I’m Goin’ In…Meditation Odyssey Right Here on SteemIt…Hi Everyone

My name is Jen, and I’m new to SteemIt. I’m here because I want to document an experience I’m embarking on that I’m calling the Meditation Odyssey. SteemIt built this great platform so writing about this adventure here seems like a great way to create some accountability for myself and share what happens with others.

I’ve had a tricky last 10 years. Actually, I’ve had a tricky last 50 years - I’ve just turned 50 so that’s, well, the whole shebang really. Turns out life is a series of tricky days (credit: Pete Townsend) that turns into tricky years. That may not be true for some but likely true for most. Definitely true for me.

I’ve believed for about the last four of the 50 that a key, quite possibly the key, to settling down and settling in to my life and my self is meditation. I’ve believed this because I’ve read umpteen books by experts with various backgrounds and points of view on this topic and from the very first one, I bought in to the science, the philosophy and the physiology of it all. I bought it…but I didn’t do it. I just read about it.

So did I mention I turned 50? Yeah. That’s right. I’m freaking 50, and for all the work I’ve read about doing and, at times done, to improve myself, which has been on the whole exhausting (more to come on that), I don’t feel all that much better about myself or my life than I did when I was 20. I just do way less drugs now, and for the most part, yes, I count that as a good thing. This is at best disappointing and at worst depressing…to be abundantly clear, not that I party less, but that I don’t feel more comfortable in my own skin.

I’m not chasing the happiness pill because I find that both a tad trendy and wee bit lofty, but I’m equally not interested in spending the balance of my life unfulfilled, depressed, anxious or some combination therein. The brooding, dark, edgy groove, which I found alluring and worth emulating for many years, has lost its luster. For me personally. In the spirit of full disclosure, I remain hopelessly drawn to these qualities in other people which probably explains my heretofore unstable love life. But that’s another story. Let’s move on.

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to embrace my inner resilience, and I’m going on a Meditation Odyssey. It’s not as sexy as eating in Italy, praying in India and loving in Bali, but I have a job and responsibilities that I can’t drop for a year-long flit about the globe, much as I’d like to believe me, so I’m going to stay put and travel inward.

I would love to have you join me either by reading about how it’s going here on SteemIt, by starting a practice yourself along with me, or by doing both.

My plan is to follow the “free” meditation program here https://palousemindfulness.com/ based on the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It’s online, self-guided and “taught” by certified MBSR instructor Dave Potter.

I will share more about MBSR and why I chose it in a future post…since this intro is getting a bit out of hand length wise.
There are many variations and approaches to meditation /mindfulness. I may switch or branch out to other methods down the line. For now, MSBR is a starting place. Who knows where it will lead.

I welcome and look forward to your insights, comments and constructive criticisms.

Today is Sunday, Oct. 1. I'm starting today.

Thanks for reading.

Extraneous Tidbits About Me If So Inclined

I’m 50. Oh yeah. I said that. Clearly, I remain surprised.

I have a job that’s remarkably respectable given I was aimless until I was 30. I went to college, learned things that were not exactly part of the curricula, graduated by the skin of my teeth, and then went forth, clueless about what I wanted or how to get it. There has been progress on this front but not as much as I’d like. I do my job. I do not love it, but it pays the bills and for that I am grateful.

I’ve lived in Norway, France, New Jersey, Boulder and Washington DC. I’ve been to almost every continent – no Aussieland yet - many times over.

I can speak French, particularly after I’ve been in the country for a few weeks.

I find travel for pleasure invigorating. I want and need to do more of it. Except for the business class / first class part, which I adore, I find travel for business a drag.

I loved cities until I was 35. Now I love them less.

I am not a mountain or beach person. I am a mountain and beach person.

I live in a small town on the East Coast of the US, not by choice but by chance. It is a lovely place, but I do not fit here. I make the best and worst of it.

I love all animals, hummingbirds, my cats and my parrots in particular. Yes. I have parrots and cats. Yes, they get along. They are all rescue animals, and they are fabulous. If I make any money on this thing, at least 10% will go to animal rescue, primarily to parrots because they are the third most popular pet, they live as long as we do if not longer, and people ditch them like crazy because “they had no idea” about their care, traits or lifespan. Short attention spans, and lack of understanding aka stupidity. That’s why parrots shouldn’t be pets. Don’t get me started.

I am a music nut and my tastes are wide and varied but my number one band of all time is The Allman Brothers. I miss Gregg Allman. I love Dicky Betts even though he has issues. I wish Dicky and Greg would have reconciled and played together again before Gregg died. Someday I’ll list the other thousand favorite bands.

