Meditation practice

Did you know there's a tiny town in Iowa, who all meditate together as a community? The town's name is Maharishi Vedic City, and anyone who wants to, can meditate together for 20 minutes twice a day. You might think this is totally weird, but this town enjoys less sickness, less traffic accidents, and... no crime. How's that for a crime rate? Just like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock I think "I want to go to there!". I'm just not so sure about living in Iowa climate. Perhaps we can begin a new town in Hawaii?

Meditation is a method refined over 3,000 years, handed down from the wisest monk to the next. Today it is a bonified psychology, used mostly to assuage depression, anxiety, chronic pain, addiction and OCD. It is THE number one stress reducer out there. Why? It sever's the link between negative thought and negative emotions. Therapists have a triangular model that shows the vicious cycle of negativity. It goes like this, Negative thought = negative emotion = negative behavior. (It can also go in revers by the way). Meditation asks you to take a step back and simply look upon negative thoughts and emotions without trying to change them and with no judgement. Eventually you can train yourself to let any negative thoughts, such as, I'm not good enough, to come and go without having the accompanying feelings of despair and then lashing out. Just because you have a thought, does not mean you must become that thought.

Meditation also cultivates strong feelings of self acceptance. Not of how you want to be, but of how you are right now. I love hearing stories of this actually working in people's lives, so here's a story I found in my book Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson. Barbara is a positive emotional researcher which means she and her colleagues create random assignment studies of people and what may or may not make them have more positive feelings. In one of her studies she tells of a completely random assignment that was sent out for people in the work place to sign up for. She tells of Nina, who, signed up for the experiment and happened to land in their meditation group. All participants whether they were in the meditation group or not were asked to rate their feelings and emotions at the end of every work day. In addition, the meditation group was asked to meditate for 20 minutes per day during they're lunch hour for 3 months. At the end of the study Barbara was blown away by the upsurge of positivity of the group doing meditation whereas the control group showed no visible improvement. In particular Nina's story stood out to her and she called her for an in depth interview. I'm going to paraphrase it a bit because it's a few pages long but here it is.

Nina's story: At the beginning of the study, I was so hard on myself and everyone around me. I was depressed, lonely and often teary eyed. When I got home from work I would pester my husband "why are you just sitting there when there are things to be done!" I suffered from frequent, painful migraines and stomach pains. For years I had been trying to conceive and blamed myself month after month for failing to do so. It kept coming down to "what am I doing wrong?". Most of the time I just wanted to come home from work and bang my head against a wall.

Barbara's philosophy is that if you have a ratio of 3-1 positive to negative emotions you begin to thrive in life. Nina recorded about a 1-1 on her scale. One positive thought for every negative one. Not a very flourishing life. After the study this is how Nina described her life:

I rarely have headaches anymore and the stomach pains are completely gone! I feel more confident. Certain things just tend to roll off my shoulders instead of bothering me all day long. I feel peace within myself and can share it with others around me. I connect more with others and have more compassion. Now when I get home from work I think "there's always going to be more dishes to be done, I'd rather relax right now because I love the way it makes me feel". Thank you for bringing this study into my work place. Meditation is a wonderful way to relax and I will continue to do it. It is a wonderful feeling of peace within my soul.

Nina's positivity ratio raised from a 1-1 to a 6-1! As well as her feelings of happiness, Nina also was able to conceive. Her and her husband had one older child and longed to expand their family. After the meditation study Nina decided to just let it go and reconnect with her husband. She decided that maybe they were meant to be just a family of three. Now, there's several links between positivity and conceiving but nothing proven so far yet. But after Nina learned to relax and love herself she conceived not only one but two children. Twins!

Nina is one of many stories of learning to love and accept. I can't get enough of these! Now, I realize that many of you are probably not going to start sitting down every day to meditate. All I really want is to plant the idea and make it seem not so crazy nutcase hippie woowoo. Even if you already experience peace and happiness within your life, is there any reason you DON'T want more? and more?

