ShivaMonster

Or, How Not To Meditate

Meditation’s pretty great, right? (Everyone says so!) There are about a gazillion benefits, including stress relief, decreased risk of heart disease, pain relief, mental clarity, and so on. I’m guessing I don’t need to sell you on meditation.

But too often, when I try to meditate, the hyper-critical part of my brain takes over. This is the part of me that’s convinced that I’m doing it wrong, that I fuck up everything I try, that everything is hopeless and full of doooooom.

And my meditation ends up going something like this:

A Guided Meditation for Wicked Children

Oh, you wicked child, sit down. You must begin your meditation practice, though it certainly seems unlikely that you’ll ever develop the discipline required to progress very deeply into the art of meditation. Nevertheless, we must do as we are told.  

Yes, like that, sit up straight, and tuck your slatternly ankles properly. You’re late and your grubby hands are still sticky with jam; the least you could do is sit correctly. Oh, you little beast, don’t you dare slump. Here, I will place a heavy rock on the top of your head; now you have no choice but to maintain perfect posture, lest the rock fall. And I know you do not want that to happen, for as the rock tumbles off your head, it might crush your pet kitten, though I cannot imagine why your parents tolerate the presence of that mangy flea-infested beggar.

Now attend to your breathing. Not through your mouth, you slack-jawed nitwit; breathe properly, through your nose. Pay attention, I said!

Close your eyes, please, and keep them closed. You are too tempted by the warm sunshine outside. I shall guide you through a visualization designed to help you resist the siren song of the garden and its foolish blooms and butterflies. You must focus all your energy on your internal world. Focus, I said, you horrid creature! I swear you let your attention wander out of spite.  

Visualize a very long and deep mine shaft, and visualize yourself seated at the very bottom of it. Splendid. Now imagine the shaft above you collapses, irrevocably sealing you off from the world above. Do not fret; you have enough oxygen left to complete your meditation practice. A fetid draft blows out your candle, and you are left alone in perfect silence and darkness, thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth. Feel the immense weight of the rock and dirt above you, pressing down on you, keeping you utterly still and silent.

Stop squirming, you little hooligan. You must sit still! As you sit, imagine sharp spikes growing out from the rock beneath you. Do not move! As the spikes lengthen, they tear through your clothes, and sink into your disobedient flesh, deeper and ever deeper. The spikes entrap you, and hold you immobile; you cannot move.

That’s better. Pay no mind to the blood seeping from your wounds. Simply relax and attend to your breathing. Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out. Even a simpleton like you should be able to do that much.

Stop daydreaming! I see you are thinking of the world again, of sun and birds and those disgusting jam sandwiches you adore so much. Stop it! I insist that you stop immediately!

That’s better. Pay no attention to that sound you hear; it’s just the Pit-Beast, but I doubt he’d be willing to devour you. Pit-Beasts only eat good children, not horrid untidy miscreants like you.  It is more likely that you’ll be slowly eaten alive by cave spiders; arachnids do not care about your morals. Your breath, I said! Pay attention to your breath. I explicitly told you not to think of the Pit-Beast! Your willful disobedience is infuriating. You simply must do better.

Oh, stop your sniveling, you little brat.

Well. I see our time is up. Once again you’ve wasted a perfectly good meditation. I hope you’re satisfied, you ungrateful wretch.

Don’t Do That!

So instead of letting the more vicious voices in my head guide my meditation, I turn to more compassionate voices. Like Havi’s Emergency Calming Techniques (affiliate link); the kit includes three short soothing guided meditations. Or the Buddhify app on my iPod. Or my friend Andrea’s magic potions or Leonie’s meditations. There are lots of really good options out there; experiment and find the ones that work for you.

Do you have a favorite guided meditation recording or app? Lemme know in the comments below; I’m always looking for more.

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One of the things the Dance of Shiva is really good at is helping us uncover our hidden patterns.

