See? It’s so easy even hamsters can do it.Raise your hands if you have meditated this month. At all. I’m serious. I want to see hands, people. Now, how many of you have meditated every day? For all of you that lack the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum, I am not raising my hand. Sigh. I know. What is it about meditation that is so &%*$&#$ hard?!?
I think the problem is that it is too easy.
See, all of my previous Experiments have required real effort to do them. I had to go places, schedule classes, read books, get equipment, print workouts, e-mail (read: pester) various experts and talk things over ad nauseum with the Gym Buddies. Sometimes I even had to convert kilograms to pounds. You know a workout is serious business if it requires math. But with meditation it’s so simple – just sitting quietly and consciously for 15 minutes a day – that I push it aside to make room for the more complicated things.
Determined to make meditation work, at first I tried to remedy this problem by making meditation more complicated. I decided to read books and research papers about it, ask questions of Zen masters and explore different types of meditation. All of which I faithfully did… instead of meditating.
Obviously this wasn’t working. I decided to bring in the big guns. Sensei Don told me at the beginning of my Karate Experiment that meditation was a big part of Karate; that eventually you get so good at Karate you can meditate while killing people. Those may not have been his exact words but you get the idea. So at my last lesson I asked him about how to meditate Karate style. Of course I asked this at the end of a long, sweaty class when it was late and everyone was tired, not to mention sitting on their heels which meant that our legs were also falling asleep.
“Well, it’s called Zazen meditation,” he politely started. “And it’s complicated, so I don’t really have time to go into tonight.”
Complicated? Requires explanation? Fancy name? I was thrilled! I raced home and fired up Google to check out this special form of meditation. Here is what I learned: “The aim of zazen is just sitting.”
Um, what?
Well if you want to be techinical about it, “The aim of zazen is just sitting and opening the hand of thought.” Okay then.
Zazen meditation has three levels. The beginning level is concentration. This is where most guided meditations start you. You focus on counting breaths or visualizing a peaceful scene or if you are heavily into musical theater, a pink mist flowing in and out of you. The next level up is introspection. You turn your focus inward in acknowledging – but not dwelling on – your feelings past, present and future. Want to know what the top level is? Just sitting. Being able to just sit without any other contrivance. Apparently this is very difficult to do. I believe them.
Anyone who knows me in real life knows one thing about me: I am very bad at sitting. Very very bad. For instance, I don’t watch TV or movies. I haven’t seen a television show or movie, other than the rare BBC or PBS documentary, in over two years. Most people assume that I avoid television because I am some kind of cultural ascetic. The truth is that I just can’t sit still through them. (Unless it’s Law and Order: SVU and then I’m glued to the screen. And then I’m glued to my husband all night while I have nightmares. He’s actually banned me from watching that program, ever.)
All I can think about while sitting in a movie theater is all the other things I could be doing and how contrived the plot is and I wonder if I could knit in the dark, I mean they say that Helen Keller could knit so it must be possible and I would love a new soft sweater and WHEN IS THIS SHOW GOING TO BE OVER ALREADY I HAVE KNITTING TO DO! If people force me to watch a movie (’cause my friends are totally the type to sit on me and tape my eyelids open, aren’t yours?), I make the best use of my time and fall asleep. I can’t help it, I’ve always been this way! In college I had a serious reputation as a movie-induced narcoleptic.
It’s not that I’m ADHD. I can focus like a laser on things that interest me but for some reason I focus better when I’m moving.
So. Meditation. I am convinced that it is an important, nay vital, skill for me to learn. About a week ago, when I realized that I was failing my own Experiment, I decided to just make it a priority. I would have to schedule it. At first it felt onerous. Why am I just sitting here? I could be… blogging about sitting here! But I did it anyhow.
