So I am going to go on a little rant today. As I was scrolling through Facebook this morning I saw an advertisement for mediation. As I am always the curious one I clicked on the video to see if they had anything new, anything little tidbit I could pick up, a new method, a new tool, a new anything. I love adding things and having a variety of options to choose from. And we all learn from each other, all the time. As I opened the video and started listening the first thing I hear her say is, “when you meditate correctly….” I am like WHAT??? Correctly??? Meditate correctly? ALL meditations are correct. If it is your intention to meditate, whatever you do after that is a meditation. It is yours, you own it, you are doing what is right for your body, your mind, your soul. You are doing it for YOU!!! You cannot screw this up!!
Ok, so I am done with my rant. As you maybe can tell this is one thing that can ruffle my feathers. AND it is probably because it is so personal to me. I took a long time to start meditating. There was just so much junk around it…am I doing it correctly? What if I screw it up? What if I can’t sit there quietly? What if I can’t shut down my thoughts? What if I don’t do it right? What if it is not perfect??? You get the idea. The biggest block was that I had this idea that I had to quiet all those voices in my head, that it had to be silent to be doing meditation correctly. At that time, I felt that it was an impossible task AND it is AND that is not your goal….WHAT? I thought you were supposed to have a silent mind.
Well maybe some people, gurus, mystics, enlightened beings can do that, however I’m putting money on the fact that they can’t. The goal in meditation is to quiet the mind. To have thoughts, but maybe not as many. To have thoughts, to notice them, then send them on…not creating a story around them, not to creating an emotional spiral around them, just notice them and let them go.
I have been meditating for a while now and just this morning as I am sitting in meditation, enjoying the colors, enjoying the sensations….a thought pops into my head, “what do we need to get a Sam’s Club today?” Now in the past I would have created this story- “we need stuff for Easter dinner, ham, green beans- wait a minute- Andrew doesn’t like green beans, but I love green beans, well maybe I’ll do 2 vegetables, but that is more work, I don’t want more work, so I’ll just have one vegetable, but I want Andrew to be happy…..” Pretty soon my timer goes off and my meditation is complete. This morning, I just said, “we will figure out that later.” And I let it go. Sometimes I can’t let it go, so in the middle of my meditation I will open my eyes, grab a piece of paper and write it down, then close my eyes and go back to meditating.
Again, you CANNOT screw this up. If your intention is to meditate, whatever you do after that is mediation. Your meditation can be anything that serves you. It can be long or short. You can sit or lie down or stand up. You can have your eyes open or shut. You can see colors or not. You can feel things or not. You can have as many thoughts as you have or not- just remember try to stop it from turning into a story. Stay tuned as I will share what I do, what friends do, what other teachers do in meditation. You can pick whatever works for you that day- remember it may be something different the next day. You set the intention whatever you do is correct- you can’t screw this up!!
-Chelle