Meditation: Who, What, and How

     This week, I'm going to tell you about my personal Holy Trinity of Sanity/Brain Optimization.  The three components which I know to be extremely effective in maintaining a positive outlook (or even remembering that a positive outlook is available to me) are as follows:

1. eating healthful, wholesome food at regular intervals (for most humans, smaller meals every two or two and a half hours would be optimal)

2. excercize out-of-doors (brisk walking is a great one), vigorous enough that polite conversation becomes difficult due to the shortness of breath created by your exertion, for at least 30  or 40 minutes each day
3. meditation

     Interviews with brilliant and trusted birth-related health care professionals are in the works, focusing on food and excercize, among a plethora of other topics.  Today, I want to talk about meditation.  One of the best things about meditation is that it's for everyone!  The only prerequisite is the willingness to try.  Really, that's all you have to bring with you! 

    Most Americans are aware that we are living in a revolutionary age when science and spirituality are getting caught holding hands all the time - they actually really like each other (they're always finishing each other's sentences, and are beginning to seem downright inseparable)  The past few decades have brought us a cascade of increasingly excellent studies on how meditation affects the brain, and affects brain function.  I include here links to just a couple (out of thousands) of interesting and encouraging resources, including a lovely picture of different kinds of brain wave activity, what each one means, and what it looks like.  How exciting that we can actually see the positive, quantifiable ways in which brains are altered by meditation!  http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html, http://www.sciencecodex.com/new_studies_show_reduced_depression_with_transcendental_meditation  These studies illuminate that meditation is not just about altered states, but also, about altered traits!  So, we've established that meditation "works", that is, produces measurable results.  But could it work for you, personally?  There's only one way to find out!  The great thing about the way I like to meditate is that everyone can do it!  And the coolest thing is that, even the very first time you meditate, you are changing your brain in ways that help you!  And you do that every single time you meditate!! 

    Let's get started.  I'll walk you through this.  The meditation style I was taught, and that I prefer, is called Transcendental Meditation, or TM.  I will share with you also some techniques which I created for myself, kind-of like training wheels to help me get started. 

     Firstly, comfortable clothes are always a good idea, especially when meditating.  Shoes are optional.  Privacy is helpful, because we, as humans, tend to relax differently, perhaps more fully, when we know we are alone.  Position yourself however feels comfortable to you - if your back feels uncomfortable, you might lie on your back on a carpeted floor or other pleasant surface, with your knees bent comfortably, so that your feet are flat on the floor before you.  You can sit if you like, but the key is to make sure that your body feels comfortable, so that you can release being actively aware of your body, knowing that you are completely supported by the floor, or your chair, or whathaveyou.  I really strongly recommend setting a timer or an alarm for yourself, so that you can also release active awareness of the passage of time.  Again, the idea is that you don't have to worry or wonder about 'how long it's been', because you know it's time to meditate until you hear the alarm (you can always give yourself extra time if you want it, when you get to that point).  So, for how long?  I suggest meditating anywhere from five to ten minutes each day, to start.  Use your intuition - the number that pops out at you will be your correct starting time.  Once you begin to strengthen your mental 'meditation muscles', you can work gradually up to fifteen to twenty minutes each day.  So, you've set the timer, you've gotten comfy, let's go within

Technique for Beginning Meditation With An Especially Active Mind: Some days, there's more going on upstairs than others.  For times when gray matter air traffic is particularly congested, here's a useful visualization: picture all the things you've been thinking about, all the different components and situations, laid out on a gigantic table top.  Picture whatever kind of table you like, as long as it's huge.  Then, see a giant hand sweeping everything to the edge of the table, and into an enormous glass jar.  The hand sweeps everything into the jar, and twists on a very sturdy lid, which gets placed on a shelf - you can come back for it later, if you like. 