I suggest trying what I am going to call "the 3 minute primer". Sit down at any time of the day and set a timer so that you can let go of time. Do the breathing exercise from this blog and picture yourself as the most relaxed you've ever been. Maybe lying on a beach or taking a nap on the couch? Now, for 3 minutes simply watch your thoughts. Don't try to only have positive ones. Let whatever pops up come. Think "here comes a thought now", and watch it as it forms and dissipates without pursuing it or judging it. Also, don't get upset with yourself if you do find yourself judging a thought, saying either this is a good/bad thought. Then you will be judging the judging and will go cross eyed. No not really, but just don't complicate things for yourself. Pretend that your thoughts are cars on a train. One car comes slowly along and you get to look at it from afar, then watch it as it slowly trundles off. In between the thoughts become aware of your breathing without trying to manipulate it in any way. Try to stay in the present moment as much as possible but also remembering that you shouldn't fight off a thought if it decided to come along. This is a good way to start without getting overwhelmed for trying to find a block of time with which to meditate. Again, if you want the guided meditations you can find them on the first of my meditation blogs from Jon Kabat-Zinn.

I have so many more things I planned to say about meditation but I think it's time to move on for now.

peace and love

Janae

You only have moments to live!

So I've been telling myself I wasn't allowed to blog again until I fixed some visual errors on this thing. Notice how you can barely read the title? I'm a little "computer illiterate" I like to joke, so my husband who lives, breathes and eats computers helps me a bit from time to time. Problem is, he helps me then get's really busy with work and I get stuck with my blog looking weird and I'm terrified to change it! Also, I decided I wanted to start adding some pictures to liven things up a bit. So here is a beautiful picture of a waterfall that I took while hiking this summer; it really doesn't have much to do with anything. I WAS going to put a picture of me meditating on here but lost the cable that downloads pictures from my camera to the computer. Oops!

Oh well, I wanted to write anyway! I'm not going to let all that little stuff stop me, but rest assured that I will be sprucing things up so that we can chat in a more comfortable environment.

Where were we? Ah yes, You only have moments to live. So begins Chapter one of Jon Kabbat-Zinns "Full Catastrophe Living". I'm only a few chapters into this book, but this phrase just won't get out of my mind! You only have moments to live. This moment. Right now. Live in THIS moment. Scientists say we have about 60,000 thoughts per day and 90% of those are the same thoughts we thought yesterday and the day before. Why? because most of those thoughts are worrying about the future or re-hashing the past. Do we ever think about what we are doing right now? I know I don't! However, I am working to change that.

With what now? That's right, meditation. It's not mystical hocus pocus. All you are doing is training your brain to stay in the present. To experience what is going on in your life, right in that moment, with no judgement, accepting how things are, and not how you would like them to be or how you wish they were. Meditation is simply practicing how to systematically stay in the present. How to pay attention in a particular way and with no judgement.

So for the past year or so I have been doing a sort of relaxation/meditation thing everyday for 15 min. The first time I sat for a formal 40 minute meditation I thought "hey, I've got this, I've been doing it for a year!". But man, trying to keep my mind in the present was like caging a feral animal. It immediately began looking for a way out. Suddenly the guiders voice faded out and the valley girl deep inside me started running her mouth. "So like, did you see Tiffany the other day? (smacks gum and twirls hair) Those shorts were way to short for her, and I really need to start doing more lunges, and I LOVE Dr. Pepper, and I think my dog is getting fat, and..." you get the picture. Relaxation is great-but it was not like trying to stay present and pay attention to your breathing. I missed most of what the guider on my CD said that first day, but thankfully I was prepared for that. Meditation is a PRACTICE not a GOAL. Every new moment is another moment to try again. Don't beat yourself up about it, it's hard in the beginning just like learning to cook or play the piano. You're not going to be able to cook a perfect 3 course delicacy your very first time or play a perfect concerto, so don't sweat it. Just like playing the piano, though, you won't get good unless you practice everyday.

One thing I've noticed has gotten better already from my 3 whole weeks of meditating? Sleeping! Sleeping has gotten better. I have a friend who says that as soon as she closes her eye's to go to bed at night, the movie of her day begins to play from beginning to end. Whether good or bad it begins to replay over and over to keep her up into the wee hours of the morning. I confess, this happens to me too. I also worry about every little thing and tend to wake up a lot in the night. But lately, I've noticed, I stay asleep until the morning. I still have problems going to sleep at night but that is so much more tolerable then the constant awakenings, feeling like you never get any REM can make you so crabby. If you're a new mom, or have ever been one then you know what I'm talking about, girlfriends!