And then yesterday happened. I won’t go into all the details but it was a rotten awful day. Bad news from many fronts, obnoxious children (mine, of course) and frustration on every level. My normal coping technique when things go very badly is to go workout. But I had already used up all my gym hours in the morning and my husband wasn’t home and the weather was too cold to go outside. I couldn’t exercise. I felt the panic start rising – my stomach clenched, I felt nauseous and my heart raced.
I locked myself in my room (Mommy’s in time out! Go eat cookies or something!), said a quick prayer and then meditated. At first it was a real struggle. I actually cried with the effort of calming myself down (anyone who has had a panic attack knows exactly what I’m talking about). My thoughts were such a cacaphony that I tasted blood before I realized I’d just chewed a hole in my lip. But then all my practice started to kick in. Since I’m only at the beginning level of meditation, I focused on breathing deeply in and out while picturing a serene lake nearby where I grew up. I just sat there and breathed.
My effort was rewarded with an overwhelming sense of calm and peace. A couple of times I opened my eyes but the feelings threatened to overwhelm me again and so I returned to my zen state until at last I could open my eyes and continue to feel safe. And that’s really what it was – a deep, sure feeling of safety. My panic was gone, my calm restored and none of my children were beaten. I didn’t even need to eat half a bag of chocolate chips like I normally do when I’m feeling that frazzled! Success on every front!
I’m officially a convert. Meditation is a powerful tool. Hopefully I can remember this and stick with it. It’s not about being perfect at it or even knowing everything about it. It’s just about doing it.
So how is your meditation practice going? Anyone else experience anything good? Anyone else catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror and fall over laughing?? It’s not to late to jump in on this month’s Experiment!
I saw the title and was like, “****, I knew I forgot to do something this month.” I am glad you found your zen….I have yet too. We are so alike! I can’t stand sitting through most movies, have to get up and move around, so many more important things to do. I used to be able to crochet a bit with no light either.
Oh drat… I forgot. Maybe if I’d been meditating I wouldn’t have had that panic attack last week. Alright, I’m gonna try for real now.
Sounds like yesterday was a pretty crazy day. I'm so glad you SAT & BREATHED, even if it took locking yourself in your room to do it.
We are so alike in that I cannot sit still either. I rarely watch TV, and when I do sit down on the couch with my husband, I'm constantly getting up to add things to my to-do list. However, I do find that if I have some quiet time, either in the morning or right before I go to bed, I am a much happier person. So, I'm grateful for your breakthrough today. Keep it up Charlotte!
Hi Charlotte,
I’m one of those lurking readers and this is my first time to comment (love your blog! and all that). I wanted to share this movie with you and your faithful readers: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html
It is Matthieu Ricard, the so-called happiest man on earth, talking about the nature of happiness. Basically, his message is that emotions as pleasure, sadness and panic are in essence fleeting. You can train yourself to use positive emotions to cancel out negative ones, and of course that’s very valuable, but the basic value of mind is neither positive nor negative. You want to find the still place, the “deep sense of serenity that underlies all emotional states, all joys and all sorrows that come ones way”.
And this is something that can be learned. You can train it. Mind training = meditation. His most interesting observation, given your blog: “we spend a lot of time on education, on fitness, on trying to stay beautiful. Yet we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most: the way the mind functions, which is the ultimate thing that determines our experience”.
So don’t think of meditation as sitting still. Think of it as the toughest workout you’ll have each day (for me it is. Even the hardest physical effort seems like a breeze compared to taming the whirlwind that is my mind!). Think of it as training, the most important kind of training you can do.
I have found this really difficult as well. I have a total MONKEY MIND. I can get my head not to fret about stuff but invariable start thinking “the walls need to be painted” or just random unimportant like that.
Im amazed at your breakthrough yesterday. Im almost there—but not yet.
I tried meditating once this month and it was horrible. About 1 minute into it my sweat pants started to feel so uncomfortable it hurt and then other clothes started to follow. Anyway, I ended up half naked, shaking, and crying after about 2 minutes. From the sounds of it, I probably could benefit from some meditation, but after this experience, I don’t really have any motivation.