We do this by dancing at a level that’s way too hard for us, until we’re hopelessly confused. This makes our ordinary chattery mind just give up and fall into blissful silence. And with our ordinary mind tucked safely out of the way for a little while, we can peek beneath the surface and see what’s really going on for us.

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working on my patterns around the holidays in preparation for Dance Into Silence. I have a long list of things I don’t like about this season, but they’re all surface things, and I was pretty sure there was more going on. Hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” for the hundredth time this week just wouldn’t annoy me that much if there wasn’t some buried lost or hurt part of me, you know?

It’s All About Belonging (for me)

So I danced, and I scribbled, and I thought, and finally I realized: for me, it’s all about belonging, and all the ways I feel like an outsider. I’m not close to my family, so I don’t belong there. I’m kind of  hermit, so I don’t have a lot of in-person friends, or much of an in-person relationship with this city. I’m not a member of the dominant religion in this area, or this country, so I don’t belong there either. I oppose most of what happens politically these days so I don’t belong there but also I can’t bring myself to join the protesters and don’t belong there. I don’t belong on Facebook or Twitter or G+. I don’t belong in my day job. I don’t belong in the world of online businesspeople and I don’t belong in the world of shiva nata teachers. I’m too this, I’m not enough that. I don’t belong anywhere except home in bed, with the cat, hiding.

(This is, of course, just what part of me thinks. Certainly there are groups I’ve mentioned above that think I belong. But I sure don’t feel like it.)

And the holidays? They are so many reminders of the ways I don’t belong. I don’t belong to the Festive Holiday Cheer community or the Christian community or the Buy Lots of Stuff community. I don’t share their values or aesthetics. 

The signs of the season are so omnipresent, as are the pressures to conform (Here’s your fifteenth email about the office Christmas party. Here’s your mother’s disappointment that you’re not visiting New York this year.)  It feels like everyone loves Christmas but me.

It feels like I don’t belong.

It feels like the world goes out of its way to remind me that I don’t belong. It feels like instead of ringing a bell, the Salvation Army Santa is chanting, “You don’t belong. You don’t belong. You don’t belong.”

Hard stuff, yeah?

So that’s the true meaning of Christmas, for me.

But here’s the good news.

Patterns Can Be Changed

Once I know that the underlying pattern is about belonging, I can start working on that. I can remember Havi’s post about the Clan of the Outsiders. I can find the places in my life where I do feel like I belong, like the coffee shop that knows just what we want, and the Thai place down the street. I can connect to the people I do belong with. I can find ways to give myself the quality of belonging. I can work on separating my story (I don’t belong!) from the object (my coworker’s holiday wreath with flashing lights). I can recognize and defuse my triggers. I can even peel it back another layer and find out what’s so bad about not belonging.

I can change the pattern.

What’s the True Meaning for You?

Your patterns are different than mine, of course. (I’m certainly not saying that the Salvation Army Santa hates everyone — just me!) Your fears and your triggers and your solutions are all different than mine.

This is what we’ll be working on in my class this weekend — we’ll explore our patterns related to our holiday stresses, and we’ll see what we can learn about ourselves, and what we need to move more gracefully through the season. I can’t tell you what the answers are for you, but I can guide you through a process of exploration, and teach you some tools that will help.

Join us, and Dance into Silence.

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Breathing.

We do it all the time, without thinking about it. 

What happens when we breathe deliberately? It’s common knowledge that paying attention to your breath can calm you down. Yeah, there are whole meditation and yoga traditions built around paying attention to your breath, but it’s also accessible without any special training.  How many times have you been told to take a deep breath when you’re stressed or upset?

Today is a good day to breathe.

As I write this, I’m feeling tired. I’ve been awake since 5:00 this morning, which at least 2 hours too early. I’ve put in many hours of concentrated effort at my day job. My to-do list is full of projects that I should have finished weeks ago. In a few hours, I have to go to a Christmas party held by my husband’s boss — it’ll probably be a fine party, but I don’t know very many people and it feels awkward. It’s cold. My head hurts.

