I Go To the Gym to Meditate (Not Exercise)

My relationship with the gym is changing.  Old school me would have to make myself go, because I'm supposed to be there and it was based on looks. Now at fifty-five, it's more about being able to move and function!  I hope to have grandchildren one day and I want to be active with them.  When we took a two week nonstop group trip to Europe this summer,  I wanted to be able to keep up and not struggle, so I trained.  Moving my body now, makes me feel good. 

I also am learning that sitting with my body and thoughts, makes me feel good. 

Actually, better than the gym does. 

As a person who has suffered with anxiety forever (and didn't know it), hypervigilance and people pleasing, I had no idea how much I needed to be still and know that I am.  

Recently, I realized that the only classes I was actually attending at Woman's Center for Wellness were "Yoga Nidra" (gentle yoga with 20 minute guided meditation)  and a  "Breathe and Connect" which was total meditation.  I was going to the gym to meditate?!!  At first, I thought I'm a slacker, but then I discovered practicing in a group honed my skills and that is what I needed at this time.  

I have heard about meditation forever.  I knew it was SO good but when I sat down and tried over the years, I struggled.  I would try here and there.   At church, it was called centering prayer.  I remember sitting in a graduate school class and trying to breathe as instructed and making myself dizzy.  I did not take to it naturally at all.  

It has taken decades to gain this skill.  When I was taking more intense yoga classes and at the short shavasana at the end, emotions would come up and that freaked me out.  I was not okay with what came up because yoga was supposed to be relaxing.  

There is a good Netflix series called "Headspace: Guide to Meditation" by Andy Puddicombe.  He describes meditation as: "a skill of training our mind so that we can have a calmer, clearer mind and a greater sense of ease in our mind, our body and our life."  Andy reports how science has studied how meditation affects heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels and even the structure of the brain.  I can actually change the hardwiring of my brain to lessen anxiety.   That seems really unfathomable to me, but I am slowly seeing that very thing occurring. 

All of that sounds good doesn't it, but it's really REAL.

Mr. Puddicombe also describes how he thought he could think himself out of losses in his life.  I so identify with this.  I wanted to excise any negative emotion that came up.  My feelings frightened me. I was phobic of them.  He states that training the mind is about changing our relationship with the passive thoughts and feelings that come up.  We change our perspective on them and we naturally find a place of calm.  

Ding! Ding! Ding!

This immediately reminds me of an instagram post I read recently.  The opening slide attributed to Lexi Florentina states: We don't actually heal or "get rid of" our pain, trauma or grief.  Instead, we build capacity to coexist with it in a way where presence, safety, and joy can also take place.  

And then she takes the idea further...

Wow! 

The trauma, pain and distress will always be with us, but it is less intense as we process it.  With my therapist, I have processed some of my trauma, and I learned to be with it using IFS therapy.  Over time, I became less emotionally overwhelmed and began to welcome and nurture the scared, anxious, abandoned parts of my younger self. 

I can see now that meditation is a version of this.  I watch my thoughts go by and not attach to them or become them.  I use breathing as a major component to come back to the present as the restless thoughts always appear.  Sometimes, I repeat a positive intention word over and over.  There's so many ways. 

I'm so glad the gym offers Yoga Nidra and Breathe and Connect classes and I tried them!  They strengthened my meditation practice greatly.  One teacher was new to me but her meditation and the calming, nurturing way she led the guided meditation in shavasana was exactly what I needed.  The other teacher was one that I have taken classes from for years and she has taught me during that time to be kind and gentle with myself and send love to the parts of the body that we were stretching.  

So meditation and cardio.  Yoga Nidra and strength training.  The gym can be a place to meditate. 

Both/And

 

Namaste.

I Have Something in Common with Trump

I have something in common with DJT.  We both want to be zen. I heard a news report that he wanted to project zen after the two indictments and the guilty plea on Monday.  I was incredulous that this was the word used.  I have longed to be "zen" for a number of years and have wanted to write a blog for a few weeks now about the fact that I am not zen.  And bam, there it was, that word used in connection with Trump?!!

I am not zen by nature, and I really, really want to be calm, focused and not have my feathers ruffled. (i.e.. no anxiety!!)   But I'm just not.  Donald wants to project this as well, or at least he did three days ago.  Mr. twitter "every thought and feeling with no filter" wants to appear calm.  Maybe somewhere deep in his consciousness, he wants to rise above but it seems in this instance it is more about brand management. I'm not sure with his obvious Narcissistic Personality disorder(s) that he could rise above.  He would have to acknowledge and have awareness to begin.

