Meditation Challenge - reflections on (not finding) stillness

Huge thanks to @eco-alex for starting the 7 day meditation challenge! See his original post here: https://steemit.com/meditation-challenge/@eco-alex/7-day-meditation-challenge-everyone-wants-to-meditate-but-no-one-actually-does-it-join-us-today

I've been meditating for almost exactly 1 year, having been brought to it by a friend who persuaded me to go on a 7 day silent retreat. I did this with a teacher called Burgs, who I have continued to follow and would highly recommend (check out his website at https://theartofmeditation.org/). He combines Buddhist Dharma and meditation practices with Taoist understandings of the body, and also incorporates Qi Gong on his retreats. I've now been on two 7-day retreats with him and also done a long online course that has helped me develop a regular home practice. This year I intend to go on a vipassana retreat to take my practice deeper.

I'm also slightly amazed to be able to say I have now been completely caffeine and alcohol free since that first retreat - a full year! That sort of happened by accident... I just didn't start drinking it again for a while, I enjoyed feeling like I had more energy, and then when I finally reeeeeally felt like relaxing with a gin & tonic after a long day at work it made me feel seriously goddamn awful within 10 minutes! So goodbye booze, hello mindfulness - I really used to love the occasional G&T, but on reflection this is a trade I'm happy to make.

I have learnt so much about myself from embarking on this meditation journey over the past year, especially:

• You're making the most progress when it feels really challenging to sit and meditate
• You don't actually have to do anything to meditate
• Don't take yourself too seriously!

So I meditated every day for 7 days for this challenge, and I really loved the process of journaling my experiences. It helped me reflect on my practice, and really engage with it rather than it being another 'thing to do' in my morning or evening routine. Here's my diary for the 7 days...

Day 1

Today I've felt a lot of tension in the muscles around the top of my head, my face and my jaw. This is nothing new for me - I'm on a big journey finding my way out of tension headaches - but it's annoying nonetheless! But something more unusual I've felt today is a heaviness around my chest, noticing I'm breathing from the top of my chest rather than my belly (and also catching a few moments when I've sort of stopped breathing altogether - is that even possible?!), and tension in my solar plexus / diaphragm area. These are all my body's ways of telling me I've shifted slightly off-balance, I'm not centred right now, something is making me feel stressed or I've just lost my connection to source… So, it's a GREAT day to start the meditation challenge!

Practice: 35 mins, meditating on the breath
It felt really challenging to just rest my attention on my breath tonight. Because I was breathing from my chest I kept feeling like I was running out of breath, and to breathe naturally meant breathing quite fast and shallow, which made me feel like I was hyperventilating! (Not the ideal meditation experience..!!). It was so tempting to stop halfway through, but I decided to stick with it and let go of the idea of resting on anything, and just rest. It felt good to do that, and I realised I'd been somehow tensing my eyeballs - you know that feeling when you're actively looking even with your eyes closed? By the time I finished I felt quite a lot more relaxed, and ready for bed rather than wired.

Day 2

Practice: 25mins, meditating on the breath
It was slightly easier to come to stillness today, and then to allow my breath to become present in my awareness. My breath was still quite fast and shallow, but I felt slightly less pressure around my chest and solar plexus. I always find it slightly easier to meditate in the evening than the morning; my teacher told me this relates to the difference between unsettledness we 'collect' during the day, and the unsettledness that we carry with us in our unconsciousness. [NB this is my very basic and possibly inaccurate understanding of his teaching, but it's what I took from it!]. Generally when I wake up I feel a lot more unfocused and anxious than just before bed, which I guess means I'm carrying some shakey karmic energy somewhere... Anyway. This was an evening sit, and again I felt calmer and more able to rest after becoming still and simply breathing.

