Secret to Meditation Series: Part 2-Making Time for Stillness
Now you have weeded the garden, so to speak, we are going to plant some seeds. This next session involves a bit of reflection, and it’s important you are honest. You can’t help yourself find a meditation path if you are still stuck with an idealized vision of what meditation means. If you feel yourself slipping back into the desired end state or a cookie-cutter image of what meditation is, go back to Part 1. Feeling sufficiently ready? Let’s proceed.
Remember a time when you felt internally quiet? I define this as a sense of serenity, peace, and okay-ness. Some of us may have to go back a long way for this, but even if it’s for a moment, write it down. Were you with a friend? On a walk? Try to reverse-engineer the moment, and break it down into its parts. Note the environment, whether you were alone or not. Were you traveling? Or in your home environment? Make a list. Mine looks like this.
Usually alone
Sitting/lying down in a very quiet room
Walking early in the morning/late at night
In the bath/shower
Right when waking up/going to sleep
We are capturing those moments when the mind is quiet, and you are just . . . here, experiencing things. If you have a list of really big moments, like when a child was born — your stimulus tolerance might be really high. If you enjoy just staring at a leaf falling outside your house, you may have a quite low threshold. Neither is good or bad, but it is you.
For our next step, get a sense of how often you are engaging in these activities a week. Use whatever increment of time makes the most sense to you. If you are a caregiver or have a really demanding job, it could only be a few minutes. Retiree or student, maybe you have longer chunks of time at your disposal.
Say you’ve totaled up your stillness moments and you have dedicated around 10 hours a week to those activities that make you feel . . . present. That number doesn’t mean much without perspective. Let’s add some.
Pick up Your Phone
There is a horrifying feature on every phone that tells you how much screen time you’ve been using. It breaks down with accurate detail the type of applications you are using and the length of time you have been using them for. Take a moment and pull that sucker up. Now, I’d like you to compare these two figures. The one where you’ve been cultivating stillness, and the one where you’ve been, er, zoning out. Before you get defensive, know that if you are happy with the way things are, none of these numbers mean very much.
If, however, you are looking to live your life a different way and feel like you need to make some space to do so, this is a highly effective method. Realizing how much time we spend fiddling with, looking at, and refreshing our phones makes the, “I have no time” argument pretty darn weak. The reality is, we spend a lot of time on our phones which could be dragged and dropped into other aspects of our lives.
You’ve done such an amazing job so far. Focus this week on reflecting on this step. How often are you truly feeling stillness? What activities help you get there, and what may be holding you back? Till next time.