21 April 2013

30-day meditation challenge.

I'm beginning a 30-day meditation challenge. Tonight was my first night back on track and it is my goal to write down how it feels before, during, and after each session, or as many sessions as possible to gauge my progress. Therefore, to move towards that end, I'll summarize tonight's effort:

Before: It took a lot of self-prepping to go to my designated meditation room, set my alarm, and plant my butt on my bed and get started. Procrastination was the name of the game. In my mind, I had every excuse in the book. I almost convinced myself to hold off until tomorrow. However, I'm very glad I followed through with my initial desire because it would have been just another day of empty promises to myself. Hate when I do that. Taking action is the only way to getting anywhere or achieving anything, even peace of mind or clarity. The first step is to carve out the time and space for meditation.

During: When I sat down, I felt a mixture of relief and stress. A sort of 'here we go' type feeling. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. I felt a wave of heat traverse through me; a few hot flash type sensations. A few thoughts of the future, and those items that need to be done, came to me. Moving past those to-do list tasks, I tried intermittently to concentrate on my breath as my mind wavered from sending positive thoughts into the universe to more anticipatory thoughts. Before I knew it, the alarm went off and the session had come to a close. It seemed to pass by much more quickly than I had expected. I felt a sense of relief and accomplishment.

After: Immediately after the alarm went off, I felt like checking this off my to-do list [don't judge] but also, I felt very tired, and a need to lie down came over me. Briefly attending to this need, I rested a few moments and then made note on my calendar that I meditated before perusing the internet to research the hot flash type sensation that I had experienced during the beginning of the session. As I sit here, about thirty minutes since the session's end, I feel somewhat calm. I am noticing minor sounds such as water dripping and creaking in the wall that I might otherwise not attend to as there's other external noise (such as television) dominating my senses. Also, it feels as though I am a bit less reactive, not focusing so much on any given thought, but rather allowing my thoughts to flow more freely.