Over the past 10 days, I have been doing longer and longer
meditations with the goal of working my way to an hour. I wanted to keep a
brief log of my meditation experiences—my struggles and successes.
20 Minutes—I was
a bit nervous going into this meditation. I have been pretty much sticking with
the 10-minute daily meditations and I was worrying about how I would do with
20-minutes. But as I sat, I was able to
slow down my mind and settle into the practice.
I spent a lot of time focusing on the tightness of my heart and
neck. Constriction was at times
overwhelming, but I kept sitting with it and feeling. Just feeling what was
going on in my body. And it wasn’t a bad
feeling, but it was all over the place.
My mind was jumping from thing to thing to thing and I had to keep
returning to my breath. I also kept returning to the imagery of letting my
thoughts go like bubbles floating up into the sky. Just letting them go. It was very helpful to get me out of the
tendency to hold on to my thoughts for too long. Once I did that, the time moved quickly and
the meditation finished much faster than I thought it would.
30 Minutes—I was
happy to sit in meditation this time. I
knew it was a bit longer, but I was excited for the challenge. My mind was yet again very busy and didn’t
want to settle too quickly. I tried to
stay with my breath and use the bubble imagery with my thoughts. This time, though, the bubbles were heavy.
They were more like bowling balls that kept dropping to the ground, creating
craters and holes in the earth around me. I could
feel heaviness in my body as the meditation continued, as though something was
pulling me down and it became harder and harder to sit up straight. I kept returning to letting go of my thoughts
and they continued to be bowling balls falling and falling to the earth. I sat with the heaviness, though, and didn’t
try explain it away or fix it. I usually
just want to fix those feelings that I find challenging, but I do realize I
need to let them be what they are and I kept thinking that maybe whatever was
going on was not ready to be fully released.
Before I could fully work through that heaviness the meditation
ended. It was encouraging to find the space to just sit in the discomfort and I hope I can work through that
heaviness as the meditations get longer.
40 Minutes—This
was a smoother meditation. I finished
the meditation thinking, “I did it! I sat here for 40 minutes and I didn’t
break down and look at my timer.” I
entered the meditation smoothly and felt pretty good throughout. Toward the end, I had to keep resisting the
desire to look at the timer and know how much was left. It was a challenge, but the feeling of making it through was incredible and energized me as I thought about working toward my
60-minute meditation goal. I moved
through my body and could feel my body sinking into the deeper spaces that I
just can’t reach when I do my shorter 10-minute daily meditation. Oddly enough, I didn’t have any nervousness
going into the meditation and actually looked forward to having that space. It
was a tough couple of days as I worked through my preparations for school and
my mind wanted a break. To let go of everything. I was craving it.
50 Minutes—This
was a tough meditation. The best
metaphor for how I entered the meditation is that of an untamed horse being
restrained. The flailing. The kicking.
The incessant neighing. The
shaking and hurling. Doing everything and anything I could do to try to get off
of my mat. My mind was spinning through
a lot of deep darkness. It was a dark
day. A dark weekend, actually. I sat through it, though. I sat.
I could feel the tightness in my heart.
I sat. I could see myself digging
through the darkness and finding large shells that represented two of my largest fears: what people think of me and not
being perfect. I dug out those
fear-shells and they pushed me down deeper and deeper until I fell through into
what looked like a dessert. Dry, arid,
bright. The darkness seemed to
disappear. I sat. But then I could feel myself grow more and
more antsy. I wanted to get up. I wanted
to know how much more time I had left.
But I asked myself why I needed to know this. What came to me was that I wanted a context
against which to understand myself. I didn’t want to stand alone without
something to measure myself against. Standing in the wide-open space of the desert was a perfect metaphor for letting go of those fears. It was the perfect metaphor for seeing myself as I am and that freaked me out.
But I sat. As my heart area
tightened, I decided to lay down and open my chest over my bolster. I laid there, opening my chest and waiting. I
just wanted to the meditation to be done.
And when I didn’t think I could lay there longer I reached for my alarm
and it went off before I could check how much time was left.
60 Minutes—This
was a strange meditation. I was not
agitated or anxious or ready to jump out of my skin. In fact, it was the
opposite. I was there and hiding in my skin. As I thought about the meditation
last night, I found that the word, lost best describes what I was experiencing.
I didn’t know where I was going or why and I was struggling to care. I wasn’t bouncing around from thing to thing
to thing like I have been in previous meditations. Instead, I was floating from thing to thing
to thing. Lost and floating. Unfocused.
It took a tremendous amount of energy to keep my mind on my breath, my
body, and my meditation. My mind wanted
to just go away. There were numerous
gaps over the 60 minutes. Gaps in which
I cannot tell you what I was thinking or why.
Most of my time in meditation was spent staying present and staying awake. About half way through I peeked
at the time. I didn’t have any qualms
about looking at the timer, unlike my previous meditations. I was disheartened when I saw much time
was left. I found my footing, though, in
that moment. It sort of woke me up to my meditation and I found a way to move
through my chakra track and work on feeling each part of my spine as I moved my attention up
my body. The second half of the
meditation was much more focused, but still a struggle. But I did it. I made it through a 60-minute
meditation.
Reflection—As I
look over the direction of these meditations, the dramatic shift in my final
meditation keeps running through my mind.
I can’t help but think this is a marker for the transition I’m about to
embark upon. The shift from early winter
to late/deep winter begins tomorrow and I sense that a deepening is taking
place and has been over the past week. My
goal is to remain curious about what I experience in this juncture and do what
I can to not get stuck in any one feeling for too long. I want to be curious, but also remind myself that
these feelings are momentary. They do not define me. They are not all of
me. And more than likely, if I let them move through me, they will move
out. I want to be curious, sometimes
linger, but not dwell.
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