Meditation 101: I'm getting it, I'm getting it...

This week I was sitting at my meditation spot and feeling fearful about some things in my life. And I was saying mantra-ee sorts of things to try and dispel the feelings, which has worked before but wasn't working that day.

Then I realized that wasn't always the right approach. Not every time. Because my feelings are valid, after all. And fear is natural to humans--helps keep us alive, part of all these years of evolution. It's natural to worry.

And then I remembered that's the main lesson they teach you about meditating anyway. To think: This is jus a thought, or just a feeling. It's not good, it's not bad, it's neutral. Don't judge your thoughts or feelings, just observe them.

And only then, when I let them be, did they lift. After, I remembered that study where if you tell someone not to think about something, their brains latch onto it even more. According to the dude who studied this, in ideal conditions (rested, relaxed) we can suppress unwanted thoughts. But when we're stressed...

the ironic monitoring process means that the more desperate and pressured you feel, the more intensively you'll brood about (and potentially do) the very things you've sworn off. (Martha Beck talking about Daniel Wegner's study in The Four-Day Win.) 

Beck brought this up in relation to trying to not think about food or your weight, in the context of dieting and so forth. But I was experiencing the same thing that day in my little spot. At other times doing the Calming Thinking totally helped. But I had to realize: Today what my feelings want are to be left the hell alone.
   

Opération Quest: Experimenting with living in the future

In April I wrote about Martha Beck's advice that we can work on living today as though the outcome we desire has already happened. I later posted her guided meditation, as meditating is one way to develop this skill. I now have an example to give of how I tried this out in my life, and why I think it was beneficial.

Last week my mother and I took her oldy cat Purdy to the vet because we thought she had rotten teeth. But preliminary blood tests showed she had late stage kidney disease, so we chose to put her down.

Before we knew about the kidney disease I practiced envisioning Purdy as tooth-healed, no longer in pain, happy and calm and eating easily. Envisioning a happy healthy outcome didn't stop Purdy from dying; but I would hazard to guess that being calm and happy around her made her last days calmer and happier than if I'd fretted and worried. We all pick up on non-verbal cues, after all. I would have been putting out vibes that said "There's something very wrong!!"

To be clear, I see a difference between empty fantasizing, and inhabiting the emotions. This is about conjuring how it would feel if we were at our ideal weight, or if we had our ideal job, or if we were published authors. For example, today I was weeding my mother's yard and the deeper I got into it, the more work I realized there was. So I said to myself: How would I feel if it were already done? Well, not discouraged or overwhelmed, right?

This technique seems to help in two ways: First, to reach our goals...

• I'm more likely to exercise because I already love my body and want to care for it;
• I exude confidence at an interview because I already believe I'm successful and valued;
• I hammer out my daily word count cause I know I'm talented, I'm a great writer, and writers write;
• I keep weeding instead of throwing in the trowel and heading indoors to watch Buffy reruns.

Every day we get to write on our brain, participate in who we'll be in one year. If you spend the year focusing on how your body is a disappointment, limited, ugly, blobby, or whatever, what effect will that have on your brain? Seems healthier to write onto our brains the things we think we'd be if we were in shape: strong, powerful, beautiful.

But there's a second effect of thinking this way: It makes our present happier. So that no matter what the outcome is, life will have still been emotionally satisying.

RIP little Purdy-girl

"I see the rainbow bridge! Ooh it really is rainbow colored."

 

"Never his mind on where he was!"

In Martha Beck's Steering by Starlight she has a meditation she recommends you do regularly. It's meant to help you envision the things you want in life, like fulfilling work, or to meet someone, or better health etc. And I've discovered she's posted an mp3 of it! So you can just play it and have a guided meditation. The narrator's a little computer-sounding, but I liked the music.
I've been trying to meditate this month. Sometimes it's just wee moments. For example, a minute of mindfulness when walking the dogs or eating something. Or if I suddenly feel a panic or worry about the future (mine, or that of the people I love) I lasso that worry in by a five minute meditation. I just close my eyes and focus on my breathing, and try to let the thoughts pass me by. And I tell myself: Everything about this moment in time is perfect. I lack nothing. There's no reason to panic, stop fretting, just be present.