I have monkey brain, too, and find it difficult to meditate.
One thing that might help is the photo I posted on my blog this morning….
I'm having a tough time with official meditation, too. I managed one or two days last week, and have counted the two or three days of yoga each week as days with meditation. My brain hops around like MizFit's MONKEY MIND.
I'm trying, but have more luck putting myself in a peaceful place with silence during activity. Turning off the music during the middle of a run, or the white noise of the chain & gear on my sunny day ride. Even ironing in complete quiet after the kids go to bed has been more restful than official meditating.
Still working at it, and am relieved to read I'm not the only one.
I used to meditate every day, but somewhere along the line I stopped making it a priority. So your challenge came at a great time for me personally. I’ve managed to make it all but one day this month, and I think I might have fallen asleep yesterday, but at least I tried!
Meditation can be tricky, because it requires a lot of mental effort in the beginning. Once the art of letting go of your thoughts kicks in, it becomes easier. Not everyone will feel anything special or spectacular the first time out, or even the first month of their practice. But they will still reap the rewards.
If anyone wants a guide to zazen and other forms of meditation, I suggest the book “The Best Guide to Meditation” by Victor Davich. It’s a great resource providing history, mental exercises, and lots of different techniques. I’ve read it through about 3 times and always learn something new.
I have to meditate every night when I go to sleep…but this month (and I’ve only done it a handful of times), I’ve been sitting up in bed, crossed-legged and meditating before I lay down to go to sleep. I have to admit I get really sleepy, but it does help me clear my mind! Since I am ADHD, the only thing that helps me get to sleep is to think of a midnight-blue circle. I know, it sounds crazy, but it totally turns my mind off. Plus I love the color, and whenever my thoughts start to flee I snap them back to that blue circle damnit! 🙂
I’m so glad you were able to meditate yesterday…and so sorry that you had to endure a panic attack! My next challenge is to try meditating during the day sometime.
I also read your blog daily but this is my first comment…well actually I think I have commented twice before but under anonymous. Anyways, I have been trying really hard to meditate but my brain can’t stop thinking…I have the same problem at night when I want to go to bed, sometimes I have to stay up real late so I get so tired I can just pass out. But I’m going to keep trying maybe it will come to me.
Love your blog!!
I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about meditating. Sometimes I even meditate. I set my timer for ten minutes and if I’m lucky, I’m only 6 or 7 minutes in before I’m back to cleaning the dishes in the sink or online. You have inspired me to try it again,right now, before I get in the shower. Can I meditate while I shower? You know, so I can be getting something else done at the same time? 🙂
Running is my Zazen! I’ve reached that meditative state with quiet meditation, doing kata, and with very intense horseback riding. It’s all about focus for me. Perhaps a guided meditation would be helpful for those that can’t just quiet their mind. It’s all about repetitive practice, I imagine.
I’ve tried.
It’s hard to get my brain to shut up.
I’m crazy busy at work, and having one of those horrible days where nothing is flowing smoothly (I call it an AAaaarrgh Day!!) So I don’t have time to read your post fully, just had to say that yes, I have tried to meditate this month, and it is bloody impossible! I think my mind goes onto overdrive as soon I try to clear it!! It’s like starvation mode for the imagination!! 🙂 I think I need to find a calming activity to help me focus.
I started meditating last fall when I started not being able to breathe (anxiety). I joined a meditation group for people with anxiety. They recommended an excellent book – The Mindful Way Through Depression (substitute anxiety if that’s what you have) by Zinn (I think, I know it’s a Z at least). It’s not so much the book that’s great, because I haven’t actually read it. But it comes with a cd that you can pop in and it will guide you through meditation. I remember one day I got home from work (and my commute was always the hardest part of the day) and I was having lots of trouble breathing. I popped in the body scan meditation and by the end of the half hour, I could breathe again.
