Meditation
Side post #1
Earlier I've discussed my attempts to start practicing meditation and how taking even five minutes can help when you're stressed. What I haven't talked about yet is how meditating, even sporadically 5-15 mins at a time, influenced my workout habits.
Starting out with exercise almost two years ago, I needed lots of distraction during walks, yoga, and on bike rides. Music and audiobooks provided this in spades. Music especially helped during planks and burpees. With planks, the time goes faster and a good quick tempo helps set a pace for burpees.
Late last summer I realized that not only had it become easier to walk, practice yoga, and bike ride in silence, there were times it was preferable. This ties into meditation because becoming comfortable with silence is a big part of finding stillness and peace of mind. No space is ever completely silent, but turning down my own noise lets us hear all the smaller sounds that surround us.
Right now, I just completed twenty-one days of meditation. The idea was for this to be consecutive and surprisingly, for the first two weeks that actually happened. Overall, I ended up only extending the experience by four days. That isn't to say meditating has magically become easy or comfortable- Dan Harris' Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics called out to me from the library shelf for a reason.
To be honest, I never really felt like I was doing it right with this practice. With the Liturgist's or even a short yoga meditation, I can usually feel myself slip into that peaceful space where meditation happens. With this one, there was some kind of block. Obviously I kept at it, but nothing makes you doubt universal harmony like finishing that exact meditation, showering, then spending five minutes running around in your underwear hair dripping while looking for that dress you planned to wear to work but forgot was in the dirty laundry. (Running late the whole time of course).
There were times when making the time was a challenge, but I didn't feel the same internal resistance like when I tried follow a daily yoga routine. Most struggle actually came from external circumstances like random craziness at work during the first week of my practice or my inability to find the simplest things during the second week. Okay, that last one is clearly internal. Wait, I can think of another external one- traffic has been much weirder these past few weeks.
During the final week, it occurred to me that maybe some of the external craziness was actually created by my subconscious. What if the external resistance was actually indirect internal resistance? That might be a little too advanced for me right now. The level of overall opposition has certainly been an indication that I'm pursuing something positive, otherwise why would there be so much difficulty?
That being said, starting and sticking to this habit for twenty-one days has been it's own accomplishment. By the end of the month I might even have made some progress. The quiet parts of meditation felt suddenly much shorter, so I was either getting better at it or just more distracted by my thoughts. Time will tell.
Earlier I've discussed my attempts to start practicing meditation and how taking even five minutes can help when you're stressed. What I haven't talked about yet is how meditating, even sporadically 5-15 mins at a time, influenced my workout habits.
Starting out with exercise almost two years ago, I needed lots of distraction during walks, yoga, and on bike rides. Music and audiobooks provided this in spades. Music especially helped during planks and burpees. With planks, the time goes faster and a good quick tempo helps set a pace for burpees.
Late last summer I realized that not only had it become easier to walk, practice yoga, and bike ride in silence, there were times it was preferable. This ties into meditation because becoming comfortable with silence is a big part of finding stillness and peace of mind. No space is ever completely silent, but turning down my own noise lets us hear all the smaller sounds that surround us.
Right now, I just completed twenty-one days of meditation. The idea was for this to be consecutive and surprisingly, for the first two weeks that actually happened. Overall, I ended up only extending the experience by four days. That isn't to say meditating has magically become easy or comfortable- Dan Harris' Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics called out to me from the library shelf for a reason.
To be honest, I never really felt like I was doing it right with this practice. With the Liturgist's or even a short yoga meditation, I can usually feel myself slip into that peaceful space where meditation happens. With this one, there was some kind of block. Obviously I kept at it, but nothing makes you doubt universal harmony like finishing that exact meditation, showering, then spending five minutes running around in your underwear hair dripping while looking for that dress you planned to wear to work but forgot was in the dirty laundry. (Running late the whole time of course).
There were times when making the time was a challenge, but I didn't feel the same internal resistance like when I tried follow a daily yoga routine. Most struggle actually came from external circumstances like random craziness at work during the first week of my practice or my inability to find the simplest things during the second week. Okay, that last one is clearly internal. Wait, I can think of another external one- traffic has been much weirder these past few weeks.
During the final week, it occurred to me that maybe some of the external craziness was actually created by my subconscious. What if the external resistance was actually indirect internal resistance? That might be a little too advanced for me right now. The level of overall opposition has certainly been an indication that I'm pursuing something positive, otherwise why would there be so much difficulty?
That being said, starting and sticking to this habit for twenty-one days has been it's own accomplishment. By the end of the month I might even have made some progress. The quiet parts of meditation felt suddenly much shorter, so I was either getting better at it or just more distracted by my thoughts. Time will tell.
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