Mindmatters2's Blog

Days 44-47

mindmatters2 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:43:59 +0000

As you can see, I’ve started letting my good intentions (to blog every morning) slide …

Day 44 (Thursday)

Tried a CD of mindful meditations that a friend gave me – I hated it! It was similar to the type of meditation I’ve been doing, but more directed, and with more purpose. For example, instead of just directing your mind to the breath and noticing what it was doing, this CD invited you to then relax, deepen the breathing, etc, which I found most annoying. It also had some ghastly phrases directed at the cells, telling them to ‘heal themselves’. Given my dislike of the words it was quite hard to meditate mindfully.

Day 45 (Friday)

Went back to Sue’s CD today and did the 20-minute breath meditation in bed before going off to work. Attempted, not very successfully, to be mindful while playing tennis at lunchtime.

Day 46 (Saturday)

Woke up at 5am with my mind racing (I drank too much at a friend’s dinner party the previous evening). MrG was in bed beside me, so I couldn’t turn on the CD and instead I ran through a bodyscan in my head, as suggested by someone at the class. It was great – it calmed me down and I was pleased to have got the meditation done so early in the day. Once I’d finished, I went back to sleep and slept soundly for several hours.

Day 47 (Sunday)

The first day that I didn’t meditate at all. I ‘stopped’ once (while gardening) and managed to be mindful to some extent while doing my exercises (I actually put the sound on and listened to the teacher on the video – usually I have the video on without the sound and watch TV while I exercise).

Days 41-43

mindmatters2 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:46:08 +0000

Day 41 (Monday)

Today, for the first time since starting the course, I didn’t meditate. I think partly it just felt too much, with the day squeezed between Sunday’s all-day meditation and Tuesday’s class. I did ‘stop’ a couple of times during the day, and also got my daughter to do the first five minutes of the walking meditation with me.

Day 42 (Tuesday)

Tonight was the seventh of the eight classes. We started with a ‘silent sit’ and Sue invited us to run ourselves through a body scan while we sat there. I did that and the 20 minutes flew by – by the time it finished I had only got to my torso! We also talked a lot about the all-day meditation. It was interesting to find what a different experience it was for different people – some had felt really relaxed, others, like me, had found it brought up some buried emotions. Finally, we talked about what we value, and whether how we’re living now accords with our values. Where there’s a mismatch, Sue invited us to think of one thing we could do differently to bring our actions more in line with our values. I decided to talk more to my parents about things that matter.

Day 43 (Wednesday)

Did the breath meditation today, but as usual, with lots of time on my hands, I left it till the end of the day. Finally got round to it at about 8pm and struggled through the first 20 minutes, with my mind buzzing and feeling exceedingly impatient, then really enjoyed about 5 minutes of the second part, before giving up and going off to cook dinner.

Day 40

mindmatters2 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:42:42 +0000

Today was the big day – the silent meditation, which I’ve been dreading, particularly for the past couple of weeks, since I found out that it involved being silent all day. It was a strange day. I had expected to be bored, restless and itching to talk. None of that happened. I took off my watch at the start of the day and was happy to just go with the flow. The time seemed to go quite quickly, the people were lovely and the food was fabulous.

The odd thing was that I felt quite detatched and as though somehow I wasn’t really meditating (it was all too strange). Also, when we lay down for the very first meditation, I immediately became tearful – that happened several times during the day and I had no idea why. I tried doing the triangle of awareness and came up with feeling tearful, having a tightness in my chest and thinking ‘why am I so upset’. I’m really not sure what that was about, except that I have a lot of regrets about my daughter and my life in general, and I think they maybe took that opportunity to pop into my brain.

The time wasn’t an issue, except when we were told to do a walking meditation – I felt quite panicked at the idea that I’d got to do this under my own steam. I went outside and almost came straight back in because it was so cold and windy, but instead walked down to the water and managed to focus on the walking itself, rather than on the unpleasant sensations of cold and wind (had a sense of being detached from that). Overall, it was a good experience and I hope to go along to the next one, as a returning graduate.

Day 39

mindmatters2 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:33:01 +0000

Again, did the breath meditation first thing, sitting up in bed – even listened to a small part of Part 3 of that meditation, which was a fist. I’ve noticed that doing the full meditation early in the morning makes me feel extremely virtuous, but that I then put it out of my mind, and am less likely to ‘stop’ or to do activities mindfully. Prepared for tomorrow’s all-day silent meditation with some trepidation – I find the 2.5 hour class long, so am wondering how I’ll cope with a whole day, especially when I won’t be able to talk!

Days 37-38

mindmatters2 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:48:22 +0000

Day 37 (Thursday)

Again, did the breath meditation first thing. Given that it’s still pretty cold in the morning I did it sitting up in bed, and managed to do the two meditations, which take 40 minutes in total. Stayed fairly focused and felt good about it.

Did a bit more mindful running with the dog (will have to expand this to other activities soon!) and ‘stopped’ a few times during the day.

