This past year I started to meditate daily as an extension of my yoga practice. I’ve recently noticed that this was the brain food that I was seeking to help rein in emotions that don’t serve me.
In a few instances I’ve been able to diffuse emotionally charged events by sitting on my cushion, closing my eyes and observing them. Sometimes I can watch my thoughts and the emotions disappear and sometimes I can’t let them go. But at least I go down knowing that I will pay the price of lost time and severed connections that raging emotions exact.
Since I can observe my thoughts during meditation, they are apart from “me”. There must be someone else in the “room” watching. And If I’m going to understand how to live my life effectively, then I need to peal the layers until a better understanding of who is running the show becomes apparent.
This is best done at dawn on a meditation cushion with the birds chirping outside and a breeze blowing through the wind chimes, but it’s much harder to master around the kitchen table when the women in the house are under a hormonal siege, my son is hiding in his pasta and the mood around the table is not close to being in the same vicinity of harmony.
Instead of jumping into the fray and creating more turbulence, I dial into my meditation toolbox to observe whatever negative thoughts are surrounding me and choose an outcome that can serve everyone. This is very empowering when it works. But I think it’s the ritual of a daily meditation practice that brings such magic within grasp.
Part of the ritual is to simply stop.
I must have a to-do list generator encoded in my DNA as I create lists and cross them off all day long in order to feel productive. Sitting quietly for the better part of an hour each dawn on my red cushion forces me to stop. This is huge and transforming in itself.
What would happen if you spend the first half hour of each day not doing?
