Shh! I'm Meditating!

Indulge me a moment here, and let me take you on a little personal journey …

One day long ago, I had a revelation. 

I realised that my levels of endless, daily anxiety and worry were actually quite different from most of my fellow pedestrians in the street.  And I don’t mean in a good way!  Encompassing anything and everything, my anxiety was at significantly higher levels.

Hhhmmm!  A not very exciting discovery!

The most apt description for this generous gift from the gods is to say that I possess a “Trigger-Happy Anxiety Button” Let me just call her, my mate THAB.

The reasons for this dubious acquaintance with THAB are really pointless to explore too deeply.  I figure that knowing WHY won’t change the FACT that I possess this not-so-cute, hard-wired button!

Following this discovery, came the research into HOW to manage it.

My delving revealed Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work at the renowned University of Massachusetts Medical Center.  For many years, Kabat-Zinn had been researching stress management and its impact on health issues.

His 1991 book Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress Pain and Illness was quite an eye-opener.

As a chronic sufferer of debilitating headaches - that one had caught my eye - despite the mouthful of a title!

So began my episodic relationship with mindfulness meditation.

Late last year, attending a Gawler Foundation/Monash University, Department of General Practice presentation, I listened spellbound to Jon Kabat-Zinn!  Along with a room of several hundred, I dropped peacefully into a minfulness meditation that left me feeling more centered and less anxious than I had been for some time.

Laziness and complacency had let me allow my meditation practice to lapse.  But here, in the space of a few minutes, I’d been brought back face-to-face with HOW to keep THAB under control!

That night I pulled down my old (unread) copy of Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, and here we are back on JJLN.

For those of us with high anxiety, to suggest that we “just still the mind” is like suggesting a bunny rabbit stop procreating!  To have any hope of gaining the benefits of meditation we need SERIOUS help.

Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life is the ultimate how-to on meditation.  (Wisely, Kabat-Zinn also sells CDs of guided meditations that flow on from his book.)

It acknowledges all the difficulties anyone has with meditation.

It encourages the apprentice to accept our brain’s attempts to thwart our efforts to meditate.  Those busy words and thoughts that flood us, and clutter and threaten our desire for space and peace are NORMAL.  (Thank heavens!)  But as Kabat-Zinn says “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

(That sentence, and Kabat-Zinn’s development of the concept, was worth the purchase alone!)

It even delves into the how-to of pragmatic stuff like posture, what you can do with your hands, timing, location, duration and even how incorporating dignity can change the experience.  Simple things that really make a difference.

Each little chapter can be read as a small reflection and in no particular order.  Most chapters have a gentle closing called ‘Try:’.  These are little steps to integrate Kabat-Zinn’s suggestions into practice.

As well as tips, these are also suggestions that encourage you to explore, out of the meditation practice, some of the brain’s busyness and the messages there for us.  In other words, it’s not just about stilling your mind, but also allowing your mind free reign to understand the messages.  From there, you can improve the moments/minutes you spend in practice.

Am I meditating frequently enough?

No, not yet. (So I’m slack!  I accept that, so can you please join me?)

Do I feel better since pulling down Kabat-Zinn’s book and returning to the world of meditation?

Yes!  The more I meditate, no matter how I may judge the duration or quality of any individual meditation, the more THAB shrinks.  There’ still anxiety but it seems more manageable and as THAB is hard-wired, that’s the best I can hope for!

And you know what?  Judging the quality, (well, we are talking anxious Little Ms Perfectionist here) has taken a back seat as well! Kabat-Zinn has provided me with enough reasons to see little value in that as well.  Not many can alter the mind-set of a Perfectionist, so all power to him.

When Karen Wallace was preparing her JJLN book review, I asked her what criticism she had of her book.  So now I should ask myself the same question.

Truly?  There’s little!  Though, if you were strongly averse to Buddhist thinking, then you may feel the concepts run a little too close for comfort.  But in fact, with meditation at the core of Buddhist practice, it would be foolhardy for someone teaching meditation to avoid exploring Buddhist principles and practice.

This book is really for the struggler who endlessly tries to meditate and, like me, wonders if they’re “doing it right”. Kabat-Zinn’s reassurance is certainly liberating.

There are quite a few how-to books on meditation on my bookshelves. I now feel free to send them off to the second-hand bookstore, as I’ve got what I need. 

Hhmm!  It's lucky JJLN is running this feast of book reviews.  I’m about to make room for new purchases.  Now, let’s see, there’s this and this and …

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Chris Owen is an Australian-based blogger and Relationship Coach.  She helps couples put the "zing" back into their relationships.  Her conversational writing on relationships brings many readers to her blog Take A Bite. She and fellow Australian, Karen Wallace, are also co-authors of Save Our Xmas Sanity a book and blog filled with tips, techniques, resources, and even parties, to make Christmas easier.

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Chris, sorry to disturb your meditation. It sounds like I have to get yet another book for my shopping cart (which is now really filling up). Thanks for an insightful review. I love the line “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Now, I need warmer weather here in New England to go to the surf!