Here’s the second thing I will do to help me clear my mind… But trust me, “clearing my mind” was NOT what it did at first…. Meditation.
Okay, I know some of you may be thinking, “Wait. What? Meditating sitting saying ‘Om’ for 30 minutes doesn’t sound at all like fun! And I don’t have the time! I don’t even care about study after study after study saying it’s helpful. I don’t have time.”
That was EXACTLY my thought! Then I ran across davidji and that changed radically.
He makes the suggest of following the RPM method – rise, pee, meditate. In whatever posture you feel most comfortable in. *mind blown*
You mean I DON’T have to sit still in meditation for 30 minutes? I can do it laying down? For 5 minutes? And it still works? That is something I can do!
So I decided to give it a go – in the way it felt most comfortable for ME! That meant laying down in bed with headphones on, or with my iPhone by my head… And the meditations I started with were 15 minutes or less.
Now, I’m NOT a morning person. If I can sleep until 9am, I find quite a lot of gratitude about that! I just LOVE sleeping late.
But back in December, I decided to give this crazy meditation technique a try. And I was surprised to find how much it helped!
I started off, after learning that davidji was on Soundcloud for free, creating a Soundcloud account, then a playlist of the ones I enjoyed and finally, a list of shorter ones when I didn’t want to spend 20 minutes meditating… (Which, at first, was most of the time.)
So, I started to get up earlier – by about 15 minutes – so I could get up, pee, lay back down and do some guided meditation.
At first I didn’t notice much of a difference. My brain would hop all over the place – even during his guiding the meditations. My mornings with the girls (10 & 12) were still a little hectic and I was irritated more often than not. And my goal – peaceful mornings – wasn’t happening.
Then a few weeks in, maybe 3 or 4, I was super tired and didn’t get up to meditate. (I bet you know where this is going…) So I hopped up, told my girls to get up and get going and then went downstairs to get lunches going. But the girls didn’t get up and I yelled up again. And again. And then I lost it. I yelled a bit too loudly and angrily. Needless to say, our morning was anything but calm and peaceful!
And it hit me like a bolt. That was normal for SO long – losing it several mornings a week, getting angry with my girls. And it had shifted so slowly and so gracefully that I hadn’t even noticed that it had been at least 2 weeks since losing it like that! Slowly, over the course of meditating, our mornings had gotten peaceful- exactly the sort of mornings I’d been looking for!
*mind blown again*
Obviously, that recognition gave me the encouragement to keep it going. Now it’s June and, while I don’t meditate every morning before starting my day, I meditate almost every day. And the bonus? On the days I don’t want to or can’t meditate, things have remained calm… I do notice that if I skip 2 or more days, things start to degrade just a little, though, which keeps me on track.
I won’t get into how my meditation is shifting (that’s not the topic right now), but I will say that so many small things have changed that I am beyond grateful to have made this a part of my life! I’m calmer in the face of upset – especially my children. I’m calmer in the face of dealing with changing how I am doing my photography. And I was able to create this blog and release my Facebook page – two HUGE hurdles that freaked me out. And I think that meditation was part of why I could move forward.
And it all started with 10 minute guided mediations laying down in bed.
That’s a pretty good return on my investment!
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What are your thoughts? Do you meditate? Have you thought for a long time about meditating, but you’ve been intimidated? Does this post inspire you or scare you a little?
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