Dear Diary… (oh, hi friends)
So I started a course…. was it back in March? I can’t remember. Anyways, this course is helping me maintain discipline with Vipassana style meditation which is the oldest style of Buddhist meditation practices. I didn’t go into this course even knowing that this is what we would be doing, and so here it is.
My great grandmother and my late uncle were both devout Buddhists- I do not identify with any religion but it’s kind of cool to get some insight into their own practice.
My experience with meditation has been visualization and guided meditations, the focus to bring my brain into alpha and delta states. The vipassana style is completely different- it is very simple yet I have experiences challenge and resistance with the practice. I have managed to be consistent every day for the past month…I have seemingly pushed past the resistance and have shown up. Every. Single. Day.
My practice looks like this: 15 minuets intended to be spend on deep focus (sometimes more sometimes less but I try to aim for at least ten minuets every morning before I start my day. I typically wake up around 6-6:30am naturally every day and it is really easy for me to be “itching to start my day”. Taking the time to connect, ground, and focus on the sensations of inhalation and exhalation of my breath and maintaining an empty mind is such a simplistic and transformative way to start each day but the ego mind can really get in the way to make excuses to make something else a priority in that moment. I am working towards making this practice half an hour.
There are definitely moments where I feel like I am experiencing a regression with my practice- because I could do 2 hours of guided meditation visualization. But that’s just it, the mind tells us things and so let’s not always believe our own bullshit, k?
This post is a great marker for me to see where I am at in a few months.
I have also given myself this gift: Wherever I am in this moment, just accept that.
xxo