Day 38 (Friday)

Went to a design course today on my bike, which meant that I had to leave the house early. I decided to do all the jobs I needed to do first, then see whether I had time to meditate (a new approach for me, normally I’d do the meditation first,then dash about trying to fit 30-minutes worth of jobs into 5 minutes of time). Found I didn’t have time, so cycled off to the course, doing a bit of mindful cycling along the way (helped by the fact that my iPod has packed up). When I got home, did the moving and stretching meditation straight away. I’m pleased to feel a new sense of giving priority to the meditation practice.

Day 36

mindmatters2 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:58:21 +0000

Kept to my resolution and meditated first thing in the morning – did a body scan in bed and stayed awake for the whole thing. Having a different mindset and thinking about it being something that I’m doing as a gift to myself seems to make it easier to do. I also feel better during the day knowing that I’ve done the main meditation. In turn, that seems to free me up to make space for doing the other things, like being mindful and ‘stopping’.

Did a bit of mindful running with the dog and was mindful for about a minute of my shower – that’s real progress! ‘Stopped’ a few times during the day at work and again at home.

Days 33-35

mindmatters2 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:21:08 +0000

Day 33 (Sunday)

Made more of an effort today and did the whole of the moving and stretching meditation. Also managed some mindful mulching and planting in the garden.

Day 34 (Monday)

Another of those days where I had plenty of time but didn’t end up meditating until late. Fitted in a quick walking meditation at about 10.30pm after spending the evening swing dancing and going to a restaurant with my daughter, then trying to sort out a work issue. Was too wound up by the work issue and couldn’t calm down.

Day 35 (Tuesday)

Went to the 6th of the 8 classes tonight. Hated it because I was feeling really tired and run down. Didn’t talk to anyone and kep thinking I’d leave, but then hung on because it seems to be really important to me to complete the whole thing. I was glad I stayed because one of the later exercises was to fill out a sheet about why we’re not doing something that we value, and Sue instructed us to use meditation practice as the valued item. That was helpful – I realised that I much prefer to do the meditation early in the day, but for some unknown reason have stopped doing that, and instead stress all day about when to fit it in. I committed to meditating early in the day and to completing my blog the next morning, rather than leaving it for several days.

Sue also mentioned that we should look on the practice as a gift to ourselves, rather than as feeling as though it was something we should be doing but couldn’t get round to (like a visit to the gym).

Am still nervous about the all-day silent meditation on Sunday, but am trying to just accept those feelings.

Days 30-32

mindmatters2 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:04:04 +0000

I seem to have been too busy to blog for a few days, so here is a summary of the past three days.

Day 30 (Thursday) - Had another go at doing the first two parts of the breath meditation, which together take 38 minutes. The first part focuses on the breath, the second part moves out to focus on the whole body, so it was good to practice doing that. ‘Stopped’ a few times during the day, and had a mindful run with the dog.

Day 31 (Friday) – Didn’t have much time today, so just fitted a walking meditation into the evening schedule. Again, ‘stopped’ a few times and did my mindful dog running. Have been thinking quite a bit about the issue with MrG that I handled different last week. As far as I can understand the approach, the thing to do is to say ‘Okay, I’m seething, that must mean something, I should sit with that feeling to work out where I’m feeling it and how it’s affecting me’. It’s thus okay to seeth – acting out that feeling (by being silent or going to the opposite extreme and banging things about) is not acceptable.

I continue to feel that the meditation is giving me space to approach things differently, and tonight MrG said some of the things that I’d been thinking about the issue I seethed about last week. This was progress – if I’d said those things, he’d have denied them.

Day 32 (Saturday) – Sometimes I feel that the more time I have available, the harder it is to get round to meditating. If I’m working, then I have to fit it in before or after work, and because of the problem of my legs twitching at night, I tend to go for the earlier time. However, if I’m home all day, then I don’t feel pressured to get it done, but then find that the day is passing and I haven’t done it. That’s what happened on Saturday, and I ended up attempting the breath meditation at about 8.30pm, while MrG was cooking. I managed to get to about 10 minutes into the second part before giving up because of my legs, so not an ideal scenario.

Day 29

mindmatters2 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:38:21 +0000

I wasn’t working today, and only had a couple of things to do during the day, but didn’t get round to the meditation as I felt tired and had an incipient migraine (again, a situation where doing a meditation probably would have been a good thing). Then got a call inviting me to dinner, which was lovely, but meant I ended up doing the movement meditation at about 10pm, after 2 glasses of wine – that was a challenge!

Forgot to ‘stop’ or to do anything mindfully today, must try harder at both those things.

Day 28

mindmatters2 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:18:54 +0000

Went to the fifth of the eight classes tonight. Started off badly, nodded off about 5 times during the first meditation – which was in semidarkness, focusing on a candle. However, after that it got a great deal better. We spent some time writing down how we’re going with the different types of meditation, mindfulness activities and ‘stopping’. I noted that it had given me space to react differently to the situation with MrG, and was amazed to find that the next session was about exactly that – mindfulness providing a space before you react to a thought or a situation. I was so rapt by the confluence between what I’d written and what Sue was telling us that I just had to share my experience with the class. That was really helpful, because I realised that the anger I’d felt was quite valid, even tho’ the way I expressed it probably wasn’t (ie being very grumpy around MrG), whereas previously I’d been thinking it wasn’t good to feel so furiously angry.