I’ve
meditated every day for the last 55 days.
My muse just threw out a thought the other day. “Mom, do you think you could meditate for 100
days in a row?” She didn’t challenge me
to do so, but it sure sounded like a challenge to me.
I
am one for a challenge. I love
them. They motivate me, stretch me and just
plain give me things to do. From the
time I was a little girl, the way to get me to do something was to tell me I
couldn’t. When a friend suggested that I
wouldn’t get a job because I had no experience and no degree, I went all out
and got the job. When someone told me
there’d be no way to run a marathon with the responsibilities of a husband, two
children and a full time job? Nailed
it!! Even if I had to get up at 4:30 am
some mornings to get my training runs in.
Complete a 100-days of happy challenge—one that only 71% of people who
start, don’t complete? Game on!!
I’ve
been focused on meditation lately. I
took a mindfulness meditation class in New York last summer and it really
resonated with me. Mindfulness
meditation is a meditation practice that encourages you to pay attention to
things that are happening in the moment—right now. No small feat for a person who prides herself
on her ability to multi-task.
The
mindfulness practice was good for me.
Though I couldn’t necessarily measure the difference on a daily basis,
over time I felt myself slowing down, doing things more deliberately, not
immediately responding to stressors thereby allowing myself to come up with a
thoughtful response. I caught myself
appreciating a cloud-filled sky more often, rather than rushing around trying
to dodge the ever-growing traffic.
Things
were going along swimmingly, as they say.
That is, until I hit a bump. In
the middle of a screaming match I realized that I was not even remotely using
any of the skills I had learned in my meditation practice. In this instance I was right, and I knew it,
but there was no way my message could possibly be received at the decibel level
I was delivering it! For emphasis, I was
banging my fist on my granite counter top.
I couldn’t believe it. I never
reacted like that. As I watched this
drama play out, I was ashamed of my behavior.
I had just proverbially lost my s**t!
Fast
forward—conversation over—nothing accomplished except that I had made my
point. I stewed over what had just
happened for several hours with the end result being that I felt I needed to
apologize for my behavior—not for the message but for the mess I’d made of
delivering it.
I
called the family member involved and apologized. She told me that I didn’t need to and that
she was all right with everything that had happened. I told her that I was not all right with
it—that I was on a spiritual walk and expected better of myself. In a calm tone, I delivered the message I
wish I’d delivered to her the first time.
No yelling, no screaming, no hurting my hand on my counter top.
When
our conversation was over, I felt better.
When I behave in a way that is unacceptable to me, my load gets
heavier. I made a promise to myself
after Ted and Lateef died. The promise
was that I would live each day as if it were my last. Something happens when you know that you’re
dying. It’s time to fix things—it’s time
to make amends. Something also happens
when you lose someone you love. For me,
that something equates to living the best, most authentic life that I can—a
life that my loved ones would be proud of—a life of no regrets. No regrets might be thinking about what I’m
going to say before I say it or it might mean cleaning up after myself after a
messy interaction. Acting like a Tasmanian
Devil or a screaming banshee is not authentic—it is not who I am. So I cleaned up my mess and moved on.
One
of the skills I learned in my mindfulness meditation was how to react to stressors.
It’s really easy to react to stressors without even thinking—it takes control
and awareness to take a moment, breathe and respond appropriately. Eventually I’ll catch myself before
I go over the cliff—but if I don’t, as I didn’t in my screaming match with my
family member, I can clean it up, move on, and learn from the experience. Perhaps I’ll catch myself next time, respond
appropriately and have nothing to clean up.
Yes,
this life is really a journey and with each day I get an opportunity to behave
better, do better, be better.
I’ll
be checking in with you all periodically on this challenge of 100 days of
meditation that might turn into 365 days, who knows?
