Mental Flossing: My March Meditation Challenge (“it’s good for you!”)

I’ve been feeling a bit off-kilter lately.  Bouncing back and forth and up and down in just about every aspect of my life I can envision at the moment.  Everything feels like too much and not enough.  I feel restless and completely drained simultaneously, my thoughts running one hundred miles a minute, my brain struggling to stay engaged and present long enough to see a single task through to completion.  

Ever since I was a child, I’ve struggled with anxiety.  Not the emotion that all of us experience in one way or another in spurts or short-lived situations, like the night leading up to a test or a first date.  Mine is of the chronic, disordered kind.  Often I don’t even recognize its overwhelming presence, as I am completely consumed in a tangle of thoughts from overthinking even the smallest of things.  

What begins off as simply thinking ahead or “good planning” quickly becomes a rabbit hole of “what-ifs”, “but-then’s” and “even-so’s” and a endless spiral of no perfect solution to problems that in reality, are not really a problem.

An example, for just this week has been me trying to decide which night after school I should plan on going to a café after work to write this blog post.  

How could someone possibly overthink the decision of buying a coffee?  You might ask.  

Well, welcome to the inner workings of my mind. 

Today would be a good day to get coffee.  I can stop at the Starbucks at the halfway point on my way home from school.

But I do have unopened almond milk in my fridge.   Maybe I should go home and use that up first.

Then again tomorrow is Friday, and I have all weekend to get through it.

Or should I go to Starbucks to write over the weekend then.  

But I also have coffee at home and a fancy brand new espresso maker so I probably wont want to leave the house to do that.  Might as well save money that way anyways.

Maybe I should save money today though if I have that almond milk in my fridge.

Can I stretch the carton to three days?

If i can’t maybe I can go grocery shopping over the weekend for some.

How much money have I spent this month? Where should I buy it?

No frills is cheapest but its a bit of a hike.  I could take the streetcar.  But that’s three dollars. Almost as much as the almond milk.  

A latte at Starbucks is almost twice that much with soy milk.

Why am I going to Starbucks anyways then?

Maybe I shouldn’t be. Its a waste of money.

But you write better there.

Oh yeah.

Unless your brain starts producing thoughts like this…

And. it. keeps. going.  

I eventually DID decide to go to Starbucks and purchase a six dollar latte. And I DID get some writing done.  Not much though, because even with nothing to do but sit or stand by a 2 foot wide table with my laptop my brain still got in the way.

I am getting fed up with these anxious cyclical thought patterns.  I came across a Ted Talk video where a speaker in a very calm and melodic voice (irritatingly so)  mentioned the benefits of meditation.  

I got over my annoyance to let that sink in. 

Mediation.  Of course.  

Meditation has been something I have always held with the utmost reverence and respect.  But that doesn’t mean I am a regular practitioner of meditation. 

For me, meditation is a lot like flossing.  Something I know is so good for me, with both proven and reported health benefits from daily practice, and yet something I never do. 

And both seem to take much more time in a day than they actually do.  

Meditation is alot like flossing.

When I was doing my Yoga Teacher training, I was (forced) into the habit of meditating every day, often multiple times throughout, and it soon became something I truly enjoyed. 

In the daily ritual of carving out space and time to devote a few minutes (at least) to sitting in stillness, I did truly experience a significant shift in my overall state of mind.  

But when my yoga training ended, work ramped up, and life got busy, little by little, my meditation practice became as rare as my flossing habit.  And given that the floss currently in my bathroom I receiver from my dentist on a visit back when I was in high school, you may get an idea of how rare that is.  

But in this new wave of anxiety and negative thought patterns, I am committing to getting back on the mediation wagon.  

For the month of March (and the last couple weeks of february) I'm committed to meditating every single day, for no shorter than 5 minutes.  

I say 5 minutes because if I tell myself I need to do it for longer than that I feel too daunted by it to actually do it. 

But in reality, every day that I have sat so far I have surprised to find myself coming out of meditation and realizing I have done much more than 5 minutes, usually somewhere between 12 and 20 minutes.  

Its only been about a week so far, but I have been pretty consistent. I’ve managed to do it everyday, except for one where I chose to go out for dinner and stay out late with friends, but hey, I’m human and I have no regrets for being social and connected.

On the weekends, I like meditating first thing in the morning, and then transitioning into some yoga and stretching or more active movement and its sets a nice tone for the rest of my day.

I would like to keep the same time during the workweek but I wake up so early and so exhausted, I’m 90 percent sure I would end up just falling back to sleep finding that sense of stillness. 

So Monday to Friday, I have been choosing to meditate sometime after dinner.  Its also a time of the day when I find my anxiety can peak, as often thoughts about what I’ve eaten or how much I’ve eaten start to creep in.

Actively choosing to witness and observe those thoughts, it becomes much easier to detach from them, and find a more level-headed and balanced place to deal with the anxiety that they bring up.  

Again, its early days, but I am honestly amazed at how simple and yet powerful this daily practice of 5 minutes a day is for my mindset.  

Have you ever had some kind of meditation practice?  Interested in learning more what mine looks like?  Perhaps I’ll shine a light on some of the prompts and images I use for myself in a later post.  

As for now, wishing you all love and light and a beautiful week ahead,

Jordan xoxox