It just hit me, what is zen?  What does it really mean, what is the definition?  My Google search definition said this:

1. zen: a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition.

   
   

   Wait, I am all about intuition!!! (Intuition is listening to the most undervalued part of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit) 

   
   

   Another definition from Zen.buddhism.net: Zen meditation, is a way of vigilance and self-discovery which is practiced while sitting on a meditation cushion. It is the experience of living from moment to moment, in the here and now. 

   
   

   Are you kidding me??  

   
   

   Oh my gosh, I do practice zen!! The key word being practice.  Years ago, the first book that I read of this nature at church was Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth."  Tolle's premise is about living in the here and now. I had no idea what he was talking about when I started, but it was about being in the present moment: not dwelling in the past, nor the fear of the future.  In Psalms, it says "Be still and know that I am God."  What this means, is to stop fighting, surrender and be quiet in God's presence and to the Divine's ways.  Basically the all knowing, who is present everywhere, has got your back. (It may not look like what you want though) 

   
   

   The difficulty in that is learning to let go.  Ha ha!  That infamous letting go.  Why can't we let go?  When we sit still, what comes to us?   Big thoughts that don't stop, and scary feelings or energy as I have learned to call it. I have been diligently plunging into this notion in terms of addictions and compulsions.  This is why we are the most compulsed nation in the world.  The list is endless, we all know them:  Alcohol, drugs, food,  gambling, shopping, exercising, electronics, etc. etc.  Any behavior that helps us avoid our life right in front of us and numb out. Some of them are healthy actions but when it is taken to the extreme, that is avoidance and can interfere with relationships, and career, etc.

   
   

   And this work to be "in the moment" is the hardest of anything that I've embarked on.  For example, I am about to get on a plane by myself and fly to a large city and meet a few friends that I know intimately but yet, I've never met in person. (I've met a few of them)  I am claustrophobic as all get out.  Planes, elevators, and now root canal DO ME IN. The last time I flew in late July, I woke up to a panic attack about flying DAYS BEFORE we left.  My hands are shaking as I type because I have great fear of enclosed spaces.   And fear of going it alone.  But I'm doing it anyway.  

   
   

   Another example is when a study group of mine decided to meditate for 5 minutes after we listened to an audio.  I have not practiced meditation.  I have practiced mindfulness which is focusing on my thought patterns but not actually sitting still cross legged. My intuition told me to get up from where I was sitting because I was too close to the person whom I adore next to me.  I didn't listen it though and as soon as I closed my eyes, and we started, I felt panic.   I was claustrophobic and needed my own space. My anxiety rose but I stayed with it and the panic slowly dissipated.   And this is how I practice meditation.  Ha ha, it starts with anxiety about having anxiety. LOL!!  Good times!

   
   

   I am learning to be with these energy and I have learned that it is okay, to take medication to fly, but I want to embrace new practices to calm myself.   

   
   

   I have to trust the Divine One and let go.  I have to practice staying in my body. Breath is the key to staying with the body.  Breathing and using all of my lung capacity.  Focus my wayward thoughts on something else not scary.  I have downloaded...guided meditations to listen to.  The Hamilton soundtrack takes me away too! 

   
   

   Zen is the value of meditation and intuition.  

   
   

   Why I misunderstood what Zen was, is because I want SERENITY NOW especially right now!!!  But it's a practice and not a state of being.  I want it now, now, now.    

   
   

   It's not about being zen, it's about practicing zen.

   
   

   I have thought many times about the reason why DJT gets under my skin so very much and it's not just about his political ideology.  And I can learn from this.   I can clearly see what his personality is and what his motivation is and it is all about his ego.  He has very poor ego structure.  There is an AA saying, "If you spot it, you got it" and this applies here.   What I recognize in others so readily is actually one of my own issues.  It touches a nerve.  I don't believe Trump sits with his thoughts and feelings at all.  He acts on them when he shouldn't ALL THE TIME.  He says he can do everything and do it better than everybody. He is soothing his ego when he does this.  How I'm different in responding and soothing my ego, is that I have told myself I can't do anything.  We both have poor egos, we just project it differently. 

