Day 29 of ? of meditation & blogging!

15 minutes 03 seconds

Friends,

Today’s session has been a lesson in how far I have come in my mindfulness practice so far.

I awakened a few minutes before my alarm feeling very well rested. Thanks in part to my recently prescribed CPAP and in part due to having spent a mostly cloudy and slightly rainy afternoon yesterday trailing behind The Fabulous Jonathan in his remarkably fast mobility scooter as we checked out new developments at one of the local theme parks. I prepared the usual hot coffee w/ cream and some ice water. While the coffee brewed I bopped around my socials for a moment, but wasn’t feeling too engaged in them. I selected and synced up my music and my timer, started them and closed my eyes and began.

I closed my eyes and took a slow deep breath and found myself brushing gently against the place of peace within me. I focused upon the music and tried to find my breaths. A few thoughts came and were dismissed. I began to find the rhythm of my breaths and turned more of my focus from the music to my breath and my bodies dance with the air within it. Thoughts continued to come and sometimes sneak up on me stealthily until I had the sudden realization that I was lost in thought and not holding my focus. It is what it is. I let the thoughts go and returned to my breath. This dance of mind and focus and thoughts, of breath and air and body, continued. I felt a ghost of frustration, and amusement, at the this waltz between the ten thousand distractions in my mind and keeping my focus upon my breath as they danced on or near or through the inner calm and quiet within me. Those, of course, were also thoughts and observations so with another breath I dismissed them and continued this inner dance. Then the timer was chiming, and I eagerly silenced it and the music and rested a moment.

In the past, in past attempts at establishing a meditation practice and even at the start of this meditative journey I’ve been chronicling, I would have considered today’s mindfulness session a failure and a source of frustration at not dwelling in a place of timelessness and peace and quite from the time I closed my eyes until the timer chimed. Now? It is what it is. What it is is what today’s mindfulness meditation was. Sometimes we dwell in the hands of the Gods, and sometimes we are sitting there waiting for our brains to do the thing. All that really matters though is that in the moment, we strive to remain in the moment and to keep our focus upon whatever we have chosen to focus on.

It is outside of meditation sessions that we find the joys and the benefits of our training our minds and awareness.

Bliss & Blessed Be,
Pax/Geoffrey