A vacation from problems

So much of our lives is spent worrying about the future and dwelling in the past. If you can find the present moment, you get a respite from the possibilities and sit with what is right now.

When I first started meditating, I thought I was bad at it. I thought I was supposed to stop my thoughts. I couldn’t do that, so I must be failing. What I’ve come to realize is that pulling your attention back to your current focus is the meditation. You will get distracted. Your mind will pull away from your focus. That’s what the mind does. You pulling it back - that’s meditation.

I’ve been meditating for years now. For a long time I went without much guidance. I found a teacher a couple years ago, which has furthered my learning at a much faster rate, as teachers do. I used to feel such nervousness when I sat: “What am I going to think of?” “What demons am I going to fight off?” “What form of failure will I experience today?” My mindset was all wrong. I wasn’t looking at meditation as a game, something playful, something to do without reward (enlightenment now!) or finish line (coming in first place in meditation…you!). I was being way serious about it.

Lately when I sit each day, I feel solace instead of my usual nervousness. I think - wow, I can sit here and focus on my breath and nothing else. When the worries come, I can look at my breath. When regrets rear their ugly heads, look at my breath. When I think I’ll never get anywhere in life, back to the breath. It’s a lovely vacation from negativity. I guess you might say it’s being okay with not knowing. Not knowing what will happen, if past decisions were mistakes, what will become of me or the world. On the tail end of this is the realization that a lot of my problems aren’t problems after all. There’s nothing to be solved. My puzzle-loving mind can take a rest. Save its energy for the real puzzles. Besides, what am I doing to myself with all this problem-fathoming? Who do I think I am - king problem solver of all time? Needed by the world to solve problems that aren’t there? Give it a rest, me. Take a breather, literally.

I hear ya. Yeah, but I can’t do it… The thoughts come at me like monsters and I can’t even be still… I get nothing out of it. The first sign that meditation was working for me was my mental/emotional state later in the day. If I meditated in the morning, things felt a little smoother in the evening. It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable. It took me years to get to this point where I feel like meditation is a break from negative thoughts about past and future. So if I can offer a little advice, get to it. Remember that ashtanga yoga has 8 branches, only one of which is asana. Concentration and meditation are two other branches. In order to be in a state of yoga, in order for yoga to be more than just a workout, these practices must be explored.