      The basic technique for TM is blissfully simple: you simply think of nothing.  How?  Well, to start, to ease your toes into the waters of non-thinking, you can focus on your breath.  When you breathe in, you can think, 'in', and when you breathe out, you can think 'out'.  At first, the brain really wants something to focus on.  If you find this is the case for you, you can begin by using a very simple image, keeping the focus soft so that the image remains a tool and not a distraction.  I suggest picturing a red balloon which inflates when you breathe in, and deflates when you breathe out.  Or, if you're a 'water person', you can see a beach, the tide ebbing and flowing with your breath.

So, what happens when I catch myself thinking about stuff?  When I notice my focus on something besides my breath (which is extremely normal!), I gently release the thought, see it floating away like a bubble in the wind, and then return my focus to my breath.  In, out.  The great thing is, even if you repeat this process over and over, dozens, or even hundreds, or thousands, of times, during your meditation, you are still creating all the same positive brain changes as advanced meditation experts do when they meditate! 

Modified Technique: When Loud Sounds Become Inescapable: Sometimes, you sit or lie down to meditate, only to suddenly become aware of your neighbor's crying child, or the construction work happening across the street, etc.  I learned a terrific phrase to hold in your mind as you begin to focus inward, "At the heart of every sound is silence".  You can begin by thinking this phrase as you become aware of breathing in and out.  Then, start to shift your focus from breath and the mantra (phrase) to listening into the noise, to try and find the silence at the center of the sound.  I was dumbfounded to find that I actually experienced one of my best ever meditation sessions while major construction was occurring next door, by using this technique.

     Some people meditate high in the mountains, some people meditate on the subway at rush hour; most of us are somewhere in between, 

     I was really tempted here to go on and on about how much meditation has helped me, and about how much better my life is because I meditate, but really, that doesn't matter.  The only thing that matters is: are you going to try this out?  Like anything new, it gets a lot easier as you practice, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Ain't nothin' to it but to do it!  Enjoy, and please comment to share your adventures in meditating! 

Linger Or Leap

  
     We can all agree that it makes good sense to look before you leap.  However, after you've looked, after you've gathered the information with which to move forward, it may be counterproductive to stand at the edge of the precipice, staring down and thinking about what as deep chasm it is below you,, and about what will happen if you fall.  Rather, sometimes, you just have to make your decision and jump!  There are many challenges, or journeys, in life which can feel very overwhelming at the onset.  I can think of many challenges I could easily have talked myself out of tackling, had I "over-thought" the situation.  Challenges which have helped to forge some of my favorite aspects of my personality today, and which have helped me to access inner resources I hadn't known before, resources which have since come very much in handy.  Don't get me wrong - I fully advocate entering into new situations with both eyes open, but sometimes, for those very first halting moments on a new path, sometimes you just have to get a running start and go for it!

     I am about to start online classes in the next couple of weeks and whenever I let myself start to think very much about it, I begin to feel very uncomfortable - I have no idea how to be a student and a mom at the same time!   I have been a student before, but this is completely new.   It can be scary/intense getting ready to do something you have no idea how to do yet.  Moreover, it's a situation in which there's no way I can know how to do it, until I am already doing it!  So, while I am moving forward with both eyes open, learning everything I can about financial aid opportunities and such, I have made a conscious decision to make sure I have my books, and that I know when the first day of 'class' will be, and then, my friends, I am not going to think about it anymore until then!  Sometimes, over-thinking can just create the appearance of difficulty.  Some difficulty may be inevitable, but as my father's father advises, "don't borrow trouble".  Since new situations are, by their very nature, unpredictable, why even try?  Worrying/over-thinking a situation before you're there is like leaving your car door open all week, right before a cross-country road trip - you're gonna need that juice for the journey - don't use it up before you even get started! 

     We can strengthen ourselves for the journey (any journey) by entering the treasure chest of past successes - when have we each come closest to Alice's accomplishment of "six impossible things before breakfast"?  When else have you triumphed in a way you could not have predicted?  It's always good to visualize what it will feel like, and be like, when you are successful in your endeavor, but sometimes, the vision needs a little support.    I plan to actually write a list of all the things I have accomplished which I wouldn't have thought I could do until, lo and behold, I experienced it!  The more we can remind ourselves of our abilities to transcend the appearances of difficulty and limitation, the easier it is for us to continue to do so! 

