Tag: Busy Mind

In the Midst of “Breast Cancer Pink”, Finding Stillness: A Meditation

As you’re probably aware by now, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For breast cancer patients and recent survivors, seeing all that pink around can be a little stressful.

Yes, it’s important to maintain awareness that 1 out of 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. Those of us who have already been…well, it would be nice to forget about it once in a while.

One out of 8 is a lot of pink!
(Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash)

So for this post, I want to offer you a very simple meditation. No prep needed.

Pause where you are right now and become still. Right where you are.

Notice how your body feels in the space that you’re inhabiting. What sensations do you feel most strongly?

The expansion and contraction of your ribcage with your breath?

The contact points of your body on the surface where it rests?

Perhaps a pesky little ache somewhere, in your joints, muscles or around an incision?

Tingling in your fingers or toes?

Are you gripping anywhere? If you notice tension somewhere in your body, very very slowly see if you can soften it. It’s okay if it doesn’t release completely – imagine that part becoming heavy and pliable.

And then see what other physical sensations make themselves known to you.

Stay with your body. There might be a lot going on in your mind right now, but that’s “up there” in your head.

Here. Stay down here.
(Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash)

We are down here in your physical being. Feel the stillness that exists here, not agitated by your thoughts. It’s okay if there’s noise in your mind, like if you lived on the floor below a bustling office. All those workers up there, getting their stuff done.

You can hear them, moving about, speaking in muffled tones, keeping busy. That’s all okay. They can be there.

But we’re all hanging out in stillness down below, with distance between what’s going on here and what’s happening elsewhere. We have space.

How does it feel knowing that you have permission to be still? That you don’t need to drop everything and dash upstairs? The thoughts can wait. They’re not going anywhere. You have time.

Eventually, you’ll return to the hustle and bustle up there. But know that you can always take a break, come down into your body and sit in the stillness that is here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This October in particular is very busy for me. A big project at work, the holidays around the corner, prepping for guests while our apartment STILL awaits repairs. And then strange guilt that I’m not doing more yoga teaching. It’s a lot to manage in my head, all this piling on of responsibilities.

So that meditation up ^^^ there? Yeah, I needed that. ❤

When I Can’t Keep Images Out of My Head

When I first started my mindfulness meditation journey, I was taught to use the breath as the point of focus. It is a reliable anchor, always there to return to when you inevitably drift off into thought. It is a stable grounding force that keeps us present.

But there are times when it’s hard to focus on the breath. Perhaps when the mind is especially busy. At those times, I switch to other bodily sensations, such as tingling in my hands or pressure from contact with the surface that I’m sitting on. I wrote a post about moving between two points of focus to help the mind maintain concentration without wandering off. That helps too.

Some days my monkey mind is particularly loud and attention-seeking.

And sometimes my chattering “monkey mind” calls for a switch to an auditory focal point such as gentle music, singing bowls, nature sounds or even simply street noises. Those will keep me present as long as I don’t fall into the trap of making stories about the sounds.

But some days are extra tough.

I tend to avoid meditating with my eyes open. Doing so only reminds me that I need to clean my desk or vacuum the carpet (“guilt-guilt, blame-blame”). However, I am a very visual person with a vivid imagination, and opening my eyes immediately grounds me if my thoughts get too pervasive when my eyes are closed.

Sometimes a thought will trigger an uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking feeling simply because a seemingly-innocuous scene has been associated with a disturbing event. The scene flashes before my eyes andbefore I know it I’m down a rabbit hole. Monkey mind is activated.

While staying with bodily sensations would be preferable, some days there are too many opportunities for my monkey mind to run away with me. It can get exhausting and counterproductive to “dodge” these visuals. Yes, we are “supposed to” let the thoughts pass by us without getting caught up in them. But there are days when they agitate me too much and throw me off track.

Tree!

So I’m cutting myself some slack and turning the “problem” into the solution. On those difficult days, I focus on an image of my own choosing. Something that I can visualize clearly so that it keeps the monkey occupied while at the same time keeping me away from troubling scenes. You could argue that I’m “avoiding” the thoughts. But I see this differently–I’m giving myself a little break from them.

What works best for me? An image unencumbered by potent associations–this is different for each person. A tree, for example, works for me. It might be a thin white birch tree or as majestic and meaningful as Yggdrasil. The tree itself doesn’t matter as much as that I choose it according to what suits me and what soothes me. I can focus on its rough bark, veiny leaves and thick canopy and the sensations that these things evoke to keep away from creating stories.

And if this results in greater concentration, I have the option of hopping back to the breath. Or not.

This might not seem like an earth-shattering revelation. There are relatively popular mountain and lake meditations, so this concept is not new. But with all the emphasis on feeling into your breath in an effort to calm the thinking mind, sometimes it’s simpler to not worry about the “shoulds” and instead see what your own self needs to help it let go and settle into peace.