I have been getting a lot of comments and questions around meditation recently. I’m usually asked if I meditate (yes), how often (daily), how long (varies, but usually not less than 15 minutes and sometimes as much as 30+) and how (I sit). But what I hear the most of is a variation on “I’ve been wanting to meditate because I know how important it is, but I can’t seem to keep the thoughts out, so I get frustrated and stop. How do you do it?”
The short answer is: Cheesy workarounds and sticking to it.
In my house, cheesy workarounds usually happen when we are doing some sort of construction. We have been “blessed” with a completely non standard house, so when we want to make improvements, we find out (usually long after we have started) that it is completely impossible to accomplish the task the way we are “supposed” to. So we get creative. Cheesy workarounds are a kind of Do I Yourself meets imagination when you have an issue in front of you.
It turns out that I apply this philosophy to more than just construction.
I have been meditating on and off since 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, more off than on, from 2008 to 4 months ago, more on than off, and for the last 4 months, daily.
Between 2006 and 2007, I would periodically attempt to meditate, fail miserably and give up in frustration. At that time, the only instructions I had were to sit with my eyes closed and concentrate on my breathing, and if any thoughts came in, just let them go. So I set aside 10 minutes and tried to focus on my breathing. What happened looked a bit like this...
Breathe in...feel the breath down my throat...my nose itches, I don’t think I’m supposed to scratch it...I’ve got a lot of homework to do...I think I should finish doing my flash cards today because I’ll have time to study with them tomorrow...My back hurts...I don’t think I’m sitting up straight...A car is driving by...I need to get my oil changed...
This happened for the whole 10 minutes! I got maybe 2 seconds into a meditation before my thoughts hijacked me. And you could forget about me being able to ‘just let the thoughts go’ because I didn’t even notice I was having any until the 10 minutes were up!
It became clear to me that sitting meditation was not an option. Luckily, my Chinese herbalist at the time suggested I try Yoga Nidra, a guided meditation to help calm the mind. The idea behind Yoga Nidra is to follow the instructions without trying, and to get very relaxed, so you are essentially asleep but with a slight trace of awareness. Generally, I fell full asleep during the meditation, but there were some times I got to a fully relaxed state without sleeping!
At about the same time, I was in the process of ‘fixing’ the way I walked. I tended to walk on the outside of my right foot which was throwing my gait off and putting a lot of extra strain on my right knee, IT Band and hip. So, during my walks, I would focus on how my right hip and knee were moving in relation to my foot and carefully placing my foot down more in the middle rather than rolling to the outside. Step after step after step. For 3 or 4 miles. I had never heard of a thing called Walking Meditation, but I was (unknowingly) doing my version of it.
In 2008, I took a Psychic class, and at each session, we went through several guided meditations. By this time, I had been doing Yoga Nidra and my “Walking Meditation” for about a year and a half, on and off, but this was more like sitting meditation so I was a bit nervous. What happened? I was able to meditate for more than a few seconds at a time!
I was so excited, I bought a meditation CD! Complete with different ways to sit and how to count my breaths! 2 years later, and I was back where I started, sitting and breathing. Only this time, I was aware of when thoughts came in and was able to let them go.
My current meditation practice did not come overnight or by a traditional route. I have always had a mind that was constantly full of a million thoughts going at the speed of light, and balanced it out by being a physically active person. So, initially, just sitting quietly to meditate did not calm me down, but made me jumpier. The only way that I had a hope of calming down my brain was through some sort of physical activity, or giving it something to do in a walking meditation or relaxing it with Yoga Nidra. Nor was this process obvious to me at the time. I just stuck to it and kept trying different things to see what fit best for me with the ultimate goal of quietening the mind. What I didn’t see at the time was that I needed to learn to sleep before I could walk, and walk before I could sit!