     This post is more short-and-raw due to the holidays and holidays-related madness.  I wish everyone a beautiful holiday season full of light and magic.  Please remember in this darkest time of the year, that we, as humans, are miracles!  Right now, you are breathing, your heart is pumping blood, your cells are exchanging old fuel for new, and you don't even have to think about it!  It all just happens, miraculously.  We are miracles, capable of so much more than we can even realize - my holiday wish for myself and for everyone else is for us all to realize our limitless nature, and our ability to accomplish absolutely anything!

Everything Shifts

     Winter is the perfect season for contemplating the idea that everything is temporary.  I look out my bedroom window at the beautiful skyscape and it's completely changed from the lush profusion of leaves I saw a few months ago.  I look to the hills that were browned to a crisp from a summer wildfire, and they are alive with beautiful chutes of soft new grass.

 Just to point out, birth and death are two sides of the same coin, so if you find your thoughts drifting to the impermanence of life in general, this is extremely normal.  Every woman I've spoken with agrees that they were dramatically more conscious of having death-related thoughts during their pregnancy; this seems to be a universal part of the experience.   I suggest keeping a journal, as often as possible (without insisting that you write on any particular schedule - please don't make the perfect the enemy of the good!) and recording your thoughts there.  It can be useful and illuminating to look back on later, and it will also help bring any scary-feeling shadowy thoughts into the light of acknowledgement, which tends to de-fang most scarier thinking.  I also like to consider the first law of thermodynamics.  Thermodynamics is the study of energy, and physicists point out that all matter is really energy slowed down to the point where it appears solid.  So, thermodynamics is the study of what-we're-made-of.  The first law states that Energy in a system may take on various forms (e.g. kinetic, potential, heat, light).  Energy may neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore the sum of all the energies in the system is a constant.  This pleases me.

     One of the most incredible gifts that pregnancy and having a baby have given me is a deeper understand of truths which I may have known to be true intellectually, but which I now 'feel' to be true on a much deeper level.  It's one thing for someone to say, "Hey, everything is temporary", but it's quite another to inhabit a body that changes so rapidly, so dramatically, that it becomes a living visual aid for this concept.  Everything changes all the time.  It's inevitable. 

     What does this mean to Me Personally?  It means that, if I am enjoying the way things are going, I aim to immerse myself fully in that moment, to fully luxuriate in it, intending that, when the moment is passed, I will be able to say, "Ahhh - I really enjoyed that as fully as I possibly could."
Conversely, if things are not going so swimmingly, like when I was experiencing 'morning sickness', I was able to remind myself that, just like they say about the weather, if you don't like how things are going now, wait a few minutes.  It'll change.  This isn't to say, you should sit and wait passively for change if you don't like how things are going, only that, as you are doing whatever you need to do to move forward, you can remind yourself that the appearance of difficulty is very temporary.  You can even ask yourself, How would I be acting/thinking right now if this challenge were already behind me?, and perhaps seek to practice that thinking even mid-challenge. 

     Now, here's the really interesting part: (even if you're not pregnant) you are physically not the same person as you were a few years ago.  Scientists tell us that it takes seven years for all of the cells in our entire body to fall away and be replaced by newer cells.  So, while it's clear to most people that they're not the same person they were a few years ago, mentally, we now know that this is true on the physical level as well!  So, just like cleaning out your closet makes room for newer, more suitable clothing, you can choose to release anything that hasn't been working for you, as an intentional change for yourself.  You might hold up an item of clothing and ask yourself, "Do I really need this?", evaluating when you wore it last, how you feel about the item, etc.  In much the same way, you can examine different beliefs you've held in the past and ask yourself, "How's this working out for me?  Is this belief or idea something which helps me to do and to be all that I wish, or is this maybe holding me back?" 

