My Journey Into Meditation

When I was in college one of my electives was Aikido.

The teacher instructed us to stand with one foot forward and one back in a fighting stance.

Everything in Aikido was about spirals and energy. Instead of turning away from an opponent you went toward them. My immediate response was always to turn my back on them so that was awkward.

We practiced forward rolls and I felt dizzy. Years of neck and low back pain had my 19 year old body feeling 50.

One night when it was time to dry my hair after a shower I took the Aikido stance and I kid you not my mind cleared. I heard the sound of the hair dryer, watched my hair flying around, felt the warmth of the air blowing on my face. I can still remember the yellowish white color in that bathroom: all of my sense felt alive and present.

That was one of the reasons I stuck with mindfulness practices even if it felt torturous.

In my first few months meditating I would go into the meditation room at my college to sit on a cushion for just 5 minutes.

I’d close my eyes and witness the insanity of the swarming thoughts inside of me.

I’d tell myself what the meditation teachers said to do, to call them thoughts and let them pass.

“These are just thoughts, I’m just thinking.”

After what felt like a minimum of 5 minutes I’d open my eyes in shock!

ONE minute!

This must be some kind of sick joke. There is no way it was just ONE.

How? How could I sit still for another 4 minutes?

My back was spasming.

My neck hurt.
My thoughts were insane.
I felt crazy.

I’d refocus, close my eyes, and repeat,

“Thoughts, these are just thoughts, let them pass.”

Surely it had been 4 minutes.

ONE minute.

Torture.
This was torture.

The other people in the room looked peaceful.
The room has this sacred peaceful feeling.
I believed in the power of focus, in stilling my mind, and I was determined to find peace.
So I kept going back.

I did my 5 minutes a day and I grew more tolerable of my thoughts.

Five minutes didn’t feel like an eternity anymore.

My thoughts still swarmed, but not as viciously every time.

I started to build more of a tolerance for my inner thoughts.

Soon I’d look up and it had actually been 5 minutes.

That’s when I stopped.

I’d reached my goal of 5 minutes and I was good.

Until the next semester when we were assigned 15 minutes in a mediation class.

BUT this teacher said we could lay down.

This felt revolutionary!

My body was in heaven.

My neck and back could relax.

15 minutes was doable this way, the hard part was staying awake.

I’ll never forget my first practice on my back in that room.

I lay diagonal on one of the blue cushions, put my hands on my lower belly and focused on my breath.

I heard birds chirping outside.
Had they always been there?

I felt the temperature in the room, cool, but comfortable.

The softness of the cushion pressed into my back and the back of my head.

Why did I ever not like meditation?

This felt heavenly.

I opened my eyes and stared in awe at the rays of sunlight.

This felt similar to altered states I’d felt doing drugs as a teenager.

This felt magical.
This peacefulness was something I wanted so badly.

I grasped at it.

I want to feel this way all day.
All day.

Just like that it was gone, but the glimpse stayed in my body and mind.

The glimpse returns often now.

For this week, try a meditation practice.
I am sharing one for you below that is on your back, fully relaxed.

Try it for 40 days.
Tell me how it goes.

Peace