It really works.

I'd always had the impression that one should meditate just to learn to calm down or whatever. And I thought, well it's probably a good idea... but I'll suck at it, bla bla bla, I don't know how. So I never made the time. Even when books I read on stress management, or time management, or procrastination all advised it.

It took learning that meditation actually changes your brain to get me on board. I love this idea that the meditation will not only help you in the moment, and the short term, but in the medium and long term. That it could potentially change my life. I guess I like the idea of having more input into how my brain develops than I realized!

And reading this idea that the right brain is all about living in the moment, forgetting your past, not worrying about the future--I love the idea that right there in my head, one entire half of my brain already possesses the power to do this. That that's its natural state, I'm just not well attuned. So then I could really see how meditation not only changes the brain, but helps us tap into our brainly resources.

And now all of Luke's Yoda training just makes total sense too. Okay, I'll leave it there! Bye!

Opération Quest: Cool Key for Dream Interpretation

In Steering by Starlight Martha Beck has a method, adapted from Jung, that's super interesting. She believes dreams tap into unconscious knowledge about ourselves, and can therefore guide you. So when you're setting out to find your personal "North star", paying attention to dreams can guide you.

I guarantee you this is très cool.

1. Write your dream down, in as much detail as possible, as soon as you can--we know how fast dreams elude us.

2. Make note of every important person, object, process etc. (I just circle them.)

3. Put yourself in that object's shoes, like an actor, and answer the following questions:

What are three adjectives or phrases that describe you?

What is your purpose?

How are you trying to help the dreamer?

4. With those answers, take a stab at figuring out what the thing or person symbolizes.

5. If necessary, let it gestate awhile--the key message of the dream might hit you later.

This coach takes you through two examples (here and here) of how to do this, with her own dreams--I highly recommend the read.

If you don't already read your dreams this way, I promise you'll find this very interesting. Below are two short examples of mine, or you can stop here.

_______

The first dream I tried it on was: I was a young man, at a beautiful domed, lit up concert hall, with an older, wise gentleman who was my lover but we weren't especially out or something. He realized a WWII bomber was coming, even though the air raid sirens weren't going. (I remember my dreams so much better since going on amitriptyline years ago, and sometimes they are so amusant. But I think this works with dream fragments too.) I grabbed the man's hand to oull him to safety, really committing to my love for him for the first time.

Then the dream shifted to another scene, later. I was meeting him in his hotel room, and our meeting was frowned upon by society--not because we were gay, but I was a young man unchaperoned (lol). So he wasn't sure I'd come, but I did, and I got into bed with him and we were happy.

I think the beautifully lit up dome represents the wish I currently have for one aspect of my life (I can't say more, let's call it Wish X). The bomber represents Problem Y which seems is destroying my dream. Nanaimo is the old man. Even though moving away from my husband for a year is something some of my friends don't understand / something "society" won't understand, it's the right thing for achieving Wish X.

I think the dream was just a confirmation that I've made the right choice, cause as you know it still makes me sad sometimes.

I had another dream where I was working on my writing, and to my right was my friend Maewitch, and to my left a professor I used to have who was accused of hanky panky with a student. A weird guy brought us some Charley Harper prints, and then walked off with some of my canned goods. I was too bewildered to go after him, but Maewitch did and brought them back.

I think Mae represents my right brain, who is kind and my friend. The prof represents my left brain--witty, smart, but not as cool as it used to seem. I'm trying accomplish stuff (writing), but I'm going to face some weird circumstances (the dude). Weird, hard to understand circumstances that will bring me my true nature (Harper illustrates nature subjects like birds) but will take away my security (canned goods, last a long time, there for emergencies.) But I shouldn't worry cause my right brain (the tapping into it that I'm learning) will eventually bring my security back.

 

Apparently I'm on a mystical quest

Today I realized...

* It was exactly one year ago that I made a conscious decision to explore my Inner New Agey. To try being more mystical.