The helpful thing about being in a period of intense change is that, since things are already in an upheaval anyway, since the illusion of stasis, or holding still, is already shattered, it can be less intimidating to take on intentional changes as well.  If your walls are already being repainted, the furniture is already in the middle of the room, it's a lot easier to choose to change the pictures you have on those walls (may as well, right?)  So, while we can't control when or how we may enter a period of change which is more intense and dramatic than most, we can  make the most of them by choosing with intention, something about ourselves which we might like to change.  Again, you might not have even planned on having to repaint the walls, furniture in the middle of the room, but once it's there, why not consider carefully which pictures you wish to hang (beliefs and/or qualities you wish to cultivate) in your room (self) made new?  As simply as hanging a picture, you can begin by simply intending what you wish to change.  For example, if your goal is patience, you can tell yourself, I am very patient now.  How would I act if this were already true?  Why wait?  You can begin practicing this change now.  You will be creating the change as you go - all you need is to hold the intention, or the willingness, to support the change you choose.  You have everything you need to get started.

The WIFM Factor

     When we, as humans, are plunged into a situation that feels really challenging, it can be really hard to remember that, as we are slogging (or dancing, when we can) through the situation, we are actually receiving very important benefits.

     What is the WIFM factor?  For those of us who have not worked in corporate sales, WIFM stands for What's In It For Me?  The reality is: everybody thinks about the WIFM factor; it's how we're hard-wired, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.  The funny thing is, right when we can benefit the most from considering WIFM, we are often blinded by the appearance of difficulty or obstacles.  This seems to be true for so many tools - right when we need them the most, part of us resists collaboration with said tool (journaling, excercize, taking quiet time for personal reflection, etc).  For this reason, I suggest writing a list of all the tools which can be helpful in nourishing a more positive and productive outlook - this can be your tool chest which you can refer to when you're feeling down.

Now, back to the WIFM!  Quick - if you could change any one thing about your situation right at this moment, what would it be?  If you can change it, great, but if not, it's time to look for the WIFM!  The most important thing to keep in mind is that no hardship ever ever ever shows up without gifts.  And the more painful the hardship, the more crucial the gifts.  Not that you can't also receive important gifts without experiencing painful hardship - you can!  But something about those hard-won gifts - they're usually preparing/provisioning you for an absolutely incredible future opportunity you couldn't have even imagined before. 

When you see yourself persevering through a difficult time, you learn that you are stronger than you thought you were; that you have inner resources you didn't really believe that you had.  One way that we gain faith in ourselves and our abilities is by surprising ourselves by meeting difficult situations with style and grace.  We are able to look back and say, "Damn, I made it through fill-in-the-blank, I can definitely handle this!  This isn't even a problem", which will allow you to take on challenges which you might never have considered approaching otherwise.  You might have previously assumed  an opportunity to be out of your league, but by gaining faith in yourself and your abilities, you are able to reap rewards that enrich your life in a myriad of ways.

Even if you don't feel brave 100% of the time (and who does??), the fact that you are holding your head high as you put one foot in front of the other through a difficult time means that you are brave.  Everyone who has ever read any faerie tales (which were primarily created to convey certain cultural and mythic truths) knows that the brave one reaps the rewards!  Imagine yourself as the brave hero of your own tale, striking out on your challenging path which leads to personal development and ultimately, abundant bounty in many forms.

What gifts can you notice you are already beginning to receive on your path?  What gifts would you like to cultivate on this journey?  You are the hero of this tale, but you're also a co-author, so, given the challenging aspects of your current adventure, and the admirable bravery with which you progress, what gifts do you feel would be appropriate?  My invitation of the week is to fully explore this question for yourself.  Simply put, what do you want?

Let's Get Started

In this blog, I intend to include all kinds of information which may be helpful for women flying solo while pregnant, and women flying solo with baby.  I am a huge fan of Stuff That Works, so I'm going to be including quite a bit of this. 

I'll be interviewing different related professionals, on such topics as, nutrition, mental health support, ideas for doing your best with your finances, strategies for stress reduction and Letting Go, and other topics which may be of interest.

This is my very first blog, so to start, I will post a new post once each week.  I promise to always be honest, and to respond to everyone who reaches out to me.  My hope is that this blog will prove to be helpful, insightful, relevant, and fun!  I welcome and warmly invite your feedback - let's be friends!