Day 27 of ? of meditation & blogging!

15 minutes 00 seconds

Friends,

Today was another of those days where I had things do in the world before I could sit for my meditation session. A good nights sleep and a slow to waking up day off vibe started things off right. I went out to get a few things taken care of, talked briefly with one of my BFF’s, finished my running around and came home.

It gave me time during the late morning and early afternoon to start mentally going over the many challenges I have going on in my life and to begin to overthink them or worry about them to the point of distraction. Each time, I recognized what was happening and then let the worry and overthinking go, reminding myself that I have survived this far and can figure it out, but that this was not the exact moment to do so. Thus I was able to get things I needed to do done and get home to relax for a few moments before beginning today’s session. I can honestly say it is something I have been getting noticeably better at during this meditative journey of mine.

I made myself a cup of coffee and a cup of ice water and sat down at my writing table to begin. I reset my timer from 10 minutes to 15 minutes today, and selected a music track from my YouTube playlist I hadn’t worked with in a while. I had been meaning to stretch the goal or minimum time for my daily mindfulness practice for a while and having repeatedly and comfortably dwelt in the 14 minute and something range, I felt it was time. I started the meditation track and the time, closed my eyes, and began.

My focus started with the music and even though I had some trouble today settling into my meditative breathing and focusing upon it I still found myself in the place of inner calm and quite I have come to cultivate inside myself. The breathing resolved itself and as I turned my awareness towards it and let the music and ambient sounds from around the house receded, thoughts came. These were easily noted and let go. I sank deeper into my inner place of mental quiet and emotional calm as I followed my breath and relaxed into the experience. As more thoughts came I acknowledged some and let them go and at times I repeated my chosen mental charm of “it is what it is” to chase thoughts away as I also deepened my focus upon my breath then allowed the mantra to fade until I was back with simply my breath and the calm and silence within.

At the 15 minute mark two things happened at once. First, the timer on my phone went off. Secondly, Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson showed up & scared the ABSOLUTE hell out of me in his zeal to inform me of his current collaboration with Zaxby’s?! Apparently the music track I had selected (& used previously in the 10 minute + range) had advertising breaks that I had not noticed. Once I got over that brief yet SPECTACULARLY startling moment, I laughed at it and started pondering the session and today’s lessons.

1. I am improving in my ability to set aside thoughts and emotions that are not serving me in the moment.
2. It increasingly feels as if I am in better contact with that place of calm and quiet within me, and can reconnect with it with more ease and speed than in the past.
3. I need to better check my music tracks before saving them to my playlists!

So what sort of lessons, even the wildly unexpected ones, have you learned on your own spiritual journeys?

Bliss & Blessed Be,
Pax / Geoffrey