* In July 2011 that I read the first book that really helped me turn a corner (Hold Me Tight). The first time, after nonstop reliance on my oracle cards, after much internet perusing and reading forums and sites that were less than helpful--it was the first time I read something that 100% spoke to me, that gave me new ideas, and gave me a serious paradigm shift towards the world. A book I added to my Core Values Library.

* In August 2011 I read another piece of the puzzle: Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor's book (My Stroke of Insight) about what the right side of our brains do for us. It was the science side of the mystical stuff. I had taken a leap of faith into mysticism, and as in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, a platform was right there for me to step on.

* In March 2011 I read another holy-crap book (Mindsight). It was another plank under the mysticism, and another book that gave me a concrete understanding of my situation and how it can change.

* And finally this month I was cataloging my books and cleaning up, and came across a book I bought a couple years ago but hadn't read (Steering by Starlight). Sitting on my bed I randomly opened it up to the last chapter and read it, and decided I had to read it right now. When I started my Mystic Quest, it wasn't for the purpose of aiding my personal issues. But it's where the solutions lie. Like I was already taking the prescription, before I'd even experienced all the symptoms, and before I'd been diagnosed with the disease.

So it's exactly one year since I decided to broaden this part of me, and I feel like I have all the basic building blocks to do it. It's like what the Storywonk people would call the Discovery and Magic stages of writing a novel--gathering ideas, research, images, ideas, and inspiration. And now it's time to write the book.

I'm going to look for the blog posts this past year that deal with My Quest for My Inner New Ageo, and put up a link to them or something. And I'm going to try to keep sharing. We'll see what comes of it all.

Coming up: Martha Beck's method for dream interpretation. It's rather cool.

In the meantime, here's her book if you're interested. (No ebook yet available.)

Steering by Starlight from abebooks: $1 before shipping

...bargain book from Indigo: hard cover for $8

...used audio book: $12

...downloadable audio: $24
   

Live today like tomorrow has already happened

I've started reading Martha Beck's book Steering by Starlight, and doing the exercises. I always liked her on Oprah, and her columns in O magazine. She has a nice balance between lefty brain sciencey thinking, and a righty brain mystical approach.

It's PERFECT for where I am right now. Already in the first chapter she's talking about meditation, and how you can change your brain. Hello! Just like Mindsight etc. (I've been working on my daily meditating, like a good girl.) Her first chapter goes like this...

• If you make a list of things you want, you'll find what you really want is to feel certain things. Eg. Getting a job so you can feel calm, not worried about making rent. Getting a better job so you can feel energized. Getting a promotion so you can feel a sense of accomplishment.
• She advises you to work on feeling those things now, as though you already had them. Because acting calm, or energized, or accomplished will increase you chances of getting the job, promotion etc.
• Gives the example of her aikido coach who's a cop or something. When you burst in on people you have to arrest, it usually results in a lot of violence. Once day he decided to stop bursting in, but to feel as though the job's already done, the people surrendered, everything gone according to plan. So he enters the room calmly now, and it has almost always resulted in a non-violent reaction by the people he's after.
• How to get this way? Meditation! Neurons that fire together wire together. So start building a calm and happy brain.
• She points out that if you think of the good stuff in your life, and work backwards through the events that led to them, you'll probably find some negative circumstance. For example my parents divorced, my dad married Stepmommy, she and dad started going to a church, she was shy and asked me to come with her, and I met my husband. Parents divorce --> husband.
• So start acting today as though those good things you wish for have already happened. Even if life sucks at the moment, there might be wonderful outcomes down the road. So why not act with those outcomes in mind?
• Which fits in perfectly with something my grandmother said on the phone a couple weeks ago, talking to me and my dad. We were talking about my aunts, and then Gramma said with a chuckle: "If I knew how good all you kids were gonna turn out I wouldn't have spent all those years worrying!" I've been keeping that seriously in mind--to stop worrying about my present, because the future is already great. So when I read this Beck chapter it really resonated.
• And kind if resonates with the series I watched on time and space. The past, present and future all coexist!

There you go. Chapter one. You can thank me when all your dreams come true.