2016 | Leave It OPEN
“See what happens to you when you don’t do the things that make you comfortable.
What you’ll see is why you’re doing them.”
The Struggle Is Real
Be present, I tell myself.
I'm trying, I reply back, irritated.
Great. I'm talking to myself.
Well, technically, I'm thinking to myself, I correct, smugly.
Chatter. Chatter. Chatter.
I struggle and fidget, like a six-year-old trying her best to stay still during the church service, when all she really wants to do is go jump in the mud, eat a Sunday School cookie, drink the left over Communion grape juice--whatever. Anything but sit still.
But I'm not six, and this isn't a church service. I'm just fumbling my way through my morning meditation practice, and trying to remember why I decided to spend 2016 this way.
The Goal: 5:00 AM | Sunrise mediation | everydamnday
Daily morning meditation is one of my aims for 2016, but I started practicing in the last couple of weeks of December, to warm up. Really though, all I've been feeling is frustration and doubt. If I'm going to change my whole morning routine, give up my slow cups of tea and sweet reading, sit my wide-awake morning person-ness down still for what seems an unbearably long thirty minutes, and not think...???!!! There better be some magical f*cking life-transformation happening...NOW.
Instead, meditation has just been feeling like a losing battle. It's making me feel a lot of things I don't like to feel:
I feel like I'm not good at it.
I feel like nothing important is happening.
I feel like there are more important things I could and should be doing.
I feel like there could be shortcuts to achieving the same result.
I feel like I don't even know what the result is supposed to be.
Normally, this is the point in a new endeavor when I would give up (although I would call it "letting go" so it sounded more inspiring), and move on to something that makes me feel like less of an asshole, but this meditation thing...
I can't let it go.
I keep waking myself up and rolling myself out of bed, just to go sit on a pile of blankets and not think, even though it's confronting me with all these not-so-great feelings.
Really, I think I keep coming back because it's confronting me with these not-so-great feelings.
Meditation is teaching me a few things about myself.
You know what I'm learning?
I am not chill.
Actually, I am the opposite of chill. I am an antsy, goal-getting, super-judgey, kind of mean, micromanaging control-freak who can't even sit still and not overthink everything for thirty minutes.
In my typical daily life, I keep myself busy and engaged enough that I don't even notice the chatter in my head. It registers as nothing more than white noise on my radar.
But during meditation, when I have nothing to do but be still, soften, open, feel... total panic.
I am immediately confronted by all my neurosis--all the plans, worries, self-judgements, to-do lists, and feelings I try to keep myself busy enough to ignore.
Open or closed?
Yoga has been able to do a lot of great things to heal my life, but it hasn't been able to conquer this: my overactive thought stream.
Meditation practice is throwing me for a loop. I'm catching myself asking (whiney voice), "Really? Do I have to? I'm fine enough, right??"
As much as I'd like to shut down and turn right back around, I've at least learned this much on my rocky road to a healed heart: nothing good has ever come from denial.
In The Untethered Soul, one of my very favorite books on inner exploration, Michael A. Singer writes,
"As long as you are defining what you like and don't like, you will open and close. You are actually defining your limits. You are allowing your mind to create triggers that open and close you. Let go of that. Dare to be different. Enjoy all of life. Remember, if you love life, nothing is worth closing over. Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over."
If I really want to feel more freedom in my life, I've got to learn to open up some space in my mind.
2016: Leave it OPEN
This year I want to be OPEN.
- Open to change
- Open to different perspectives
- Open to letting go of what's not working (different than "giving up"!)
- Open to new places, people, teachers
- Open to other options
- Open to making kinder food choices
- Open for business
- Open to listening
- Open to taking risks and making mistakes
- Open to new opportunities
- Open to changing routines
- Open to changning plans
- Open to being still
Being guided, saying YES.
I see meditation as my first step, a portal into unknown space. If I sincerely want to open myself to possibility, to hearing from God, to realizing dreams I can't even imagine right now--then I must, must, must clear some headspace.
I want to make room in my mind for fresh ideas, for love, for inspiration.
What about you?
What is your intention for 2016? What do you want the year to look and feel like?
Have you tried meditation? How has your experience been? Do you have any pointers?
I'd love to hear from you. Comment below, or send me a message!
suggestions for further reading
Here are three of my reading recommendations, if you're interested in learning more about meditation practice:
