When all else fails, and you find yourself in the spiral of another mid-life crisis or just the simple wear and tear of a few weeks of the current world, I find it best to re-focus my daily meditations, which have admittedly become lax in the excitement of the arrival of summer. As may have been evident in some recent posts, my brain has been a bit scattered, a bit manic, a bit all over the place. I’m attributing it to the end of a spring – perhaps the spring to end all springs, as I’ve never dealt with spring endings in the thrill of summer arrivals. Now, at the ripe old age of fifty, I’m thinking of endings a bit more, and I’ve come to the realization that unless an ending is actually at hand, there is no good worrying about it. In these times, I hone in on my daily meditation, re-centering from where I’ve strayed and drifted, and returning to the calm and peace I’ve always found there.
Even after meditating for almost seven years now, I still have to work at the practice, especially if I want to find that stillness of the mind that a proper meditation can elicit. It begins with deep, slow breathing – measured intakes of air – slowly, slowly – and then an even more measured release, narrowing the windpipe a little to allow for a slower pace of exhalation. Thoughts often flood this first part of the meditation process, so I let them come, acknowledging each and then letting them go by the time the next breath arrives. It helps me to focus on tangible things at first – so I’ll start with whatever physical sensation I might be feeling – a stiffness in the chest, a dull ache in the shoulder, the typical soreness in my back after bagging a bunch of leaves the day before. Honoring the body this way and allowing each little pain its moment is sometimes all the body wants to let go of some of the tension and hurt.
If I still haven’t calmed enough to have a clear head, and if intrusive thoughts continue to cross my mind, I’ll go through the previous few hours and what I felt during those moments, whether it was worry, fear, annoyance, anger, love, acceptance, sorrow – and allow each to have their moment. By this point, my breathing is usually slow and steady, my mind is clear and open and blank, and I’ve reached the state of mindfulness that is like the Savasana at the close of a yoga session.
The more I access that space of mindfulness, the more of life’s stresses flow around me rather than stop me in my tracks. Summer may proceed.