I don’t meditate as much as I did, but that’s more because I’m breathing better now. But the thing is, before I started meditating, what I thought it was all about was getting your mind blank, being filled with energy, pink mist, whatever. And so when I was meditating and my mind started wandering all over the place, I thought I was doing it wrong and I’d get frustrated.
But what I learned was that I’m only human. And minds wander, it’s a fact of life. Especially if you have a crazy busy life and it’s hard to sit still, it’s hard to just tell yourself to sit still and focusing on your breathing. I mean, seriously, are you kidding me? Think about nothing but breathing? Yeah, right. Now, I know my mind is going to wander, and when I realize it is, I just focus on the breathing again until it wanders, then I bring it back. It helps.
I got to the gym a little early yesterday, and I sat down against one of the walls and just closed my eyes and breathed for a few minutes. I felt a little silly, especially because everyone around me was doing some kind of exercise, but it actually felt really good.
Good luck! And excellent work at finding your zen yesterday!
That last picture reminded me of those Deep Thought by Jack Handey sketches on old SNL episodes. “If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
My counselor is going to teach me some meditating tricks next week, so this post was very timely for me :).
I don’t meditate in the traditional sense, but more in the “zen-garden” sense. That is, my meditation is acheived through action, i.e. – some days cooking is my meditation, some days working in the garden, some days my step aerobics class is. For me it is really all about clearing my mind of all the extraneous things and focusing. To do that, I do not have to sit still and try and picture something and fight with my mind to quiet it. It is so much easier to achieve that state by focusing on something – I get there much more organically. I hope that makes sense. 🙂
Meditation IS hard! I get restless too.
But last night I went to my first aikido practice (!!!), and though I was just observing they spent some time meditating so I joined in on that. Just focusing on emptying/clearing the mind and all.
I found it to be such an invigorating and powerful experience, though, when I did get around to doing it!
I like Dr. J’s idea of meditating while doing routine exercise. When I used to swim regularly, I’d get into a rhythm that kept the body occupied while the mind was free to think Deep Thoughts.
Also, I was considering trying to do some kind of spinning meditation. Slowly pedalling on one of those stationery bikes at the gym to calming music can give something to focus on apart from breathing.
So sorry to hear you had an awful day, and glad to hear the meditation helped!
I’m still in the “meaning to do it” camp. I have to be honest with myself; it just doesn’t seem to be enough of a priority right now, even though I know it would be good for me.
Someday…
I find it really difficult to sit and meditate in silence, but I find that some of the meditation podcasts that you can find on iTunes are very helpful. I especially like Meditation Oasis, by Mary Maddux. She’s really good at reminding you periodically that if your mind is wandering, you should bring it back to focus on meditation.
Like anything else, meditation takes practice. It’s much more than just sitting still with your eyes closed!
I’m so sorry about your rotten day! (Maybe there was something in the air, ’cause yesterday pretty much sucked all around.)
And may I say, GOOD ON YA!!!!! Way to deal with your panic attack! That is AMAZING!!!!!!!!
I’ve been meditating on and off. (And also been reading about it.) It really does work,lol!
Have you ever heard of walking meditation? I haven’t tried it yet, but it might be useful for those of us who have trouble sitting still.
*tentatively raises her hand* Yes, I have meditated once per day, but I have only done yoga once this month. I’ll do 20-minutes tonight, k? Promise. 😉
Btw, your reply to my Letter to Running made me smile and brightened my morning.
I find it really hard too, due to monkey brain! Usually, within about 3 minutes I either give up or fall asleep. It’s hard not to get mad at yourself when your thoughts wander… I have read you are supposed to acknowledge the thought and let it go… so hard!! Congratulations on your breakthrough.
awww look at that little hamsterface!
i cant meditate. i cant even keep my mouth shut or my feet still for 5 minutes.
Kelly Turner
http://www.everygymsnightmare.com
Err, I had really meant to do it. I did make it through corpse pose in yoga instead of getting up and turning on the shower! Does it count that I’ve been practically comatose on the couch when not at work? That I’m doing really mind numbing, zen work right now? All excuses, I know.
