ecoTrain Meditation Challenge: Shaking up my Practice for Seven Days

My History with Meditation

I have been meditating off and on for a number of years. Maybe 17 or so? I started when I was in a holistic healing group hosted by the woman who owned the holistic elder care home I worked at. We were learning different healing modalities like Reiki, massage, herbs, flower essences, etc. to help us in caring for elders. We always began with a brief meditation. At first I thought I was alone in my inability to quiet my mind. I was a young mom and thought all the others were way beyond me and were spending the entire time focused on their breath. Needless to say I was relieved to find I wasn’t alone. Seventeen years later, and I wonder if I have really made very much progress in quieting my mind. Sometimes I just want to get three breaths without chatter.

You'd think I could chill living here. In my defense, we also have monkeys

I then spent seven years in a relationship with a Buddhist. He would spend hours locked up meditating and writing. It was infuriating to say the least, but eventually I took the If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em attitude. I spent a few years with a pretty solid daily practice. I suppose it probably helped, but I was miserable in the relationship, so I threw it all out the window. No more partner, no more meditation. In fact I got a little wild there for a bit. Over the next several years I went back and forth in it. I didn’t want to get to the place where my previous partner had been. I don’t know if this will make sense to you, but I think he was addicted to meditating. Does that sound crazy? Probably. He couldn’t function without it and would spend hours holed up. I can only say it felt unhealthy. I mean I can also say it left me with a lot of housework and solo parenting time, but that's another story. Or is it?

I found a happy teaching on meditation from Abraham that really worked for me. They suggest 15-20 minutes is sufficient. I am sure that isn’t true for everyone, but it was helpful to relieve this idea I had that the more time I spent in meditation, the more spiritual I was. The teaching is that we aren’t here in this body to just meditate all the time. We are here to live. Meditation is an incredibly helpful, crucial in fact, reset button that allows us to slough off the stuff we don’t need and reconnect to spirit. Like I said, I’m sure that isn’t what works for everyone, but it helped me to know that there was more than one right way. And I think that’s my biggest advice to people just starting out. Find what works for you. It’s probably not the same as what works for others. Listen to your own voice. That’s where the wisdom is.

How Meditation Saved My Life

In any case, I kept resisting because, well, I don’t know. Why do we resist that which we know will serve us. It’s like we’re self destructive or something ;) So, a small diversion here, but it’s relevant to the larger story. I had my first two kids at 23 and 27. I wanted a third but couldn’t really find a guy. I got pregnant a couple times with a couple different guys (rational mind disappears when you really want another baby - I can only thank God for not letting me have children with those two), but I had a series of miscarriages. Then I just knew I had found the right guy. I got pregnant. He wasn’t so sure he was the right guy, but he came around, and I had two more children at 37 and 39. Let me tell you ladies, pregnancy and childbirth are a different game a decade later. Holy peel heels. Sometime in that last pregnancy or birth I must have hit post (or pre?) partum depression. I really wasn’t aware of it, but my older kids tell me now that I sort of fell apart. I was also running a cloth diaper service, so running a business, parenting a toddler a teen, and a tween. I only knew I was totally and completely overwhelmed.

I had a friend who had finally found a morning practice that really worked for her, so I decided to give it a go. I suppose I started in full force when Lu was somewhere around a year old. I really don’t remember what my friend’s practice was because I changed it to work for me. First thing each morning is gratitude. I do a list of things I am grateful for. Then 20 minutes of meditation. I usually do a little breakfast and cleaning at that point. I used to do some kind of dancing or play in the morning, but I switched it to afternoon, and I don’t always do it. I think I need to put it back to the morning. Play is so important, but that is another post for another day. I was consistent with the practice, but chemical depression is its own monster, and we don’t always get to determine the outcome. Shortly after my littlest one turned three I realized that I was regularly praying that I would die. I couldn’t bring myself to suicide because I have four kids, but I kept hoping it would just all end. My dreams of paradise were, um, inaccurate. My relationship was a disaster. I just wanted to be done. Suddenly I realized this was not normal for me. I went to my oldest who was dealing with his own depression and told him I thought I might be depressed. He thought so too. That’s when he told me something had changed in me in that last pregnancy. I wasn’t planning to have another child, and of course I wouldn’t take anything for my precious sweetie, but I was not happy to find out I was pregnant.

I share that long and depressing story with you because, as I began to come out of depression, I realized that, while gratitude and meditation couldn’t bring me out, I am pretty sure that practice is what kept me alive. I think focusing on the good and giving myself a few minutes of peace and freedom each day gave me just enough will to live. It’s powerful work. So, I keep it going. I get hints of depression every now and then, but I have mostly been able to keep it at bay.

