no rest room on this route. Plus the rock is still in my shoe, and why does the second mile always feel so hard? STREET SIGNS.

I hope I’m burning enough calories to justify the coffee time cake I had for dessert last night. Why on early did I buy myself a cake when it isn’t anyone’s birthday? Note to self:  never admit to anyone that I bought myself a cake.

Be the cake. I mean, be the run. Feel the earth. Feel the rock stuck in bottom groove of my shoe making annoying clicking sound as I run, which reminds me of the Partridge Family theme song “Come on get happy!” for no apparent reason. What’s for dinner?

Be the Run. STREET SIGNS. Come on get happy! I wish the lawn would mow itself. Oh that’s right, I don’t have a lawn anymore- it died when I applied weed killer guaranteed to kill everything but grass, only to discover what I thought was a lawn was really a weed meadow.

What’s for dinner?

As I wrap up my disastrous attempt at ‘being in the moment’ while I run, I realize mindfulness is harder for some people than others. Which is why they have instructors to teach us these things. So I decide to break down and splurge for the yoga class, which I promise to sign up for right after I look up local laws concerning street signs.