There has been a recurring theme in my life. It comes in different faces, different messages, different situations, but it simply says this:
Every day, we are all searching for that peace. One way or another, our minds are lagging behind in our past and skipping ahead into the future. All those to-do lists hanging over our heads, our regrets weighing down our hearts. Will it ever end?
It can, and it will… If you make that choice.
It is as simple as that. You make one choice. That choice to be within yourself, in the now, present and existing in this glorious world full of hope, love, sadness, anger, loneliness, and absolute joy.
How do you know if thoughts about the past or future are positive? Simple, what are you feeling? Depression or nostalgia? Anxiety or hope?
I remind my student to notice their bodies, to realize they're sitting on their mat going from asana to asana. I ask them to look for tension within themselves whether in their muscles or in their minds. I tell them:
Notice it as you inhale. Release it as you exhale.
Breathe in and fill yourself up with the air that is around you right now. This air exists only in the now. The past and future are illusions of our minds. We invented them. We choose to call up painful memories and relive the negativity. We dive into our daydreams and lose sense of reality, responsibility, and self. We miss the very things going on right in front of us. So stop.
Inhale. Notice.
Exhale. Release.
Release the tension, the stress, the negativity, the memories and daydreams, the to-do lists and regrets. Release it all.
Do you even remember what color your mat is? Will you walk out of class and forget everyone who shared the same sacred space as you?
Take a moment and ask yourself, "What is going on with me right now?" And then just observe. Remember ahimsa, loving kindness, and leave your judgement and criticism behind. Observe, notice, and be.
There, you will find the peace. It's been inside you all along.
Now, think of an image or word to see in your mind. Associate it with this beautiful feeling of peace. Concentrate upon this, breathing deeply. Inhaling and noticing. Exhaling and releasing.
Make a physical representation of this word or picture. You can draw it, paint it, sculpt it, write it, scrawl it across your mirror in dry erase markers. Concentrate on this physical reminder and find that feeling of peace.
Whenever you go through your daily life, call up that positive word or image as you start to spiral down into depression or anxiety. Concentrate, or meditate, upon it for even just thirty seconds. Find that peace and let it infuse you.
Search for more inspirational quotes from Lao Tzu. Another heart-hitting book is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I read this for my Yoga Teacher Training and it was very hard for me to understand at first, but with persistent reading, it finally came together and opened my eyes.
Do you have any good quotes, books, or messages to share on this theme?
When it comes to meditation, I am nowhere near a source of authority. In fact, if there was a category that comes before beginner, you would find me residing squarely in it. However, since my whole life turned upside down at the beginning of the year, I was introduced to the idea of meditation, and moreover, I was introduced to the idea of meditation as a realistic and attainable thing to add to my life.
I'll be honest. It's hard. Your mind wanders. You have about eight million other things to worry about. You feel silly. You get interrupted. You have no clue what you're doing then you start wondering if you're doing it right. When I first meditated, I had no idea what to do. All I had were a few tips from people I knew and instructions to "make your mind blank" and to "be in the now."
Yeah, okay. Real helpful.
So here's my beginner-beginner's take on meditation: Start with the breathing. Breathe in, imagine your belly filling up with all that air, count to four, pause and hold for a hot second, then breathe out. Let the air expel out of your belly while counting to four or eight. Count 1. Repeat, and count up to twenty total breaths. By this time, your breathing should be more or less automatic. Your mind will wander and you'll start making a mental to-do list. Great! Your mind is calm enough that you can focus on organizing your day. Now, finish that thought and go back to your breathing.
Sometimes you'll see images, sometimes you'll have, like I wrote above, a mental to-do list. Sometimes you might meet someone- a person, or animal, or yourself. Do what feels right. Hold a conversation. Sometimes it's just darkness, so stare into it. Think about the positive in your life, liberate the negativity. Imagine each thought, negative or neutral, as a leaf falling out of a tree and landing in a stream just to float away from you. Release that thought.
Sometimes, particularly when driving on pilot, I get sucked into a trend of negative thoughts. I'll start acting out a scene in my head where terrible things happen, or I'll become acutely focused on a particularly dissenting theory. The next thing I know, I arrive to my destination steaming or depressed. Whomever I'm meeting doesn't deserve that. So I start a breathing meditation. While driving, I start to verbally note everything I see in my head. There's the lovely green grass. There's a beautiful pasture. There's a bright red mailbox. Sometimes, I'll invite my loved ones into my head like a friend or significant other, and we'll smile and breathe together. When you see someone you love smiling at you, you can't help but smile back, right? It works just as well even when you're just thinking about it.
If I consciously remove myself from the negativity during my drive, I arrive refreshed and renewed, and most of all happy which is a great deal better than arriving angry because of a scenario I basically made up in my head.
Another thing I find myself doing a lot recently, is a visualization I do during savasana, the Corpse pose, at the end of nearly every yoga session. I'm usually so loose, warm, and relaxed by this time that it's easy to free my mind. Deep belly breathing is automatic and I can clearly see my body in my mind's eye. When I breathe in, I imagine fresh and pure air free of negativity entering through every pore of my body. When I breathe out, I see the negativity and sadness in the form of grey smoke, pouring out of my body. With each breath, I watch the clear clean air fill up my body, forcing the smoke out until soon enough, there is no more grey smoke anymore. Now, my body is full of positivity and the negativity is expelled, allowing me to start my day over with a new attitude.
It really makes all the difference in the world. Before I started trying, visualization and clearing my mind wasn't worth my time. I wasn't open to it and moreover, I didn't think I'd be any good at it. My visualization skills sucked. I couldn't hold onto an image without having it disappear into the ether of my mind. Now, with practice, I can hold on to the image and work it to my advantage. My patience has increased and my willingness alongside it. There are days where I just can't get into it. I don't push myself. I move on and know there'll be another opportunity where I will succeed.
What are your tips and advice for meditation? Was it hard to begin? What did you do to persevere and find your way?