All the reasons why today’s hard and sucky are swirling around in my mind, along with all the reasons why I’m going to die alone under a bridge, killed by giant robots with laser beams in their eyes.

You know. The usual. I’m stressed.

The fastest and easiest way to bring a little more ease into right now is to breathe.

Take a minute and breathe with me.

Sit comfortably. Feel your feet on the ground, your body supported by the chair. Rest your hands on the arm rest of your chair or fold them in your lap. Be comfortable.

Notice your breath. Don’t try to change it; just notice it. Breathe in and out a few times.

Slowly scan your body, from head to toe. Relax any muscles you notice are tense. Shoulders hunched up to your ears? Let them go. Stomach clenched? Relax. Butt tight? Relax.

Check your breathing again. Is it perhaps the tiniest bit softer, smoother, deeper? Good. Without forcing anything, see if you can take your breath a little deeper, a little smoother.

Scan your body again. Did your shoulders tighten up again while you weren’t looking? Mine usually do. Relax. Relax your face. Relax your hands.

Go back and forth a few more times. Alternate softening your breath with softening your body.

Now take one last deep breath and stretch.

Aaaahhh. That’s better.

Giant robots can’t kill you while you’re paying attention to your breath.

They’re not from right now. They’re part of your brain’s incessant chatter. The more you can pay attention to right now, the less energy you’re giving to the giant robots. And that’s a good thing. Get calm, get centered, and everything else gets easier.

So the next time you notice you’re feeling anxious or stressed, take a few moments to just breathe. Especially in December. The holiday season is tough: family pressures and financial pressure and crowded stores and relentless commercials and work parties and all the rest. This month, remember to take time to breathe. It’s fast, free, easy, and effective.

Dance into Silence

I’m teaching a Dance of Shiva class on December 17th, specially designed to soothe nerves frazzled by the holidays. It’s called Dance into Silence. We’ll do the Dance of Shiva until the frantic chatter in our minds falls silent. We’ll practice some of my favorite relaxation techniques, including more breathing. We’ll find a little peace amidst the frenzy of the season.

I hope you’ll join me.

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One of the students in my Halloween Party workshop asked why I was requiring costumes; the requirement was stressing her out.

Good question! Turns out there are a lot of reasons.

One is simply that it’s a Halloween party, so of course there should be costumes. And I wanted to wear my purple pterodactyl costume.

But there’s more than that.

Working with Patterns

The Dance of Shiva is all about putting a few simple movements together into increasingly difficult patterns. We’re constantly learning new patterns, and then tearing them down to replace them with newer and more advanced patterns.

As we work with the patterns of the Dance of Shiva, we begin to understand our own patterns. We work to learn new patterns, and then tear them down and replace them with different patterns.

The Patterns of Halloween

At the Halloween Party , we’ll be exploring our patterns in some Halloween-themed ways. We’ll be looking at the masks and costumes we wear in our everyday lives. What are we hiding? What are we presenting? What are we pretending? How do our costumes help us in the world? How do they hold us back?

We’ll be looking into the spooky shadows. What lurks in the dark corners we’re too scared to peer into? What monsters wait to devour us? What are we hiding from?

And of course, we’ll be filling up our treat bags with goodies. How can we become less frightened? How can we light up the shadows and move forward? How can we comfort ourselves? What kind of treats make us feel most nurtured?

And It’s All Fun

Wearing costumes is one more way to interact with our patterns. We can make them visible. We can manipulate them. We can take them on and off. We can see that, in the end, like everything else, our costumes are just more patterns.

And we can wear them while flailing around to the perfect Halloween music, giggling madly. We can make working with our patterns fun.

Won’t you join us?

Saturday, October 22, 5:00 pm Mountain time, via G+ hangout.

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