Making The Time to Meditate

Wow it has been months since I have taken the time to write in my blog.....hmmm, seems like I have said that before about my meditation practice or for that matter everything in my life "wow its been a long time since I exercised, journaled, taken a nap, laughed, cried, danced...insert whatever you like."  It seems sometimes, life moves in and something takes ahold of our attention and one day we wake up and say to ourselves, "what happened?"  Where did my intention go, what happened to my New Year's resolution, what about my vision board.  Why am I feeling so out of sorts, angry, confused, frustrated et cetera.  I have found myself in this space over and over again in my life...in fact I am in that very space right now.

I have chosen to live a full life.  Any of you that know me or have tried to book a counseling session or even grab a cup of coffee or lunch with me,  know I keep a very full schedule.  That is partially how I am wired to be this life time, I will always have a full life and a full schedule.  However, I have noticed lately that the full feeling is turning into a feeling of bloatedness if that makes sense.  Fullness is such a wonderful and beautiful thing, but when I am bloated it is usually indicative of swelling, inflammation, infection or irritation.  This is true in my physical body as well as my mental, emotional and spiritual body.  When my life feels bloated as opposed to full, I start asking myself questions...lots of questions.  Why do I feel this way?  What am I doing that is causing this irritation?  OR What am I NOT doing that is causing this irritation?  Would I choose to feel this way, if not then what am I choosing?  The list of questions can go on and on and they often do.  The thing that I let myself do is question, there isn't necessarily one single question that is the "right" one, rather the process of inquiry, shakes me up a bit and allows me to open up to some much needed awareness.  Sometimes it is deep profound insight, sometimes it is quite simply but still just as powerful.

This time around the question that brought the insight was "What am I NOT doing that is causing this irritation within me?  What am I NOT doing that is causing this feeling of my life being bloated?"  The simple answer came as I prepared to write this article.  I wanted to start writing and found myself a bit scattered in thought and finally took 10 minutes to turn on some soothing music, close my eyes and breath...yes that is right, I took a few moments to meditate.  Oh my gosh, how good did it feel!  I touched something familiar in those 10 minutes that I hadn't been experiencing much in the past month or so...peace, space, grace, self love and a sense of wholeness and things being right.  Man it felt so good to meditate and simply be still...and in the recognition of that feeling good, I became aware that my daily meditation practice had fallen apart.  I was dedicated to my meditation marathon earlier this year and was meditating every single date without fail.  I attained my "goal" of graduation and licensing to become a minister which was my motivation to meditate.  It gave me "reason" if you will as I knew it would be a big time of change and transition and I could use the internal support.  I have continued to do some sort of spiritual practice almost everyday, but my dedication to sitting in the stillness everyday started to waiver and eventually fell to only a handful of times a week if that!

Wow, as I sat meditating preparing to write I found myself saying "wow, it has been a long time since I've meditated like this!"  As I came out of my meditation I was immediately drawn to this quote from the wise Henry Ford "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

Oh thank goodness!  I simply get to begin again, I start another meditation marathon again...right now!  Won't you join me.  There is nothing to figure out about why we have or haven't been meditating the way we want to, we simply start again.  This time I begin my meditation marathon again with a little more intelligence...there is nothing to meditate for or towards really, I simply must meditate.  So I begin again....won't you join me?