Wellness Series: Meditation
“True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection. This is done by constantly remembering that you are the one inside that [hears the internal dialogue.] That is the way out. The one inside who is aware that you are always talking to yourself is always silent. It is the doorway to the depths of your being. To be aware you are watching the voice talk is to stand on the threshold of a fantastic inner journey. “
-- Michael Singer, “The Untethered Soul”
Hey guys! I hope you are all doing well lately. I have been trying to think of something to write about for a while now, and of course all that has really come to me has been moments in nature that have felt restorative. I might share a snap shot of that, but I am going to try to stray outside the comfortable and share some of the other things that have been on my mind. You guys have gotten a lot of nature from me lately.
I have been feeling increasingly healthy in my own life lately, which is pretty awesome. I have quit some bad habits, and I am eating healthier, getting better rest, and treating myself more kindly overall. I still have some work to do with drinking water, let’s be honest. And I want to work on meditation/actively observing the world around me.
I have been kicking myself a little lately about not taking time to meditate and to practice yoga. These two activities have helped me so much in the past, and I know that I am one of the best versions of myself when I more actively included these practices in my life. I feel like I hibernate in winter, that I am a light bulb never fully charged.
I felt like my charge was always more full when I was practicing mindfulness -- or meditation. I used to think that the master meditators trained with the end goal of silence. I thought that the more advanced the meditator, the better he would be at creating a blankness in the mind. But, I was surprised when one of my friends back home suggested the opposite -- that meditation was not about silencing the thoughts, but in fact was about observing the thoughts. Paying attention to them!
After this talk, my friend suggested that the class do a meditation side-by-side around the perimeter of the room, each of us facing the wall, and it was powerful in a way that I would not have predicted. We all realized that we hated listening to our internal dialogues, that we felt we had to look at something else, that we had to move. We heard our hearts beating in our ears, noticed our fingers small movements as we sat for ten minutes and looked at the blank white before us. We felt an innate, taunting, screaming desire to DO SOMETHING.
Eventually the restlessness faded, and I listened to my own thoughts. I observed them. My friend who was leading the yoga class recommended that we make a brief note if certain thoughts came up a few times, but to let them pass as they came, without intent of manipulating their path. We stood side by side, forgot about each other, and began to listen to ourselves.
This meeting seemed to most clearly explain to me why meditation is so powerful. We learn to observe without judgment again. We learn to live in the now, not in the then. And, as we listen to ourselves, our voices become less urgent, and we inevitably grow as we learn to let the speaker and the listener live in harmony at last.
