I was struck this morning by how beautiful the moss looked on the trunk of this tree. It was a welcome pleasant thought to offset the dark swirl occupying my mind. 🧘🏻♂️
In addition to being the spiritual path, it feels like the only way for me to survive.
I needed this today. Maybe someone else does too.
🧘🏻♂️ This is a great reminder. Take time to be where you are.
🧘🏻♂️ Pause practice is a great centering tool I learned about today. At any point, take three deep, slow, relaxing breaths and allow your mind to be still. I’m excited to try it already.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ Ninety days of meditation
A reflection on my daily meditation habit over the last three months.
My journey
Sunday, January 13 was what I hoped would be rock bottom for my mental health; I had three panic attacks and some suicidal ideation. I was tired of the struggle and the burden I felt I was on everyone else, especially my wife. Monday, January 14, I went to work with an overnight bag. I left work in the afternoon and drove to the nearest hospital with a psych ward, called my wife to let her know what I was doing, and then admitted myself for the night. The psychiatrist asked if I would be safe if I went home, and I replied that I would because my wife was there, but I was done putting it all on her, and I did not feel safe being on my own. I stayed one night, and then drove home and slept 12 hours the next night.
On Wednesday, January 16, I had a meeting with the VP of People & Great Work (HR). Unexpectedly, I told her about my condition and situation. She was kind and supportive and I felt encouraged to keep going. That night, I had a hard time falling asleep. I decided to research which meditation app would be the right fit for me. When I was at the hospital, the psychiatrist recommended that I start meditating regularly, which I had never done before. After some research, I landed on Calm, and that night I fell asleep to Stephen Fry reading a story about fields of lavender.
Since that day, I have done some kind of meditation using the Calm app every single day. A week or so ago, I realized that I had not done my daily meditation and was at risk of breaking my 80+ day streak. It is a good thing for my brain to sit with the distress of breaking a rule that it has created for me, and I almost went to bed without doing anything to intentionally break the streak. Instead, I introduced some uncertainty. I listened to a “Sleep Story” to fall asleep that night, not knowing if that would count to continue my streak or not. It did, so my streak is alive and well. This is a streak that I am more comfortable with than most because it is not so much something that I must do every day, as something that I want to do every day. If I miss a day and break the streak, I will be sad, and I will certainly feel some distress (I feel some just writing about the possibility!), but I will not be crushed.
Lessons learned
The biggest skill that I have gained from meditation is gentleness. Because I have 90 days of Tamara Levitt playing in my head, encouraging me to return to the breath without judgment, when something comes up that would inspire judgment and harsh feelings, I have a sound bite to play to encourage me to be gentle with myself.
I have learned to accept the impermanence of experiences, particularly emotions. It is much easier to sit with an emotion when you know at a deep level that it will not last forever. This allows you to fully enjoy positive emotions, and not shy away from painful ones. I still have further to go on this road, but as my emotional self learns to trust that nothing will last forever, I am not as reliant on my intellectual self to make a rational pitch.
My 2019 goals are to 1) be intentional, 2) be present, and 3) be curious. A daily meditation practice has helped with all three of these, but especially with being present. I have found myself trying to focus in the shower on the sensations of the water hitting my body, the feel of the steam, and the smell of shampoo, instead of planning for the day. I still feel like an awkward novice, but I am at least more aware of the opportunities to practice.
As I continue to learn to accept the present moment as it is, I find myself better able to shed expectations and the distress that often accompanies them. Instead, I am able to approach situations with curiosity. Not what should happen right now, but what is happening right now?
Finally, I feel that this practice has helped me to be more able to learn from my experiences. Often, we say that hindsight is 20/20 — we only understand the lessons that life offers us through reflection. As I build the skill of reflecting on the present moment, I gain the ability to notice and learn immediately. Much of my work over the past few months of treating my OCD is getting to know myself, and I am thrilled with the idea of speeding that process up.
Meditation may or may not be the answer in your quest for mindfulness. I have found it to be valuable in my life, and have already seen great benefits from increased mindfulness. I hope that you might as well.
🧘🏻♂️ This is so important to remember. Even with good things, and especially with the bad, nothing lasts forever. This is particularly helpful with emotions. Allow yourself to feel fully, and let go when it is time.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This. So much this. I hope to remember. I strive for enlightenment.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ I look forward to writing about this more, but I had a great experience yesterday acknowledging my actual emotions and giving myself permission to feel them.
🧘🏻♂️ This is the reminder I needed this week. I have been feeling discouraged by how far I still feel I need to go in my treatment and managing of my OCD. But the only way to get there is one step at a time. It helps to remember and celebrate my wins along the way.
🧘🏻♂️ Substitute mind for body, and this feels exactly like my experience over the past few months. I have to get to know myself better and recognize which parts of myself are not actually myself and learn to deal with those. But gently.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This is exactly what I am seeking to attain in my life right now. It involves an acceptance of the chaos and noise that is daily life along with a gentleness and compassion for myself and others. It is elusive but worth the effort.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ The best way I have found to combat worry and anxiety is to name it. When I call it out directly, I prevent the masquerade and am more able to let it slip away.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ What a delightful meditation this morning. The focus was on learning to rest the brain. This is a skill that seems just out of reach but also desirable and valuable.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ Learning the skill of impulse control is essentially the work on my ERP treatment. OCD makes it challenging for me to even identify the urges that come as separate from my acting on them. But, as with most things, my skill increases with practice.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This requires courage. But the rewards are so fulfilling and uplifting. Many of the things I need to leave behind are in my own mind. And great peace awaits as I do.
From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ What a great perspective. This feels even more important to remember when many of the difficulties come from yourself. Even those are meant to help you grow. From my Daily Calm.
🧘🏻♂️ What a beautiful thing to say to myself. I found that at the end of my meditation, my compassion and love for others had strengthened through offering those to myself. From my Daily Calm.
🧘🏻♂️ This summarizes the past few months for me. One constant step of discomfort followed by another, all in the service of regaining my life and being able to be present. From my Daily Calm.
🧘🏻♂️ This can be a real challenge. Ironically, it feels easiest when I lean in to my thoughts as feelings instead of trying to push them away. From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This can be challenging when it feels like the storm has been raging incessantly. But there is always hope for the future. We can’t know what it will hold. From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ I feel like I catch glimpses of this at times. There is a quiet, still pond that is accessible only through the sometimes strenuous toil of settling. From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ What a wonderful day to remember and honor the important women in my life. I am so profoundly grateful. I am conscious that I am not better than, or worse than, the women I know and love. Just different. And together we are more. From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This idea leaves me conflicted. It can be soothing to reduce the possibilities. My problem, however, is usually in recognizing alternatives to the first possibility identified. So this practice is vital for me. From my Daily Calm
🧘🏻♂️ This feels paradoxically cyclical. If you don’t know how to live, how can you trust yourself? It has to start somewhere. Here’s hoping we can all make the leap of faith. From my Daily Calm
