It’s 6 am on a Thursday morning – I walk down the stairs and enter the empty room where I sit still in silence to observe my breath and prepare for the day.
I start with a few deep breaths, then focus on relaxing the muscles of the face until I feel the skin of the cheeks lower and the wrinkles on my forehead dissolve.
It does not take long before the first thought pops up, exactly like a pop-up ad on the computer. Then I remembered an instruction I learned while listening to an online course: let the thought gently float away like a balloon. I do not remember when is the last time I saw a balloon gently floating away, so the thought turned into the image of a brick holding down a balloon. Not really what I was looking for.
What now? I take a deep breath and try something different. Something that leans upon the brain and lets the brain know she’s welcome to join the silent sitting party.
I thank the brain for reminding my duties, let her know that I appreciate and will take care as soon as I will be back at the desk, and imagine clicking on a small cross on the top right of the pop-up thought.
Since I treat thoughts like gentle nudges from a loving and diligent brain, take a moment to qualify the nature of the thought, and express thankfulness to the brain, I can actually experience calmness. Sometimes I thank the brain for warning me of a threat, others I thank her for being so diligent at reminding tasks I had forgotten and bringing up situations I did not realize were important to me.
Though it might come across as counterintuitive, adding a thin layer of cognition to acknowledge the quality of the thought and thanking it more accurately, helps me gently dissolve thoughts.
There’s plenty of literature on the science-based benefits of meditation. Here is a short list of links for those of you who are interested to know more:
https://lnkd.in/eJJ5-wac
https://lnkd.in/e65AsaqV
I used to sit 10 min/ day, after the Anapana retreat I have been able to increase the sitting to 30 minutes.
I started meditation to maintain high levels of wisdom and calmness throughout these increasingly complex and fast times.
I like to think it’s quality time with the person that needs my kindest attention most, myself.
