If you’ve been following the progression of the May posts this year, you might remember how I was standing on the edge of burn out earlier in the month. Thankfully I found my way out of that, and I’m now in a place where I can look ahead to the rest of the school year, and beyond, with more optimism and less dread. Back when I was knee-deep in the stress though, I was actively looking for things I might be able to do that would help my fight that off.
Sometime around then I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Stuff You Should Know. During a break the hosts did an ad for an app that is supposed to give users an introduction to meditation. It starts out very gently, guiding you through a series of ten minute sessions, once daily over a ten-day period.
I’ve never seriously considered meditating before. It all looks like quietly sitting to me, and any time I’ve tried to do that my mind takes off in nine different directions. However, our school social worker recently completed a series of lessons about mindfulness that really impressed me. When I looked up this app, I saw that a lot of what it presented was based around the idea of mindfulness. At that point I didn’t think I needed it as much for immediate stress relief, but I was still curious enough to see what I might be able to get out of it. Since the first ten-day cycle was free, I gave it a try.
Day 1: The guy doing the talking has a mostly pleasant British accent. He starts off speaking conversationally, but when it’s time to begin the mediation he sounds purposefully sleepy. There are a lot of prompts about breathing, noticing how the body feels, being aware of the sounds in the room, things like that. Within minutes of finishing, out of nowhere, I have AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” playing in my head. Weird. Maybe I didn’t internalize it all so much.
Day 2: I sit down to meditate right before bed, thinking it might help me sleep, even though falling asleep isn’t really a problem. Maybe I’m just making an excuse for sticking this into the very last moment of my daily routine. In a few minutes I’m relaxed enough to fall asleep sitting up, and missed half of what I the British guy was telling me to do.
Day 3: Once again I try this right before bed. In fact I tried starting in bed, thinking if I fell asleep again I’d be all set, but then got up and decided I should probably do it sitting up like I’m supposed to. Brit mentioned the idea of problem solving in life, about not running into the traffic of our problems and trying to make them all stop at once, but sometimes just stay off to the side and and being aware of them; not in the sense of ignoring the problems, but knowing you can’t solve them all and being mindful of where you are instead of trying to do everything at once. This is hard for me. If I’m idle when I feel there’s a problem I need to solve I start feeling depressed very quickly, like I have to always be moving forward to justify my existence. This was difficult to wrap my head around.
Day 4: I took the advice of Brit and moved my meditating to right away in the morning. It helped my focus. I like having things to do in the morning. Walking, reading the newspaper, eating breakfast in the kitchen instead of inhaling something quick at my school desk has always helped me frame the day as being more complete than going straight from alarm to getting ready for school to school. It was calming to take that ten minutes to not think forward, and just be.
Day 5: My first Saturday, which usually would be the day of the week that would find me the most calm and clear-headed already. There was a short animation to watch today, about how sometimes too much effort can be counterproductive. This marked the second day in a row of reaching the end of my ten minutes without sleeping, so I figured I should probably do the rest of my sessions in the morning. Plus that way it doesn’t cut into my Hogan’s Heroes reruns.
Day 6: My first Sunday. I’m slipping into the steps pretty naturally now, just because I’ve heard the prompts enough times to know what to expect. There are some mentions to the effort that goes into trying to force things to change, but as far as what I’m doing to meditate the routine is the same thing each day. Nothing really noteworthy.
Day 7: My first Monday morning, which should really be the most useful time since Monday is not my favorite day of the week. Another animation talked about how the calm blue sky always there above us, even if we can’t always see it through the clouds. These ideas are introduced without any direction to reflect on them other than a brief mention at the end. I try to bring the ideas into my reflections when I feel I’m supposed to, but when I’m told to “just let the mind wander” it always goes somewhere else. Maybe I’m meant to keep that idea with me throughout the day.
Day 8: I got up too early and fell back to sleep halfway through, only to wake up at the end. I wasn’t ready to turn myself over to the process today, and stood up at the end with a mindset of “Okay, that’s done now. What’s next?” Nothing internalized.
Day 9: Early again. I’m prompted to think about letting the mind clear and rest so I can access the thoughts below the surface; what good things would you find there, and what would you find that needed to be let go? The 10 minutes went fast today. I actually pulled myself from some completely random train of thought that was building and back to focus once without being reminded. When it came time to let the mind wander, it went into this surreal vision of peaceful collapse that evolved into a slowly exploding color pattern, which brought itself to a dead stop and became almost like a painting. I stood up and ignored my usual routine of getting ready for school right away, and instead sat down to write. I left the morning news off, I didn’t play any music, I just sat and thought and let the ideas present themselves. I took an hour to let morning be an independent part of my day instead of a prologue to school. If felt really good, taking away the stress of pre-anticipation and letting myself just be. Did that mindset come from meditating? I really don’t know.
Day 10: The last day. I started off strong, knowing the routine pretty well, but soon I was fighting off the urge to think about writing this post since I was all too aware of how this was my last session. My mind kept going back to that instead of focusing on this, feeling that, appreciating, or noticing things but not doing anything with them. I caught up with the routine again just as it ended. I had wondered where my mind would go when I cut it loose to wander on this last day. Today it didn’t really go anywhere.
As far as growth experiments go, I was glad I tried it, but I’m not necessarily convinced it made such a difference that my life is now in the first steps of a brand new path. If anything, my biggest takeaway was that I now have a better idea of what goes on when people talk about their own meditation.
Will I continue working on this, now that my free ten days are over and I would have to start a subscription?
I really don’t know.
1 comment:
I enjoyed reading about your experience of Mindfulness. I think I have tried the same App. I tried doing the meditation on the bus into work but not with much success.
One book I have found really helpful is The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. Its not about meditation but it does help you carry out self reflection to help you better motivate yourself to meet your goals. I particularly like how it helps you see the rationalisations you put in place to avoid achieving your goals.
Like the meditation it is something you need to practice regularly to reap the full benefit and I only succeed in doing it in fits and starts. At least I now know why I keep going off track!
Post a Comment