I swoon over books and have countless favorites. No one book stands above the rest.

One of my favorite quotes, and I have many, is from poet W.H. Auden: “A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.” I can say with utmost clarity, I am no craftsman.

Now that there is incredible TV from everywhere available via Netflix and the like, I watch too much of it.

I do not think and have never thought Jerry Seinfield was funny…the man or the show. I know. Gasp. I harbor no ill will. I simply don’t get the humor and the characters are callous and stupid. Let’s not celebrate that, shall we.

I loved Downton Abbey but I am not delusional enough to think this was fine time in history for most people or that, had I lived then, I would have been an aristocrat like the Crawleys rather than the help. I hate to break it to everyone but most of us would have been the help or worse yet a downtrodden factory worker with a life expectancy of 27. These were not idyllic times.

I love movies but it’s a rare day that I go to a theatre.

I have never posted anything on Facebook. At least I don’t think I have.

Food is both friend and foe. I cannot kick the habit of coveting super thinness. And I cannot kick the habit of eating for more than only sustenance and believing food is an adventure and delight. This makes for a senseless, never-ending battle that waxes and wanes. I hate it. I have a friend who dieted by eating perfectly-portioned amounts of salmon, brown rice and broccoli every day for lunch for six months. I neither could nor would ever want to do that. She’s an engineer. Enough said.

I clash with engineers and linear thinkers in general. Less so if they are women.

I am dismayed at the hype around the STEM fields as if the uber focus on these areas is new. It is not new nor is it new for women to have to work harder to break in to male-dominated fields. Until a few short years ago, all fields were male dominated including the larger “playing field” called the planet. I will likely address this whole topic in a post of its own, but in short, the reason I am dismayed is because the focus on STEM, despite the fact that “they” have now expanded the acronym to STEAM, is once again the almighty left brain…to the exclusion of the right brain. We need to encourage and develop both. All STEM all the time will make for a very lop-sided, very colorless, incredibly oppressive, rigid world. Hitler Germany was very STEM-y, for example. You feel me? If you don’t know what STEM or STEAM is, google it or look for a future post on this. I have way too much to say about this topic.

I collect recipes and cook in spurts.

I admire and treasure beauty. Natural and manmade. Classic, atypical, weird, offbeat. Art, words, music, woods, gardens, clothes, furniture, buildings, faces, bodies, animal, mineral, vegetable.

I do not like and I do not trust politicians when they are being politicians. They have made and are making an unholy mess of everything. When they are being human beings, I’m sure many of them are fine. I do not know this for a fact however because I don’t know any politicians personally.

I find this cult of celebrity we’re in sad and alarming. I don’t think it’s going away.

I live alone and like anything it has its good points and not-so-good.

I regularly see a therapist. I have been “diagnosed” ADHD and gifted. I don’t take medication for either, and I don’t know if either diagnosis is accurate. Said therapist also says I’m an abstract conceptual thinker. I didn’t know that was a thing. Regardless it makes my inner life very interesting and my outer life challenging. Apparently the large majority of people do not / cannot think this way and so that makes it difficult for me to connect. Peeps don’t always follow what I’m saying…because I don’t always say it in a linear fashion. I get that. They’re not in my head with me so they don’t see what I see.

I have an idea a minute, sometimes a second. Sometimes they’re stupid ideas. Sometimes they’re not.

My best traits? I’m loyal and curious, with a passion for learning and an openness to almost all experiences. Caveats: I have no interest in and am, in fact, appalled by big game hunting / hunting for sport in general. I do not want to eat bugs. I will never pursue accounting as a second career.

I am easily distracted and my life has been more about finding out what I don’t want / like rather than what I do. It may not be the most efficient or conventional way of going about it but that’s what’s gone down so far.

I think about death often. It’s a fascinating, mysterious topic, and I don’t think it gets enough airtime.

I think and type kinda fast so I tend towards typos. I read over my stuff lots of times but I still miss the little twerps. Sorry.

I will contradict myself. Look, I don’t have any more answers than you do. But I like the exploration and sometimes that means I backtrack, sidetrack or change tracks.

I pee really fast when there’s a line for the bathroom, like at shows, and I do not TP the stall. You’re welcome.

This is more than plenty about me except that I am awestruck about how many "Is" are in this, and I'm feeling like this is such a narcissistic exercise. Yikes. That said, it was fun, although we are all more, or maybe less depending on your perspective, than our likes, dislikes, skills and weaknesses. Plus, we change constantly and therefore so do our opinions…if we’re lucky enough and willing to evolve.

Ciao for now.