I interrupt your regularly scheduled travel blogging to bring you this important update:
I’ve been meditating.
I know, I know. Who would’ve thought. But desperate times.
I’ve been listening to the podcast “Conversations with Maria Menounos” a lot. She talks about life and finding balance, your purpose, and has interviews with various people who I would’ve never bothered listening to. A lot of the times she has people who started their own business so it’s really inspiring to hear some of their stories of how they started.
On one of the shows they were talking to Andy Puddicombe the creator of HeadSpace, a meditation app, and he said that everyone has 5 or 10 minutes to take out of your day to do this. I started thinking, he wasn’t wrong. My husband gets up at 6 am and my alarm goes off at 6:30 am (although I usually don’t get out of bed until almost 7 am). During that half hour, I’m awake lying there with my eyes closed so I thought, why not be productive and do something. I found a free meditation app–Oak–and began one morning.
DAY 1
It was 10 minutes of sitting still and breathing and, although it was hard to do, I felt great and energized that day. Even though my neighbors had kept me awake for 3 nights in a row and I was about to commit murder. It could’ve also been the 6 layer cake I ate at work that gave me that spike of energy or the delirium from the lack of sleep. Only time will tell. It was difficult not to have thoughts creep into my head. I had to keep redirecting myself back to listening and breathing and when I wasn’t thinking of random things I was wondering where I was supposed to place my hands. I thought about maybe doing the next one laying down because my hands were too distracting.
DAY 2
The next day since I woke up later than I planned, I did the Breathe session on the app labeled “Awake”. I thought it was fitting since I was exhausted from 4 sleepless nights of my stupid neighbors. And then I did something called “Deep Calm”. I think it took less than 5 minutes and I felt great again.
The app also sends you daily quotes which is nice to see during the day. I got my first one at 3:15 pm which I forgot I set it to that time. It was a nice surprise. I’m going to try to keep this up as long as I can. It’s a nice way to start the day, especially when you wake up already stressed out by the people above you, and you have to only look forward to going to work (boo).
DAY 3
Today I started the day with the 10 minute “Loving Kindness” meditation. I did this one laying down and I was less fidgety so I think I’m going that route from now on. That meditation was focused on wishing yourself well along with everyone else. Once again I did feel good hopping out of bed. Today’s quote was: “If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath”–Amit Ray. Well, shit. If that isn’t fitting.
DAY 4
Today is Saturday so my morning routine is a little different. I didn’t get to meditate but I did use the Sleep Guided Breath option. My neighbor wasn’t home tonight (thank god!) but I figured I needed all the help I could get. It was a very relaxing 10 minutes and I drifted off to sleep pretty easily. Don’t know if it was due to the lack of noise, the late hour, or the app. I’ll have to try again to see if it was as fluke.
DAY 5
Sunday. Again I didn’t meditate after waking up. In the evening I did a couple of minutes of deep breathing.
DAY 6
Monday morning work time, I’m gonna need some meditation. I did 10 minutes of guided meditation and hopped out of bed ready to face the day. It could also be that I got 3 decent nights of sleep.
DAY 7
I began the day with “Loving Kindness”. I was pretty zen for the most part during the day. The evening was another story. We had to go food shopping, put things away, make dinner, clean up..I felt overwhelmed and irritable. I put on some soothing sounds when I went to sleep just to bring myself back. Still having trouble falling right to sleep but it isn’t as bad as the week before.
What I learned:
It really ISN’T hard to find 5 or 10 minute in your day to do this. I felt better throughout the week and actually looked forward to the next session. I’ll try to continue as long as I can and try to increase the time as I go along. The hand thing is still a problem which leads to fidgeting so I find I do the first minute sitting upright following the app then lay down. I feel more relaxed that way. Find what works for you.
UPDATE: The following week I only did a couple breathing or meditations and I felt terrible. Week was packed so I was rushing around or needed that extra 15 minutes of laying in bed with my eyes closed. I missed using the app.
Life With Purpose (And Other Things) 