Meditation: Headspace, Basics #6 Length: 11 minutes Where: My bed, Los Angeles How It Felt: Hard... but good
Today was a prime example of a day I would normally not meditate. I wouldn’t even think of it. Busy days it doesn’t make the list of priorities (and today was busy.) Stressful days it doesn’t occur to me to think about meditating (and today was….stressful.) Days when our country witnesses what is essentially a weird, poorly executed, insane coup that is encouraged by the President and barely discouraged by the police…
Oh, wait. That never happened before today.
Guys. WTF IS GOING ON??
It was, again, really difficult to pull away from my TV today. You may get the impression from my last two posts that I watch a lot of cable news, but I really don’t. Honestly, I almost never do. But the outcome of these elections has been so directly tied to my stress and anxiety levels that I am definitely watching closely.
I told my husband today that I haven’t been this stressed since the long days of waiting for those slowly creeping election results in November. But unlike in November, I did something healthy about it! I meditated!
I didn’t want to. Maybe the universe knew I didn’t want to, and so made it very difficult. I’m so exhausted from this day I chose to lay in bed for this session, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I turned the light on (ugh- too bright!) and then off (oh- too dark!) Of course the voice talked about sitting in discomfort, just noticing it, not trying to change it. But I wanted to change it! I couldn’t track my breath 1 to 10- I had to keep starting over. (What is happening in Congress right now? Why am I just laying here?) (And what exactly did I think would change if I’m watching or not watching?)
Then, a few minutes in when I really started to relax my shoulders and jaw, at least, a consistent benefit I’ve been noticing each time I meditate, the voice started cutting out. Skipping. It was a little too far from the wifi. I had to get up and switch it to the extended wifi. Ugh.
BUT! I finished. And I did feel more relaxed at the end…. albeit very temporarily.
Big takeaways?
- I can’t wait for January 20th.
- Not every day will be magic- just show up and see what happens.
- I’m proud of myself! I now have six straight days of meditating, writing, and yoga! This is probably the most consistent I’ve ever been in my life.
I leave you with this: a blurry photo from my Instagram stories that sums up how I felt about most of today. Not the part where Georgia was amazing. But, you know…. the rest of it.
Stay safe and healthy out there! And try not to storm any government buildings! Or, do, I guess. Apparently it’s a low consequence situation for certain groups of people…..
My Year of Meditation 