Right now I am in my 3d week of my 9 week brain exercise/diet, and I'm feeling pretty good. And if I can do it, anyone can! I will keep you all posted so in the mean time- live in this moment, it's all we have, so smile!

Janae

resolve

I'm a little late on the whole New Year's resolution thing, I know, but things have been really busy around here. I've been trying to decide on a few specific ones for myself, and after hearing a few others- work out, eat better, be nicer, work harder, finish school etc.. -I've decided on one big one. My goal? It's the same as everyone else's. Be Happier! Think about it, everyone wants to resolve to do something to make themselves just a little bit happier. No one ever says, "this year, I want to curl up in the fetal position in my house and stare morosely at the wall". We all want the same things, right? Almost everything we do is striving towards those little elusive good feelings.

I have narrowed it down a little more than "be happier", of course. But my goal isn't be more rich and be more thin and hopefully that will make me happy. My goal is more happiness itself.

So, my first goal is: Meditate regularly every week. Remember my last post said that I was going to give you the "cream of the crop" in positive habits? Well, here it is. The big Kahuna. My number one pick for happiness increasing bliss.

What do you think of when you hear the word "meditate"? I'll tell you what I first thought (and sometimes still do). I picture a Tibetan monk atop a high misty mountain, swathed in orange fabric, sitting cross legged with a look of pure serenity gleaming from his face as a car sized gong is being rung, echoing off the mountains...

"Psh! That has nothing to do with an American house wife who grew up in Idaho!" I though it was just something weird that eastern cultures did and I couldn't fathom why. But you don't have to be a Tibetan monk in order to get that look of serenity to cross your face. If you can close your eye's and imagine the back of your own hand, you can learn to meditate. Every single book I've read, without exception, mentions meditation as one of the top reducers of stress and anxiety. We all have stress, right? And often we think, as soon as this project (or whatever the stress-er might be) is over, then I won't be stressed anymore. But what about when life keeps throwing up challenge after challenge. Are you really going to wait months, maybe years, to feel calm again? Especially when you can learn, right now, to be calm and serene no matter the ups and downs.

This is how I feel about meditation:

Diet and exercise = healthy body (very important)

meditation = healthy mind (also very important)

Exercise for the mind. Plain and simple. I have a veritable laundry list of things meditation can do for you, like:

-reduction of stress

-better focus

-improves sleep, and can even cure insomnia

-helps with weight loss (good one, eh?)

-helps to dramatically reduce headaches

-decreases muscle tension

-less sickness

-helps lower blood pressure

-and, people who meditate report less acne!

Here are 100 more reasons to get you motivated to meditate. I'm thinking I might even print it off and stick it to my wall where I meditate to keep me pumped!

I have only been meditating regularly for about 2 weeks and I'm hooked, but just like learning to play the piano, it takes time with not much in the way of instant results. In fact the research studies I've seen say that it takes about 9 weeks to begin to see quantifiable results. However, as long as you keep practicing, the results are permanent. It can lastingly change your brain for the positive! There's so much information on meditation I can't possibly relay it here, nor have I seen all the info. there is to be seen. So to keep you from being overwhelmed I'll be writing a little more in the next few posts about meditating.

If this was enough to peak your interest in meditating and you would like to try it, then I suggest Jon Kabat-Zinn's guided meditations for beginners. His CD's are the first ones I happened to stumble upon so I've been using those. You can order them from his website. I promise I'm not getting any sort of kick back from this guy, so you know this is purely because I think he does what he does well. Also, pick up his book "Wherever you go, there you are". It's a seriously good read, even if you don't think you would be into meditating.

I also have a resolution to eat more healthy and work out more! I just want to clarify that those are also things that can make you happiness lift. As for meditating, I am really going to stick to it for the next 9 weeks and let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!

Zen to you all,

Janae