I've talked with friends before about the power of our thoughts. LeeAnn - what was the name of the guy who writes about this? It makes sense - happy people are thinking positively. Unhappy people are not. All that being said, it's really hard to do.
I had been thinking that maybe meditation would be helpful, but wasn't really sure where to start. I knew that it would help me get in control of the things I would think throughout the day, but there's so much information out there about it that it was kind of overwhelming. The other day though, I had dinner with my old principal before I presented to her class of TFA teachers. At dinner, she told me about how she meditates and gave me a website to look into, so I did that yesterday.
This type meditation is called passage meditation. You basically choose a passage from any of the world's religions and then you meditate on that. There are many passages on the website, and one reason I really like them is because they come from all the world's religions. So in any of the passages when they say "God" it can be whatever God you believe in. Any higher power. Any way you find spirituality. Yesterday I chose this passage:
I chose this passage for a few reasons: One, it was short and I thought it would be easy to start with a short passage first. I also chose this passage because there's a line in there about how 'patience attains the goal.' That line really stuck with me and I liked it. It's hard to be patient waiting for something you really want. Hopefully by keeping this front and center in my thoughts, it will help me remember to be grateful for all that I do have...
Yesterday I practiced the passage enough to have it mostly memorized. I decided that when I woke up this morning I would do the meditation first. It says you're supposed to meditate for 30 minutes, but don't do more even if you're doing really well and want to.
Even in my groggy state, I woke up this morning all excited for my new routine. I grabbed a pillow from my couch and sat down on the living room floor. I crossed my legs and sat up straight. I had the passage in front of me in case I forgot it. I softly closed my eyes and began to recite the passage in my mind. The first few times, I had to keep opening up my eyes to look at the passage, but after that I got the hang of it.
Then the trouble happened: a firetruck went by. Itch on my arm. I could hear the fan buzzing in the background. I wondered if I should blog about this? I needed to crack my neck. So I opened my eyes and looked at the clock.
Five minutes had passed. Five minutes...for a first-timer, is that a long time? Five minutes of thirty? THIRTY? I didn't want to throw in the towel, so I decided to continue. Hey - I'm not good at it right now, but it's my first try. Five minutes trumps two, which trumps never starting, right?
I shut my eyes to try again. I went through the passage once or twice, slowly towards the end because I kept forgetting it. Whenever I slowed down, that's when my mind wandered. I thought about the dream I had this morning. Another itch. Scratched my head. Thought, "Wow, my nails are really long! I wish the girl who did my manicure would have trimmed them. They're already chipping. FOCUS MICHELLE! Think about the words of the passage. Concentrate on them. Keep going." So I did. I kept going. For sure, I got through the entire passage fluently once without forgetting it and only thinking about the words. Or, if my mind started to wander, I thought that I needed to pay better attention to the words. I did it once, but it was exhausting.
I opened my eyes. 11 minutes. I decided to be done for today.
Meditation isn't an easy thing to do. Training the mind to do what you want it to do is ridiculously hard, actually. But, tomorrow I will try again, and shoot for 12 minutes. And in the meantime, I will remember the passage and do my best to live in that way.
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