plenty of room for something else
so, i've been meditating a lot recently. i don't consider myself very good at it, however. so even though i have many many experiences with it all, it's often very indescribable, or if there are words for it, they're so esoteric that it'd be pointless to try to convey it here. but today i had one of those experiences that i MUST TRY to put to words, because it literally changed my perspective on EVERYTHING.
initially for me, mediation was most difficult because i had to sit with my thoughts, and notice them. i have a lot of voices in my head, saying all sorts of Not-So-Nice things, about me, about what i need to do, what someone else needs to be blamed for, or why everything is so hopeless. (i'm sure my previous blogs reveal NOTHING of these thoughts, ha ha!). but that's just the brain part. see, the actual physical aspect of sitting meditation is painful. it's worse than sitting in a wooden pew at church, even, because at church you can distract yourself with whatever the minister is saying, or the bad outfit of the woman sitting in front of you, or by flipping through the hymnal with all those good harmonies in it. in meditation, you just sit. with your thoughts, with your breath, with your aches and pains and internal everything that wants attention. and guess what? sometimes you end up having to pay it some attention.
it's all good, though, because you start to see the patterns you fall into, or the places where pain (emotional, physical, relationship or otherwise) recurs. again and again. and sometimes that gives you access to determining what you want to do about it (let it go, send it love, see a chiropractor, etc).
sometimes it's really hard to sit through physical pain though. it's like having to pee when you're on the subway, and your 9 stops away from the one place you know you can pee sanitarily. fortunately, today i was given another option.
when i look at it, i usually see my pain as a block in the flow of energy in my body. it aches, and often feels like all my energy is pooling up and putting pressure on the rest of my system. today, i felt it in my elbows and my spine. it was terribly uncomfortable until it was suggested that i go to another plane and look at that block of pain from a different perspective. so i took my pain and broke it down into subatomic particles. light flooded into the billions of spaces that were now visible inside my ball of spinal pain, and energy started flowing with it. my ouchy grew warm and tingly. i watched the rest of my muscles around my spine split into subatomic particles, too, and the light and warmth spread. suddenly, my pain was imperceptible from the rest of my body. In fact, my body didn't really feel like my body normally did, although i knew i was still in my body and experiencing things through it. eventually, i started reacquainting myself with everything i knew was there--my heart, with its pulse at the center of my circulatory system, my lungs, with their rise and fall, my spine as the stem of my skeletal system, and all the other physical sensations i've known for 32 years came back as well. i could feel the pain return in my side, and in my back. but i knew something different about it now, too, and i knew that it didn't have to feel that way, and suddenly, it didn't hurt so much.
i've practiced this concept on a conscious level with my thoughts and emotions, but never so much with my body. but really, how much do our preconceived ideas about our actions, our relationships, and other daily events differ from our ideas about our bodies and our physical pain? go on, try it out. it's fantastic. next thing you know, you'll be chopping through wood with your hands.
initially for me, mediation was most difficult because i had to sit with my thoughts, and notice them. i have a lot of voices in my head, saying all sorts of Not-So-Nice things, about me, about what i need to do, what someone else needs to be blamed for, or why everything is so hopeless. (i'm sure my previous blogs reveal NOTHING of these thoughts, ha ha!). but that's just the brain part. see, the actual physical aspect of sitting meditation is painful. it's worse than sitting in a wooden pew at church, even, because at church you can distract yourself with whatever the minister is saying, or the bad outfit of the woman sitting in front of you, or by flipping through the hymnal with all those good harmonies in it. in meditation, you just sit. with your thoughts, with your breath, with your aches and pains and internal everything that wants attention. and guess what? sometimes you end up having to pay it some attention.
it's all good, though, because you start to see the patterns you fall into, or the places where pain (emotional, physical, relationship or otherwise) recurs. again and again. and sometimes that gives you access to determining what you want to do about it (let it go, send it love, see a chiropractor, etc).
sometimes it's really hard to sit through physical pain though. it's like having to pee when you're on the subway, and your 9 stops away from the one place you know you can pee sanitarily. fortunately, today i was given another option.
when i look at it, i usually see my pain as a block in the flow of energy in my body. it aches, and often feels like all my energy is pooling up and putting pressure on the rest of my system. today, i felt it in my elbows and my spine. it was terribly uncomfortable until it was suggested that i go to another plane and look at that block of pain from a different perspective. so i took my pain and broke it down into subatomic particles. light flooded into the billions of spaces that were now visible inside my ball of spinal pain, and energy started flowing with it. my ouchy grew warm and tingly. i watched the rest of my muscles around my spine split into subatomic particles, too, and the light and warmth spread. suddenly, my pain was imperceptible from the rest of my body. In fact, my body didn't really feel like my body normally did, although i knew i was still in my body and experiencing things through it. eventually, i started reacquainting myself with everything i knew was there--my heart, with its pulse at the center of my circulatory system, my lungs, with their rise and fall, my spine as the stem of my skeletal system, and all the other physical sensations i've known for 32 years came back as well. i could feel the pain return in my side, and in my back. but i knew something different about it now, too, and i knew that it didn't have to feel that way, and suddenly, it didn't hurt so much.
i've practiced this concept on a conscious level with my thoughts and emotions, but never so much with my body. but really, how much do our preconceived ideas about our actions, our relationships, and other daily events differ from our ideas about our bodies and our physical pain? go on, try it out. it's fantastic. next thing you know, you'll be chopping through wood with your hands.
posted by amy at
11:49 PM
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