an awareness of the shitstorm

The problem with meditation for many of us, is that from the outside, it seems like a complicated, daunting task. From your posture, to your eye gaze, to what you should think, what you shouldn’t think, mudras, mantras, all the m’s. Our life is so chaotic and full of lists and reminders as it is, that we don’t want another thing to do.

So, many people choose to not meditate at all. For those of us that do try to meditate, we become discouraged when we try it and suddenly take notice that our mind is a circus. A legitimate circus, with rings of fire and monkeys wearing glitter vests. And not cute monkeys, they’re like gremlins stealing kids’ popcorn.

We think that we must be doing it wrong. And even worse, that our minds are too chaotic to calm anyways.

This feeling of discouragement curses us to avoid meditation altogether.

But meditation is simply an awareness of your thoughts.

Easy. Meditation is simple. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.

You’re not stopping your thoughts. You’re not changing your thoughts. You’re just observing your thoughts.

Think of it like this: your mind is like a crowded side walk in NYC. You can be immersed in the crowd, in the same rush, feeling all of the anxiety, hustle and bustle and noise. You can’t stop the crowd, that’s impossible. But what you can do, is choose to slow down your walk and stand still on the crowded sidewalk and just observe what’s going on around you.

That place of observing is where you detach yourself from your ego.

In life, we can feel that we are handcuffed to the anxiety we feel, the situations in our lives, the fast pace. But we’re not. We have a choice to stand still in all of that and just observe the feelings and the situations instead.

This doesn’t mean that after meditation, you won’t have the anxiety creep back in or life circumstances staring you in the face. But the 10 minutes that you gave yourself to detach from those circumstances helped you realize that the anxiety isn’t you…

…that you have choices.

You have the choice to react differently to your triggers.

So instead of avoiding meditation altogether, simplify it.

Meditate for as little or as long as you like. Take whatever position you like. Play music if it relaxes you. Then breathe. If any thoughts are triggered (which they will), pretend like they are clouds passing in the sky. Just watch them go away. And when they come back, watch them go away again. And again. And again. And then when you say to yourself “OMG I CAN’T MEDITATE I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS,” just laugh and notice that you have a shitstorm of thoughts.

Be open to who you are, just as you are. That’s meditating.