The Meditation Challenge

When @eco-Alex presented this challenge I knew I was ready for a rejuvenation of my meditation practice. For me there is this initial difficulty when I start meditating again and then a blissed out honeymoon period and then a rut. I have been in a rut a while now. Monkey mind has just been out of control. Some days I get almost no respite from it. So here goes the journal of the last week. I just wrote thoughts as I went, so I’ll put it in complete sentences for you now and clarify some of the cryptic comments.

Day 1 Trying to get a little more discipline in my practice. Thinking of shaking up the music I use. I always meditate to music with headphones on because we live in a one room house with three kids. So, it’s really a white noise thing to drown out the chaos all around me. I found a Buddhist chant with music about a year and a half ago, and it really resonated with me, but maybe it’s gotten stale. I have no idea what the chant even is. I just like it. I want to get more in the habit of quieting my mind more frequently. The monkey mind is making me crazy. This was the realization of day 1. I don’t know if it was really less monkey mind today, but it’s good to really feel what my intention is.

Day 2 was a loss. That’s how it goes sometimes. My partner left shortly after I started, so of course the children decided that was a good time to go totally bananas. I knew he had left. I knew the kids were up to shit. That pretty much ruins it at that point. Mama life.

Day 3 Meditation is about a lot of things, and sometimes it’s about filling up. I love the feeling of God pouring into me. Of being filled and healed. Of learning to allow and be the flow, to be with and as God instead of separate. Some days the magic really hits. Today was one of those days. I was very focused on my breath, and I could feel my breath was God, and it just poured right in. It’s really an almost orgasmic feeling.

Day 4 Today Lulu meditated with me. Amazing how still she can be at only 4. I love how it feels to just lay and breathe with her. Still encountering a lot of monkey mind but finding some peace about it. Realizing that what is, is, and it is ok. Allowing is my key word. I have to allow myself to be and love myself where I am. And realize how immensely worthy I am without having to change a thing. And the truth is that when I allow, I can feel the bliss flowing in, and I come back to my breath.

Day 5 Today I begin to try adding a few things to my meditation to see if something will deepen the practice. Today was the day to dance. It was really fun, and the kids really loved it. We danced to Motown. It felt really good to deeply ground into my body. It felt good to move my body and express myself. It felt good to let go and not worry about anything. It left my body feeling really nice and made it easier to settle into my meditation body wise, but it didn’t do much for monkey mind which was still going strong. My take? I definitely need more dance in my life, but I don’t feel like it helps my meditation per se. Of course other music might change that.

Day 6 I had been planning to try chanting before my meditation today, but yesterday Lulu got my medicine drum down from the wall, and it occurred to me that I have a lot more history with drumming than I do with chanting. I was alone with the kids, so I had to accept them being around for the drumming. If you aren’t familiar, shamanic drumming is also called dreaming with the drum. It is a steady rhythm, and it is used to drop into almost a trance like state. I usually imagine myself walking into a cave or going down through the roots of a tree. After connecting into the earth, I go left and then right, and I usually see my guides or some other messenger. I’m not sure why the left and right. I was just taught that, and it works, so why mess with it, right? If you want to meet your guides/Angels, this is a good way. Even with kids I was able to really drop into the drum and the dream. It was actually nice to share the drumming with Lulu who was able to meet one of her guides. It had a profound effect on my meditation. My meditation was much deeper and much quieter. Way less monkey mind. Way more peace and vision. Still going to try chanting, but I think I may have found my jam.

My beautiful drum and beater

Day 7 Today I tried chanting before my meditation. As I mentioned before, we live in a one room house, so I found a gayatri mantra on YouTube and chanted quietly so as to not draw children to me. I’d really like to try it again in a normal tone of voice, but even quietly, it was quite nice. It’s the only mantra I really know, so that was why I chose it. I think I would try a different version next time. The one I listened to was a little campy. It’s sort of amazing how much a mantra will draw you in, and it’s super effective at shutting down monkey mind. Even though I know the mantra, I still have to pay attention to get the order of the words right, so no monkey mind at all for ten minutes. That is truly its own miracle. Like the drumming, it created a deeper and quieter meditation experience, which is what I’ve been wanting, so win! I think I will alternate between the two and see how it goes as time goes on.

Thanks for the challenge, @eco-Alex. It has been a blessing. I hope all of you will share your thoughts and also your own meditation experiences. Much love.

This post is part of the @ecoTrain. Please check out our tag to find other awesome posts from amazing writers working to make the world a more beautiful place.

All pics are mine or from pixabay