Month: June 2016

Five minutes.  Five lousy minutes turned into five gloriously, accomplished minutes. This turned into 10 minutes, then 20 minutes and eventually 30 minutes.  That was years of practice.  Four years to be exact.  Years of sitting with that same kitchen timer, determined that I could be in my own skin.  That I could sit still just as well as I could multi-task.

I gave back all those meditation books and resold the one I got from Half-Price Books (probably got twenty-five cents for it).  I decided to follow my own path of figuring out what this mysterious “meditation” was – to find what worked for me and what did not work for me.  I decided if something didn’t work then I would move on to find something that did.

During this time of exploration, I continued with my morning meditations.  At first I would cram in whatever time I could before I ran out the door to work.  This would vary my time from five minutes to 20 minutes, depending on how much I had left over for this.  I eventually made it the first thing I did.  I set the timer for 30 minutes and still managed to get everything done.  In fact in a more orderly, calm fashion than before.  Imagine that – slowing down somehow seemed to increase time itself.

Soon after my first attempt to meditate for “five minutes” (which actually was just 30 seconds), I started going to the Ruah Center for a day of silence and eventually overnights of silence.  I remember driving up the long driveway and thinking, “Oh my God.  How has this beautiful place been here all this time in Houston?”  I was also terrified about the prospect of so much silence.  No phone, no computer, no talking…not even while eating.  I met with my spiritual director, Sister Adeline, and felt a sense of home right away.

She listened to me in a way that few people are capable of listening.  She listened to all my horror stories and never flinched.  She guided me to work in the art room, to go for walks, to go swimming, to sit and meditate, and to read parts of the Bible.  Even though  I was no longer Catholic/Christian and considered myself an eclectic of all the shared truths in religions and mainly a spiritual person. I read what she guided me to and found truths in there.

During that first silent retreat, I cried through everything I did.  I cried walking up the stairs, working on an art project, walking on the beautiful trails, even while eating and taking a bath.  I didn’t think it was humanly possible to cry this much.  I used to hold back my tears. Thinking that if I ever let one loose, I would never stop, and somehow be the first person to die from crying.

The silence.  The pure silence is where I began a deeper spiritual practice. I read somewhere that praying is talking to God and meditating is listening to God.  I wanted that.  I wanted to hear what my mind had been too cluttered to hear. I wanted that and knew this would be what saved me from me.

Along with the silent retreats I went to the Chung Tai Zen Center in Alief and took their beginner meditation class, then the intermediate, and eventually part of the advanced.  I loved the silence the Buddhist monks created in this run down; not so beautiful part of Alief.  I loved going there and learning a new way to be in the silence.  Sitting meditations and then a walking meditation.  The bonus for me was hearing the monks share their dharma of Tibetan Buddhism, and the other bonus was the delicious vegetarian meal they shared with us afterward.

I started attending places of worship that included meditations in their services.  I also went to various workshops that included meditations  and studied various people of spirituality:  John Bradshaw, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Mary Mannin Morrisey, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Byron Katie, Marianne Williamson, and Michael Beckwith (to name a few).  I devoured books on the metaphysical and learned about how malleable the mind is.

I knew it was up to me to change every thought in my head and every belief that did not bring me joy.  As one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi said:  “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  How could I be an instrument of peace when my thoughts were destructive?  How could I be an example of love when there was war inside of me?  How could I be compassionate when I saved the harshest judgments for myself?

The silence.  The quiet.  These moments with source were going to change my life in ways I could not ever believe possible.  I would become that change I had been seeking.

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This next piece describes this part of my journey – the exploration phase. My next blog will be part 3 of this meditation series – Meditation is My Medication.

Can You Quiet Your Soul Before You Soothe It?

“Racing thoughts of what I need to do next,

How sitting here is a pure waste of time,

I could have done anything, but just sit here.

Once those thoughts quieted down,

The truth would creep up and the silence would woo me into a peace I never knew,

There would grow bigger spaces between each thought,

As if the silence itself was lulling me into the peace of my true self.

Small messages would come through,

I had time to see what was really running through my head;

Time to assess how I was feeling and  soothe that part of me that needed the most kindness.

Silence.  Nothing to do but sit here.

How beautiful is that,

How blessed I am to sit here and feel the love – around me, within me – that simply is me.”

 

 

In 2006 I made a huge decision that changed the course of my life. Everything I knew was turned upside down as though the perfect drawing was on an Etch A Sketch, and then it was shaken and handed back to me with the question, “Now what?”  Every day I felt raw, like a freshly peeled potato with all the moistness under the skin revealed.  Most moments of these days I literally felt like flinging my skin off.