   
   

   Yet, I have been slowly and methodically proving myself wrong on this.

   
   

   I can do many things that I thought I couldn't or wouldn't ever try.

   
   

   Yet I have to sit and be still with the most uncomfortable energy to do so.  In this present moment of fear, I am having a hard time knowing what it will feel like after this wave passes, but there will be calm on the other side and the awareness of the Divine presence within.  This is what awareness and going within is all about.  When you catch that Divine flow, you want to stay forever but it just a glimpse that keeps you coming back and being still over and over.   

   
   

   Namaste

Contemplation as Divine Therapy!

From Richard Rohr's daily Meditation today:
I have heard it said that the gaze of delight between a mother and the baby at her breast is the beginning of the capacity for intimate relationship. We spend the rest of our lives hoping for that moment again: that kind of safety; that kind of security; that kind of feeding; that kind of living inside of one world, where we are delighted in and loved. That is the True Self. Perhaps the most perfect image of this we can find is the Madonna with the Baby Jesus. This is the most common painting in Western art museums, I am told, probably because there is absolute wholeness mirrored in the gaze of love between mother and child. As Jung said, we paint the images our soul needs to see.

We also become the God we connect with. That’s why it’s so important to know the true God, and not some little, punitive, toxic god, because then you don’t grow up, but live in fear and pretense. Contemplation, as Thomas Keating says, is the divine therapy. We know God and we know ourselves by inner prayer journeys and not by merely believing in doctrines or living inside of church structures. God’s way of dealing with us becomes our way of dealing with life and others. We eventually love others, quite simply, as we have allowed God to love us, which should create quite a loving world.

From Carolyn:
Wowza, the last paragraph speaks, actually sings to me, so very much!

"Contemplation is the DIVINE THERAPY.  We know God and ourselves by our inner prayer journey and not by doctrines…"  

I am learning to live into this and these words are so powerful and true for me.  God was so far away and judgmental for so many years even though I was in the church all of my life but now I'm experiencing love in a whole new way.  Therapy actually led me to God.

 "God's way of dealing with us becomes our way of dealing with life and others."  And until we fully believe how much God (or Higher Power) loves us and we open ourselves to seeing that, we then are able to give it away.  It's not even hard to give it away, it just comes bursting out as something that you have to do.  It's a way of life.

Namaste.

Do You Sit Cross Legged During The Week?

I watched Deepak Chopra on Super Soul Sunday.  I have so many ahas from watching that particular show.  It is simply splendid.  The topic was meditation. Now this is the deal,  I don't sit cross legged and specifically meditate for a period of time each day. Yet  I have thought a few times over the last few years, I've got that covered.  I'm not going to worry that I'm lacking in this area.  

I just had intuition...

This was some of Deepak and Oprah's discussion:  

Meditation is in every spiritual tradition: “Be still and no that I am”

Centering Prayer - is in Christianity - especially with the Benedictine Monks (We have had classes at my Methodist church!)

There are breathing meditations, body awareness meditations, variations of mantra meditations.  (I'm learning that so much is about what we hold in the body - the body which we ignore!)

What is meditation: a "Simple Mental technique to go to the source of thought"  
Also Dr. Chopra said that prayer is us speaking to God, meditation is allowing the Spirit to speak to us - yet it speaks in silence and manifests in intuition, inspiration.    (In spirit,-enthusiasm.)  

Oh my, I get this!  Being in that place when you are open to God coming through - is when you listen to intuition, are creative, see beauty and so many other open hearted actions.

And then the kicker.  Oprah brings up Eckhart Tolle and living in the present moment.   Deepak says being ”In present Moment” which is Mindfulness - has same affect as meditation!!    The consequences of living mindfully are make conscious choices, and changing your life.  

It is simply amazing to have thoughts in your head, and then without warning, an author or an expert, says exactly what your thoughts have been and there is confirmation of a belief.  I wanted to jump up and down and do the happy dance.

A funny side note:  Running into people and they ask what I have been up to.  I am speechless to say what my mission has truly been.  Can I say that I have made it my mission to know myself, to be more spiritual.  How do you describe the above fantastic life lesson without sounding like a loon.  The seed is now planted to answer it truthfully.


Recently a new friend used the words "new ageish"  and I remembered that I haven't thought those words in a long time.  I guess that means I have crossed to the other side!  {grin}  

"You don't know you are there, until you are there"