Feeling Stress every Now and Zen?

The Translate Reality Meditation Club is well underway and I’ve had amazing feedback and questions. STRESS! Feeling stress every now and zen? Are you looking for a way to cope, find peacefulness and purpose? Meditation can help. These are instructions, benefits and magic that you might find of use (especially magic).

Our biggest struggle in life? Stress. Every age, every culture; we are experiencing stress. Feeling stress every now and zen is normal. Feeling stress constantly isn’t. And that’s where many of us are. Let’s combat the stress; become a stress warrior instead of a worrier.

Your ideas are a part of the global consciousness so please engage in the meditation club! Suggestions welcome. What could help you, could help others. That is why we are a club; all students are teachers and all teachers are students.

Meditation Instructions

The best question I have received so far is “I want to start using your meditations but I don’t know how to meditate. What do I do exactly?”

Great question! I would venture to say others might even have this question.

Here is EXACTLY what you do:

1. Decide when you are going to meditate. Create a schedule. That might be three times per week on the bus. Two times per week in the mornings. One time per week, on Sunday mornings. You decide. Commit to this for a period of time. I suggest one month if you are new to practice. Then you can decide how frequently you want to practice.
2. Actually do it. Actually meditate during your designated time. If you miss a day, notice that without judgment. Be gentle but recommit to your practice. Begin again on your next scheduled day. Make this a priority.

    

3. Sit or lay in a comfortable location or any location you happen to be in. Visit my website and go the TR Meditation Club on your phone, tablet or computer.
4. Either do a single meditation practice for a period of time, such as Choiceless Awareness for one month. Alternatively, let your intuition tell you which meditation is best for you each day.
5. Listen to the meditation. If you get interrupted, pause and then join in again. Know you are ‘logging in’ to a network that exists already. Listen, follow the guidance and that’s all. When it is done, it’s done.

Benefits

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend about meditating and she was curious as to why I do it. I have been teaching and practicing for most of my adult and even adolescent life because I saw the benefits firsthand. I knew there was something to it.

“Why would I sit still and just listen to my mind or imagination? Nothing cool or magical ever happens when I just sit there.”

Another great question. I asked it myself many times.

Finding my Magic Powers

I used to attend very challenging meditation retreats on a regular basis. I still do but less so with my young daughter to care for. Most of the retreats were like a brain explosion and often, I called home crying;  feeling despair, broken, hopeless and unsure if I would make it. Or, I would arrive home and describe the experience to my parents when they asked how my vacation was.

“I went for ten days with a bunch of people I don’t know out near a forest. We did not speak, touch or look in the eyes of one another the entire time and our schedule had only two items on it; sitting and walking meditation. I had panic attacks every meal and nightmares; I had moments of boredom, sadness, peacefulness, emptiness and I got eleven ticks and couldn’t even talk about it. It was so hard”

Magic Vacation

WTF do you say to your kid when they describe this as their vacation. Sounds…lovely…? It sounds like stress! How could this help me? I could take a nice trip to Mexico but no. I’d rather face my thoughts in silence during ticktastrophe. When I was younger, my parents found it truly confusing as to why I used my vacation time from work to attend retreats like the one above (Vipassana).

I knew, on some level, that the distress I felt was a sign that I was showing up and I desperately wanted to heal myself. So I invited the distress that came with the practice; I wanted to see everything in order to heal. I was willing to do anything it took to find a fulfilling life and understand myself. I wanted my life to change, so I was changing it. Stress had overtaken my life.

Change comes from within; thus it begins in the mind.

Fear of Boredom

A big deterrent for meditation practice is fear of it being boring and boredom being equated with wasted time. Wasted time, in our current society, is a variant of the plague. Relieving our stress by sitting still seems counter-intuitive because it can be stressful in itself to do a meditation. But it is a practice; a practice in learning to cope with all forms of stress.

There is no such thing as boredom. It’s a state of mind that we create, label and believe. We create the concept of boredom and it really stresses us out. If we are sitting alone, we are existing. If we are doing an activity alone, much is happening around and within us. Boredom might mean Do Nothing time. That experience of doing nothing is utilizing time. Boredom only occurs when we label our usage of time as inadequate, mundane or insignificant. In reality, every moment of existence is teeming with layers of life. Meditation is active but invisible. It relieves stress through the practice of being with states, such as perceived boredom, and simply experiencing them as an observer. A watcher. 

Meditation Boredom

We don’t fully appreciate how powerful our perception of boredom is. Silence is equated with boredom because we live under the assumption that sensory information is our life and without that, we are empty and static. Silence is never truly silent. Boredom can be a launch pad for depressive and anxious thoughts because they love to grasp to boredom. They expand it massively and tell enough stories that it can become loneliness, hopelessness, feeling isolated, feeling useless, etc. We can really get ourselves upset with boredom. Again, stress!

Why Exactly, Precisely should I Meditate?

Practicing meditation allows you to practice ALL states in a safe place. Everything will come up. The mind is a volcanic eruption, if we let it go. When you meditate, you experience all the same states that you do in day-to-day living. Boredom, peacefulness, anxiety, irritation, physical soreness, memories, rumination, etc. As you practice being with these experiences in a safe environment (meditation), it is a life simulation.

You are training yourself to create a space between these experiences (states of mind) and a reaction. It’s a pause to recognize what is happening to you before reacting to it. Stress is relieved by having composure and intelligent response.

You get used to these states. They become less troublesome. You’ve done the work on distress tolerance; you have practiced boredom and being with it. When it arises in your life, you might not need to administer an electric shock to yourself solely because of your fear of your thoughts.

Magic Meditation

Nothing magical will happen in your meditation (and half the TR readers just left…). Stay with me!

Perhaps you may have peak experiences but the day-to-day practice will be a relatively simple, scheduled and normal part of your day. I used to seek peak experiences; I wanted to find an insight, have an out of body experience and answer the questions in my life. None of these goals or any outcome I’ve had has been as powerful as a simple, consistent, non-judgmental practice. My long term practice has given me more than any single experience ever could. We have to let go of the hope that cool magic things will happen during a single meditation. Cool, magic things do happen, just not in the meditation itself.

Where is my Magic?!

The way it works, which I have come to understand is grossly under-explained, is that the benefits appear in your daily life. Your meditation is a practice; you are practicing for something. It is shifting, creating, dissolving and revealing; you may not notice that happening. Meditate and let it be.

Your life is where you’ll begin to see differences because that is where you see the benefits of practicing. THAT is where the magic is.

There are so many other benefits I could list; from my own life and from the research that is coming out about how meditation impacts neural functioning, neuroplasticity, intelligent responsiveness and overall ease. The biggest factor I hope to convey is the magic doesn’t happen in the meditation. That’s just the practice.

The magic happens in daily life and only through a consistent, dedicated practice will you begin to create a more meaningful and fulfilling life for yourself.

You have to choose. You have to make the time. Effort is needed and acceptance of perhaps a foreign way of approaching the mind, exploring consciousness or enhancing life. If you commit, you will see change.  Meditation is your vessel; it is to be filled with whichever tool serves you best in each of your moments.

Wisdom comes from choosing the right tool in the right moment.