A friend of mine gave me a stack of books on meditation and said, “I think it would help you if you learned to meditate.”  I smiled politely,  took the books home with me and set them on the living room floor. I thought: “Seriously?  If learning to meditate means reading those books, then it is never going to happen!”  Not only were these books thick, the language was dense and I felt as if the only way to read them was with a dictionary next to me.  Yep.  Not going to happen.

I was in Half-Price Books a week later and saw a book that seemed more realistic, Meditation for Wimps.  I paid my $5 and some change and took it home.  I tried one or two of the poses it said I needed to do to accomplish this supposed relaxation and state of Nirvana.  Yep, that book also ended up in the stack on the floor with the other books.

Two years later, I had a mentor who said, “Beth, you have to learn to sit still.”  She assigned me homework of sitting for five minutes every day in silence with my eyes closed.  I thought:”Of course, I can do that.  Five minutes?  Give me something harder to do.”

I sat in a chair in the area of my apartment that I designated as the meditation area.  I set my kitchen timer for 5 minutes and closed my eyes.  The conversation in my mind went something like this:  “Oh my God, pure torture.  When will this end?  I know the problem.  This damn thing is broken.  I only think I set it for five minutes, but really I set it for 30 minutes.  What if I never really pushed the start button, and this timer has really been going for 45 minutes?”  So I cheated.  I peeked open one eye and looked at that timer.  A whopping 30 SECONDS had passed.  If that wasn’t a sign that I was in trouble, then I didn’t know what was.  I could not even sit still with my eyes closed for 30 seconds.

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My next blog will be Meditation – The Exploration Phase (Part 2 of 3).  The piece I leave you with is what those days felt like to me:

Clawing My Skin Off

“Each day I busy myself with one more thing to do,

One more project to finish, one more call to make, one more hour to stay at work, one more way to help someone else in her life,

If I sit still, my thoughts will surely catch up to me and then the true havoc will begin,

I will hear the “not good enough”, the “not smart enough”, the “not going fast enough”,

The “not enough” that runs her daily marathons,

With anxiety humming through my veins and depression waiting at the door to take her turn,

There is no chance that I will let any of that catch up to me.

I just have to learn to move faster…or do I?”

 

All of life for me has boiled down to this – can you accept what is happening now?  Can you fully be in THIS present reality?  Of course, this is always easier when I am in full joy, bliss, and excitement.  Those yeses are easy and are there in the flow and pure gratitude that flow from every cell of my being.  The true challenge is can I do this when reality is less than what I desire? When reality feels like it has bitch slapped me and I am wondering what are the opportunities that are here in front of me?

“Embrace the Suck” is an expression a friend of mine told me that her Marine nephew told her about.  He said part of their training is being in a room where toxic gases are being put in through the ventilation system. If one of the marines leaves then they all have to start over.  She asked him how they do it and he said, “You know it will be hard so you embrace the suck.”

This to me embodies accepting those hard moments and knowing just like the joyous moments, they are temporary.  I used the expression, “embrace the suck,” quite regularly on the adventurecation.  The piece I wrote describes my shift at the helm during the fifteen foot waves and twenty plus winds.

A week or two prior to this I had just learned how to steer the boat. Needless to say, being a newbie at the helm brought up its own fears, both from my lack of confidence in my abilities and knowing eight other loved ones were on board. So here is that piece which I dedicate to the Marines for the title and I also dedicate it to all those who were aboard, the sailboat, The Kidd, with me:

Embrace the Suck

“Salt water slaps knocking me down,

The only thing holding me up is the only thing keeping the course – the wheel,

Lives depending on me,

My own tears mixed in with the waves slamming into me.

The wind howls,

Shivering with fear and coldness,

Teeth chattering,

Knowing I have to keep the course.

Too far to the starboard side and a hard crash with the land,

Too far to port side and we may get lost at sea,

My shoulders burn with each turn of the wheel,

I want this shift to end.

I want to just let go of the wheel and let go of of all my responsibilities.

Faith is the only thing holding me up,

I call on the Master Sailors,

I sense a figure to my right and see a strong shadow of a male spirit,

I know source has heard and sent a helper.

I am grateful and terrified,

It feels as if this moment has been suspended and will become its own unending lifetime,

The boat is tossed from side to side,

There are moments when we are actually airborne,

It isn’t until we slam back into the ocean that this even seems real.

A prayer boat we have become,

Angels on every side,

Scrapes, bruises, and cuts,

It’s a wonder that no one died or simply fell overboard.

There was a moment I just wanted it to end and it felt as if jumping over would be more simple,

This was a fleeting thought,

Responsibility and faith kept me there.

Hard to believe in twenty-four hours we were even in the same ocean.

The fifteen foot waves that slammed straight into us and created chaos,

Now rolled behind us and pushed us gently forward to our final destination – my homeland of Jamaica.”