Day 3

Practice: 15mins, stillness meditation
This was a brief morning sit immediately after I woke up. It was really short as I didn't have much time, but I wanted to have a moment of calm before launching into my work day. In the end I think this really set me up for the day - all morning I felt like I breathed fuller and was more centred than I often am. I really enjoyed connecting with the stillness of the world around me, especially having my window open and hearing the first birds starting to sing as the sun came up over the hill. I briefly felt a real oneness with nature, and went outside to eat my breakfast beneath the Eucalyptus tree in the garden.

Day 4

Practice: 15mins, stillness meditation
After the success of yesterday's meditation I did the same thing again, sitting straight after waking up. Today was a good lesson in not getting complacent though, because it was basically like 15 minutes of torture! I could barely sit still or stop my eyes from buzzing around inside my head, let alone find any sort of stillness. I persevered though, as I've been taught that you usually need meditation the most when it really isn't going well. Even though I didn't feel especially relaxed when I finished, I do think meditation experiences like this make me be kinder to myself - if I hadn't taken the time to realise I was stressed / anxious I probably would have battled through the day with a stiff upper lip, rather than taking it gently and building in time for quiet and rest.

Day 5

Practice: 15mins, stillness meditation
Today was a great meditation experience. I woke feeling pretty calm (a relief after yesterday!), and again needed to do quite a short sit before work. I live in a shared house, so it can sometimes be challenging in the morning to settle into meditation with folks walking back and forth to the shower outside the door. But today the house was really quiet, and when I closed my eyes everything just dissolved into the black behind my eyelids. I focused on the movement of my belly as I breathed in and out, and I felt really grounded through my lower body and legs. By the end of the sit my body felt warm and heavy, relaxed, with a calm regular breath. This feeling carried through into the rest of my day, putting me in an awesome mood - one of those days when people seem to reflect your good mood back to you :-D

Day 6

Practice: 15mins, purely trying to pause!
Today I am away with some friends and their extremely young babies (10 months old and 4 weeks old!). This is obviously a very precious experience, and I dearly love them all. However trying to meditate with two screaming babies in the next room was a whole new challenge! In the end all I managed was a brief sense of pausing to reflect, breathe, sit in the dark. It was enough to give me a little rejuvenating boost before diving back into baby-care!

Day 7

Practice: 30mins, meditating on the breath
Today I managed a longer sit, and felt very grateful for it. The whole experience felt very soothing, as though my system - maybe my nervous system? - had become very hot, and the meditation was a cooling balm rubbed all over. I've noticed that I often have some really crystal clear reflections on my life during the first 10 minutes of a sit... the time when I'm supposed to be getting more still, but in fact my mind is whirring quickly. It's like my mind is searching around so desperately for something to occupy me, it eventually hits on a gem of a reflection that sums up my whole state in that moment. Often this is quite profound, and today it made me cry for a moment. That was a good release, something that had been building and needed to come out, and I found that crying helped me let go and relax further into the meditation. After about 20 minutes my breath has become long and regular, my eyes had stopped shifting around, and my arms and legs had fully relaxed into my posture. When I get super super still, I get this weird and wonderful sensation on the top and back of my skull - maybe it's my head muscles relaxing? I got this today, and felt pleased about that. [Note to self - try not to get attached to the experience.. remember Day 4!].

Overall reflections on the week
I've enjoyed this journaling process because it's highlighted to me how many ups and downs there can be in meditation, but how important it is to just persevere and keep sitting. It's building up a regular routine that has really helped my practice - meditation really is one of those things where you get out what you put in. And even on days when meditation feels completely pointless or impossible, it's a nice thing to do for oneself in terms of simply checking in to where you're at - even if that is "I'm in a really shitty place today!".

One thing I didn't write in my diary is that halfway through the week I got a new meditation cushion, having previously been using a large selection of pillows and scarves to bolster me up. I got a moon-shaped cushion from Blue Banyan, which is filled with buckwheat husks so it feels like a beanbag. I'd really recommend this - it supports my legs and spine where they need supporting, and I think allows me to sit for longer without needing to shift position.

So that's it for now! I hope this has been interesting to some of you... sending love, light, and deep healing breaths... x