About a month ago I was sitting around a table at a summer BBQ listening to a group of guests talk about meditation. Most were not people I knew very well, so I was more sitting on the sidelines of the conversation, but listening intently nonetheless as this is a topic I am, obviously, quite interested in.
The main theme of the discussion was: What makes meditation impossible! One by one each person shared his or her experience of taking a shot at developing a meditation practice, only to be forced to resign due to all of the hang-ups that presented themselves.
If you already have a meditation practice, all the obstacles that were mentioned on that summer evening were not new- all the usual suspects like:
· restlessness,
· too many distractions in the house,
· too fidgety,
· not enough time,
· too busy,
· too many people interrupting me to ask me to do something,
· can’t stop the mind from racing, no space to do it,
· other mindful activities like gardening are more helpful,
· etc. etc.
Nothing new, right?
I opted to not take part in the dialogue because of two reasons: one: I’m generally shy person who is never fighting for a spot light at a party, and two: the group was in absolute consensus that meditation is just not humanly possible in a fast-paced 2015 American life, and therefore not right for them at all.
Since this BBQ, I’ve gone back in my mind several times to this exchange, and I have come to believe this truth: working parents are actually well-positioned to begin a meditation practice if they so choose. In fact, we are primed for it and uniquely qualified. Let me explain.
Whether you are a working parent or not, my supposition may surprise you. After all, every single one of the stumbling blocks mentioned in the conversation at the BBQ is not only true for working parents, but x’s 1000. “Too busy.” “No space to do it.” “Too many distractions in the house.” Are you kidding me?
But here’s the thing:
A. I believe these hurdles show up for every beginning meditator. This is meditation 101. There is no other way through to the other side. This is it. And I’m learning, the only difference between a beginning meditator and a more experienced meditator is not the absence of hindrances, it is the knowledge, skill and willingness to work with them.
Which leads me to:
B. The knowledge and skill set necessary to work with these difficulties is already a part of working parenthood 101, a skill set we already have.
Imagine it: It is 5:45 p.m. You are standing in your kitchen trying to configure a somewhat balanced dinner from the meager ingredients that happen to be in your refrigerator. Then, the phone rings. The dog barks. The children want a snack before dinner. Your spouse is trying to tell you about his meeting with his boss. You decide to kick everyone out of the kitchen (in a nice way!). You figure out what pans need to be washed so you can start to cook the meal. You turn on Pandora to Alison Krauss while you cut squash and zucchini for the pasta sauce. Children try to re-enter the kitchen. Your spouse tries to talk to some more. You fill sippies. You give snacks. You say, “I can’t believe he said that.” Then you return your attention back to the task of cutting vegetables while humming to “When You Say Nothing at All.”
You’ve been there, right? And remember what those obstacles to meditation were: “Too busy.” “No space to do it.” “Too many distractions in the house.” That is just any ordinary Tuesday night in my house. Maybe yours too.
My point is, if you are a working mom or dad who has ever thought that a meditation practice would be beneficial to you, try it! Because yes, you will encounter all of the Meditation 101 challenges just like everyone else, but if you remember that you already have a magnificent ability to roll with the punches, you will more likely stick with it because you will be less likely to get all flustered and flabbergasted. You will be less likely to give up so quickly. In fact, you might even embrace the obstacles as par for the course.
Imagine it: You are sitting down for meditation on the living room rug. It is 5:30in the morning and you have just closed your eyes after setting the timer on your Insight Timer App. Immediately you feel the cat climbing up on to your lap. You decide to just let her just sit there and re-focus on your breath. In and out. You hear your spouse moving from the bedroom to the bathroom to take a shower and the dog is following him. He closes the door. You continue to breathe, in and out. Five minutes later, the baby begins to do a soft cry from her bedroom. You listen closely to determine which type of cry it is. Is it: an I’m-going-to-fall-back-asleep cry or an I-need-my-pacifier cry. She falls quiet again. You return to your breath, in and out. And so forth, and so on.
See, we working parents already have the skills required for meditation. We already have a lot of practice at mindfully return to our breath, nonjudgmentally, in the present moment, again and again when distractions arise. In fact, we are really skilled at it.
I’ll close here with a funny story. I once read an anecdote by Buddhist teacher and author about a guy at a meditation retreat who was super agitated because he had paid all this money to attend a retreat of several days and he ended up sitting next to this person with a terrible head cold. For days this guy was distracted by coughing, sneezing, blowing noses, and he became just furious that his meditation experience has been ruined. That is until he goes to have his one-on-one conversation with the teacher, and the teacher exclaims that he believes this guy’s meditation retreat is goingmarvelously, and would not change a thing about the environment (or move the guy with the head cold), but would recommend some technique for the agitation.
What’s the moral of the story: embrace the interruptions, in life and in meditation, and keep moving forward. The victory is not the silence, the victory is the returning home.
No comments:
Post a Comment