Fighting through the clutter to find meditation

Three days ago, I rebooted my meditation practise after years of neglect.

I knew how much it mattered. What a difference it makes. And yet, I let it slip until it was just a distant memory of what I "used to do."

Three days ago, that changed. For the first time in years, I sat down and rediscovered why I used to meditate. And it was wonderful. That day. And then the next.

But then today, reality hit -- hard. At first, nothing was different.  I sat down and closed my eyes. I crossed my legs into a lotus and linked my thumb and finger.

The usual stream of thoughts came by, and I acknowledged them and went back to counting breaths. That was when the baggage replaced the stream. Suddenly, my mind was a discordant cacophony of every bad decision I ever made. Every time I behaved badly or spoke without thinking. Every time I let someone down. It felt like I was getting slammed up against the proverbial wall by everything I had ever done wrong. I felt like the worst person on the planet.

I struggled to regain control of my meditation. I counted...or tried to. I  visualzed each number being written on a blackboard, a technique that has worked in the past to get me back on track.

And then, thank goodness, it finally stopped. Or at least that deep dive into the worst of my past stopped. Immediately,a new stream of negativity started. It was the to-do lists. The chores. The job hunt. The projects. The clients. All the should's and have-to's. All the things I OUGHT to be doing right at that moment instead of sitting and meditating. Again, awful!

But I stayed with it. I kept trying to count. I tried to acknowledge and let each thought go by. Nothing worked. Nothing!

Until... I started  to focus on the here and now...the feeling of the breeze. The sound of the cat walking past. The sensation of sitting.

And then it happened. All the negativity stoppped. Just as suddenly as the bombardment started, It stopped.

Whatever it was in me that needed to dredge up all of that ugly dirt and guilt gave up. The peace returned. Thoughts still came by, but they were gentle and random, and quickly moved past. I was not stuck in the past. I was not trying to manage the future. I just was. Finally.

And THAT, that moment of now-ness is the reason I have come back to meditation. The bad stuff can happen only any day. It can happen while you're driving down the road or drifting off to sleep or just watching TV.  It can happen when someone says the wrong thing, or brings up an old hurt.

But the good? Yeah, that's something only meditation can deliver. And I'm so glad to be back.

What matters more: intention or action?

This morning I got to spend a few minutes in meditation, a practice I have neglected of late -- need to fix that.

I wanted to start out with a message or thought of inspiration, so after I lit a candle, I opened my Reform Suddur (prayer book) and randomly read from the inspirational passages. One immediately caught my eye -- actually, just the first couple of lines of it...

It said (and I am paraphrasing, because I don't have the book in front of me now)

The heart must feel the effort long before the legs begin to tire.

I stopped, and re-read it...several times. The phrase "begin with the end in mind" came into my thoughts, a snippet from the many Covey classes I've attended. And I put those two quote together and I thought about how there are, or at least should be, three parts to a deliberate act...

1) The mind. The idea, the decision, the plan.
2) The heart. The commitment. The feeling that one will carry out the idea. The emotions. The soul of our actions.
3) The body. The physical component. The doing. The moving.

I think I get into trouble in my life when I forget to engage all three. For instance, I may "decide" to do something. It could be big like changing my lifestyle or applying for a better job or small like making sure the washer and dryer are empty before bedtime.

And then I jump into action. Doing. And after awhile, the effort falls off. I tire of doing whatever it is, and abandon the plan. Why? I left out the heart, the commitment.

Or I commit to do something without thinking it through, but the effort I make fails or misses the mark. Why? I forgot to engage the mind, to begin with that goal clearly in my mind.

And then there are the times when I think of something, and commit to that something, but fail to act. Without that third component, nothing happens...it becomes just "wishful thinking." Daydreaming.

Finally, there is the jumping into action before I either think it through or commit to acting. And while we can also "overthink" things and mess up that way, not thinking at all seems to be an even greater problem for most of us.

----

I finished my meditation with a visualization of the energy in my body flowing from my head (mind), into my heart, and out into my legs and arms (action) and then looping around again. And I felt calmer and better than I have in weeks.

I never got beyond those two lines in my reading, never touched on official prayers. But that's all okay. Inspiration doesn't need a certain length of words or the repetition of "official prayers." I just need to sit and listen.