Wild and Crazy Thoughts

Meditation, what is it anyway?

Some say it is emptying the mind of all thought, some say it's a way toward a state of peace and still others say they can’t sit still that long.

Of course meditation can be any/all of those and more. Generally, meditation is used to dismantle thoughts that have compulsively taken over and are causing us stress or illness, leaving us in a more peaceful state.

Spiraling down, through doubts and fears

I was inundated with a bout of depressing thoughts, fears, and can’t dos this past week with all that I had to do to ramp up for publication of my new novel, Dance the Dream Awake. I think you could probably tell I was wigging out if you read my last post, Blogger's Block or Puddle of Muddle. My friend, Sunny, slapped me upside the head and quickly stopped the downward cycle.

I began to wonder why these things happen; these debilitating thoughts that come and drive us crazy and make us feel incapacitated in some way.  


Cycling

The fog cleared enough for me to recognize a pattern in the workings of the mind--we cycle through our doubts and fears occasionally (or more often for some) and the one thing that helps me gain back my balance is meditation. I had not been doing it lately with all the to-do things pulling at me.

Listening

I have also been working on writing a different novel, set in Heian Japan, 980 A.D., and the voice of Master Kana (teacher to my samurai) came and said to me, “Be like the reed that bends in the storm that whips through the land. After the winds have died down, it rights itself, stronger than before.”

Don’t you just love that? The characters you make up come and talk to you? They don’t? Well, maybe you need to meditate more.

After I got further relaxed, another character, Akemi, came and gave me some advice while I watched her combing out the hair of my main female character, Miyoshi, “Untangle the knots that have formed in the winds of confusion.”

So I started deep breathing (it felt like I'd been holding my breath for over a week) to free up my chest area of all the constricted feelings there, after which I was able to empty my mind of fears, and limiting thoughts that had gripped and tightened my body.

Then what? Allow Space around you.

I felt the now cleared, space around me, like an artist staring at his empty, white canvas the moment before he begins to apply the paint, asking himself, “How will I approach this painting, what do I want to accomplish today, what feelings do I want to evoke when I finish and look back at it?”

Too many to-dos and not enough for-mes

Finally, I asked myself, “What one thing will I do today for me?” Not the from the shoulds or to-do lists, but for me—on my own personal canvas, just because.

I started to tell you what I was going to do, but then decided no--I will just do it for me.

Meditation--what does that look like for you, or not, if you don’t. C’mon, fess up. How do you relieve stress?

Do you have something you are going to do just for you today?