It’s just hard to make time for it when I’m not stressed. I should be taking this sick time off for simple yoga and meditation, but I’ve just enjoyed the break from *everything*.
I used to fall asleep in movie theatres too. I also used to only sleep 4 hours max a night – not hard to figure out why now!
[Raises hand] Yes, I’ve meditated almost every day this month.
Like you, it’s torture for me to have to sit still and watch TV when there’s so much else I could be doing. And like you I was hoping that researching meditation would count and that I could do that instead of actually trying to meditate!
But I did it and I’m so glad I did. For me, it’s all about forgetting about my to-do list and all the other stuff just for a little bit. It can wait, it really can. The world is not going to end if I stop planning out the next ten things I’m going to do. I’ve already (over)planned them anyway and I can forget about them for 10 minutes because I will certainly be able to remember them again after.
I’ve been doing yoga and I find it very meditative (I think all exercise is). Because you are focusing on your body and balance and breath you (well, I) tend to forget about all the noise in your head.
Since I started meditating more formally and regularly I’ve been able to take that calmness with me into the rest of my life. I gave up my food journal which I hadn’t missed a day filling out in 9 months. I thought I would have anxiety over not using it but I’ve had only happiness. It kinda rocks.
Great Experiment!!!
Oh and I meant to say I tried your Muscle Endurance Workout yesterday and it was killer! Loved the Bench Jumps – that was a new one for me and I love Plyo.
But oh dear, I couldn’t do the Tricep Hover very well at all, nevermind for the entire minute. Weak spot found! I’ll be hovering regularly now until I can do the minute.
Um. What? Me? Signed up?
Oh. Right.
I have not meditated at ALL this month. I keep forgetting until the middle of the morning at work (and I don’t think I could explain it to my boss if I suddenly sat on the floor and crossed my legs – ha!).
But I’ve done it regularly in the past, and it really does help with life in general. I’m not sure why I’m having such a hard time getting back into it now.
But regarding the difficulty of sitting quietly, there’s a woman named Michele Meiche that does the ONLY meditation CDs I’ve found that worked for me and weren’t annoying. Her website is:
http://www.selfinlight.com/
Well. I have been meditating. Occasionally. But my mind chatters along with everyone else’s, plus I have a hard time shaking the feeling that I should be doing something useful.
This gets better if I actually practice. A lot. But there’s a whole chicken/egg thing there…
Also, the meditating hamster is absolutely the cutest picture ever.
Awesome. Those of us who have the hardest time doing it, need it the most. If you think “it’s not for me”, it’s for you more than anyone.
That’s so great you made it through to get some peace! Great job!
You can alway give Tai Chi a shot if meditation is too hard. By definition it’s meditation while in movement!
Read your blog after I had been on a weekend retreat at a Buddhist monastary and it made me laugh! Yes it is hard-much harder than working out every day. It’s the simplicity of it that is so demanding and yes I too find it almost impossible to sit still. Try a retreat- it’s easier to get a start when the whole set up is geared to helping you and the benifits are enormous-especially if you can be manic. Good sitting!
jp – thanks for the suggestion; as soon as my kidlets become self sufficient for periods longer than 10 minutes I will seriously consider a retreat;)
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I was image googling “Peace, nature, meditate” and came across the babbling brook photo. Hope its okay to share it! Just sitting. Just typing. Right-clicking on “Submit.” Then peeing!
🙂
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Hey there! I realize this is somewhat off-topic however I
had to ask. Does managing a well-established blog like yours require a
lot of work? I am completely new to writing a blog but I do write in my diary daily.
I’d like to start a blog so I can share my own experience and feelings online. Please let me know if you have any kind of suggestions or tips for new aspiring blog owners. Appreciate it!
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I recommend to everyone wanting to learn how to meditate to watch this video, it’s about meditating in a minute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6eFFCi12v8
Also reading/listening to the book The Power of Now.
Cheers!