Thursday, December 5, 2013

Meditation: The HOW-TO "Enrich Your Life with Yoga and Meditation" - Part I


They say... meditation can help you refocus your mind while decompressing whatever stress you so vigilantly grope onto with tireless, ironclad fingers.

Or, at least that's what I think my grandma said to me in Chinese one day when she preached this goodness to me... There obviously wasn't an English Subtitles option available for me to flick "On"... So.. ..  Whatever.  That was ‘my’ interpretation likely influenced by the image Western Movies and Hollywood has painted for me on monks and their monkeriness?? (That a word?? Whatever. It is now. Deal with it.) I say monks...  Because like..  It isn't the most ignorant assumption to make on persons who actually do meditate regularly.  Moving on...

So, like for those of you who didn’t know (only but every other person I didn’t already bore the hell out of when I ranted on my newest infatuation and interest in the life of a Yogi for countless hours. No—Not the Yogi Bear, those of you oblivious to the practice of Yoga.), I have been going through some personal struggles and stress for quite some time and had pretty much just about HAD it.

So in a radical attempt to attain self preservation, I, the open-minded-searching-for-something-more-dichotomous-thinker decided to try and understand and cultivate ‘meditation’ into my sht filled life.

Go big or go home.

Perhaps I needed a reason to validate the dropping of close to $3,000 within a matter of 4 days, but let’s just say this baby went all out from Yoga gear and Accessories, to a membership at a Moksha Yoga Studio down the street from me, to the purchasing of books and applications on my Android device…  What?  Can I at least get a little recognition for my efforts to really take this serious?

Anyway, I read all about the practice of Yoga and how it’s said to enrich ones’ life and all… I can’t say I fully read everything because damn it—There’s so many different Yoga terms and sht…It’s like learning a foreign language…. LITERALLY.

Pararararararaaaayannnnanananar?? What the fk?

Anyways, let’s just say I’m still learning for what will probably be forever.
I know all serious Yogis say the practice of Yoga is understanding that learning is boundless.. But listen—I’m not referring to this aspect.

I’m literally saying, I’ve wikipedia’d my life away and nothing really sticks (tip for the wiki: you don’t have to post a fkn life story of every single word, because by the time I’m through with reading the first paragraph, I’ve already wiki’d through 7 separate pages for other words I was unfamiliar with that I lost the original subject of what I actually was searching for to begin with! Holy hell. Anyways.. OOOMMMMMMM…. **rubs ear lobes gently to self soothe**)  Even just trying to explain how cumbersome this process was, I’ve lost track of what I was saying, so whatever—moving on.  If it ever comes back I’ll add it then.

So… let’s see, I ended up wanting to work on the breathing and meditation aspect first, as it appears to be the foundation of Yoga.

So I did.   

I just did a 15 minutes beginner’s meditation practice with an app I downloaded onto my phone and let me tell you--it was freaking hard!

Like you're not supposed to THINK OF ANYTHING except what you're doing.
This would be the art of ‘mindfulness’.

And so…. my mind pretty much kept wandering…and went a little something like this:

[Closes eyes and mimics the Buddha like seated position known as ‘Easy Pose’…quite ironic actually, because it’s anything but after a few minutes of no movement…I’ve no idea how people sit in front of artists for what would be classified to me, as lifetimes, beyond 5 minutes…but anyway..I’m trailing…Look at this.  I can’t even stay on track while blogging… so, as you could imagine… Immediately after closing my eyes and slowing my breath, the first thought to mind started with….]

-am I doing this right?
-no. I'm probably not because I'm talking to myself right now.
-should I open my eyes to check the tutorial guy and see if I'm doing this right?
-no. Because then I'm breaking meditation.
-damn it! I peeked!!!
-oh good!  …At least my posture is like his… Okay, so….what I did just now wasn't all that bad.
-but why am I still mind talking?
-sht. Stop. Srsly.
-ew! Something smells like cow poo!
-is Baby (my dog) sniffing around me?
-what if she isn't?
-omg. A ghost is floating around me wondering wtf I'm doing.
-I’m scaring myself
-focus! Focus Michelle!
-okay fine. I'll stop.

(Quiet for 7 minutes. ..how did I know? )

-fk! I opened my eyes again to look at the timer!
-no... but I had to.. what if the app froze?!
-okay. .. anyways. .its not
-frig..I only did 7 minutes. This ish is hard!
-ooohhhh... my back wants to relax now... but I can't. . Or its not meditation
-how the fk do these monks do this for hours.. forget that.. how does my 90 yr old grandma?!?!??!
-you're pathetic Michelle... all this fitness and muscle and you can't even maintain a straight posture with your eyes closed WITHOUT talking or thinking about anything for longer than 7 minutes
-blah.... I wonder what I should eat for dinner…
-I bet my fridge is sadness because I cheaped out last week and didn’t do any groceries..
-arg!! So annoying
-is this over yet? 
-sht!!! I peeked again
-my grams is going to be blown away by me embracing yoga
-yup
-gosh.. ashtanga was such a challenge today
-Michelle! Fkn stop thinking! !!
-okay.. okay! Holy.. this sht IS hard
-I want to slouch now.....
-is this over yet?
-I think I'm craving something… something nommies…
-I already screwed up... oh well . I’ll try this again later tonight
-I can do this!
-7 minutes out of 15 for a first time is pretty good!

(Lady voice through app says I'm done)

My final thought?

GOOD GOD. FINALLY.
Mmm… so that was my first experience with meditation a couple days ago..  YUP.

Look out for Part II when I actually give a probably less failed expression of how Yoga actually did work out for me after..

That is all .  YUP.

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