I Need Space

Here’s a trick. If you want time to stop, try meditating. One of my concerns lately has been that I can’t seem to slow down enough to notice anything beyond kids to school, whose been fed, where are your shin guards, is the cat in or out, why am I tripping over shoes in the kitchen, did you pee in your pants again, and so on. In all this chaos, life is zooming by.

Now that I’m sitting down everyday for thirty minutes to practice mindfulness meditation, I can’t believe how long it takes for a half an hour to go by.

Meditation is hard. My mind wants to jump on and ride off into the sunset with every thought that comes by. It’s supposed stay where it is and just be aware of my breath. But my mind does not listen. It is a lot like my son Sascha.

This is normal. In last Monday’s class, my teacher told us, “Point your attention to the breath instead of towards your thoughts. When you’re gone, just come back. The practice is the willingness to come back.”

You’re supposed to be gentle with your mind when it runs away. I’ve tried imagining that my thoughts are occurring in a stream at the top of my head. Then I imagine there is a gauzy barrier below which my mind can just be with my breath. Thoughts break through and my mind goes off, but I can bring it back to a quiet space.

Creating space in my mind. I think that’s what I’m doing.

My teacher told us that mindfulness meditation can have a profound effect on you. Yesterday I spent three hours cleaning my office, taking care of some matters that I’d put off for months, and getting rid of clutter. It was not lost on me the connection between cleaning out the clutter in my office and getting some quiet space in my head. Looking forward to class on Monday.