This is my fifth day into my Epicself fellowship and I’m enjoying this peaceful place, away from a busy city, and being close to the ocean. It is incredible how much constant background noise there is in a city, and we only notice once we get out. Before coming here, I felt a deep need of disconnecting from a stressful environment and reconnecting with myself. I was so distracted and scattered and I just realized that I spent more time with myself in the last four days than I had over the last three years!
And I also realized that spending time with myself wasn’t always easy and I usually avoid it by seeing friends or getting busy. But now it was time to dedicate to myself. I noticed that once I was alone, my mind is my best companion and seems to be constantly talking to me. That mind. It’s crazy to observe all it has to say. It certainly doesn’t run out of ways of trying to pull me away from my center.
I had been completely off balance for a while and was noticing it in my mood, in my personal interactions and feeling it in my body. I needed time to focus on myself and on the direction I wanted my life to go, and coming here was one of the best decisions I took in a long time.
Meditation is a great tool to come back to center, but I find it challenging to incorporate it into my daily practice.
I was sitting on the beach yesterday, thinking about the sense of meditation, and how I personally achieve this state of a calm mind and being present in the moment. I’m far away from that image of someone, who can stay in a seated position for long periods of time, focusing their mind and become still.
In the traditional sense, you are supposed to close off your senses (your connections to the outside world) during meditation and go inward. The problem with this is that my body wants to start moving and my mind is talking to me about all kinds of things. I have a really hard time to focus that way and my mind is everything else but calm.
Observing myself for a long time now, I have found that I’m very well able to reach this state of a calm mind when I’m engaging my senses, yes, even the eyes. I know this sounds a little strange, but when I allow the “outside” to flow through my “inside”, I become present in the moment and connect to my center. I am still, I don’t think, I don’t judge. I just flow. I am.
I consider everything, and every activity that is able to calm my mind as a mediation. It can be for example contemplating a breathtaking landscape, inhaling the essence of a tree, observing a butterfly. Making chocolate, eating beautiful food, dancing. My favorite still is the sound of water, the sound of the ocean.
I’m a person who is naturally drawn to water. I think many of us are, given that our body consist about 70% of this essential element.
Put me close to a stream, a river, a lake or the ocean, I find peace in myself. Everything about me gets still. It is like diving deep into myself, into my center. My mind stops chattering (which is like the hardest thing in the world as you know) and all my senses are focused. I sense this deep feeling of knowing and being rooted.
In that state, I’m connected, I’m present. I’m inspired, my mind is creative and expansive. It’s quite magical.
What is your experience with meditation? Do you have a technique where you are able to actually calm your mind and connect? I’m curious!
For me it’s time to go back to the beach…Pura Vida!
