Mellow Yellow?
I’ve always considered myself a fairly low-stress individual, someone you might refer to as “mellow” or “laid-back” or, more modernly, “chill”, as in that Eileen Brill is so chill, she’s all peace-love-granola.
I’m discovering that my self-image may be just a tad biased and not always accurate.
That’s not to say that I’m highly anxious either. But wearing what I perceive to be a low-stress mindset as a badge of honor might not be in my best interest if I’m not being truthful with myself. Like most people, I don’t always possess the self-awareness in the moment to recognize when I might benefit from some mental “stillness” in the form of mindfulness and meditation. Perhaps because, by nature, I tend to be optimistic, positive, and grateful, I conflate these traits with mellowness. It’s certainly possible to be an upbeat and gracious person and still feel distracted and tense, and it isn’t always easy to accept the latter with the former. At least, it isn’t for me.
My older son has been meditating daily for almost two years, and he recently spent ten days at a meditation retreat in California. Each day consisted of rising at 4:30 a.m. and meditating throughout the day until lights out at 9:30 p.m., with breaks for meals. They switched locations intermittently (e.g., meditating in the great hall for two hours then going back to the dorm and meditating for an hour and a half then meditating in a small group for an hour, and so on). They were not permitted to speak to each other, to shake hands or hug, to read, to write, or to have any devices such as cell phones or laptops.
To me, this seems extreme – challenging to the point of being aversive and punitive. I cannot imagine being prohibited from connecting to other people for that much time. Or to not be able to take a long walk or swim or play music. Yet, folks who went through the experience, including my son, gave it positive reviews despite being a mental and physical struggle at times. I don’t know how I’d fare in such a scenario, especially because I’ve only meditated for, at most, thirty minutes at a time. I suppose that when someone chooses to attend a retreat of this sort, the purpose is to connect only with one’s self, one’s mind, one’s body, and not to mix and mingle.
When I force myself to meditate, I do feel better afterward. For example, just before I sat down to write this blog, I meditated for twenty minutes (per my husband’s suggestion; he could hear the stress in my voice as I lamented feeling distracted and unproductive). For the first half of this meditation, I had difficulty quieting my mind. I went through all the mental exercises I’ve learned to do: notice sensations and sounds, accept whatever enters my mind, then allow it to pass; don’t judge myself; focus on my breath; etc. And, in the second half of this practice, I felt the submission, the release of the negative energy and mental noise. Even though the first ten minutes felt like a battle between myself and…well…myself, it was instrumental for me to discover just how combative my thoughts were.
The issue is that I do not meditate regularly and, being a “practice”, one benefits most when mediation is an ongoing, if not daily, ritual. Up until a few years ago, I would do yoga a couple times a week, and that always concluded with ten to fifteen minutes of meditation. It was bliss. And this brings me back to my original point: I think my self-image is based more on a person I used to be, and I’d like to get back to that person. If daily meditation can center me again, help me rediscover myself, promote enlightenment, and focus my attention on quieting my mind instead of competing with it, then I will embrace meditation as faithfully as I do all the other important activities in my everyday life.
Another upshot of the twenty minutes I mediated today: It provided fodder for this blog post.
What wonders the mind can accomplish when it is released from bondage.
