Category Archives: Meditation

Rebooting 2020

06 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by in Meditation, Personal

≈ 5 Comments

I started out my new year with optimism, enthusiasm, and lots of plans… and then promptly got sick. Not my usual food reaction illness, either, but a real cold, by which I mean that four days in, I’m still coughing, still congested, still out of energy, and still wish I could just stay in bed. Blargh.

Van life is not particularly convenient when you’re sick. Like it or not, I’m going to drag myself out of bed today to find a dump station, because my black tank is overflowing. Not, fortunately, literally — there is no sewage on my floors. Basically, it’s just like having a clogged toilet in a house only instead of tackling it with a plunger, I pack up the van and go for a drive. It’s just an inconvenience, really, but not much fun when you’re sick. Well, never much fun, actually, but even less fun when sick.

My kitchen sink is also overflowing, but with dirty dishes. I haven’t been too sick to use my dishes — still eating, thanks to my awesome Dad delivering soup and OJ for me on Saturday (thank you, Dad!) — but I’ve lacked the energy to deal with the dirty ones. That’s never good, but especially not when you live in a van, because there’s no unlimited supply of hot water to soak or scrub the caked-on food off. So, yeah, today’s goal is also going to include washing dishes. Such an exciting start to the new year.

Whining over, I do have plans for 2020. Nothing as specific as a resolution, but I was listening to a meditation podcast which suggested picking three focus words. I would share a link to the podcast, but I don’t know which one it was — I’ve been listening to lots of them, because meditating more would be one of my resolutions, if I was having resolutions. 🙂

Also, though, the podcast then suggested the three words be virtues and… well, no. Just no. It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with virtues, but talk about pressure. Plus, virtues? Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility? I’m not going to lay claim to any great moral stature here, but I honestly don’t think I need to focus on any of these things, except maybe diligence. Well, all right, definitely diligence. Still, not going to do it.

Instead, my three words are going to be verbs: appreciate, learn, and create. My goal for 2020 is to do those things every day. The first comes easy, the second takes more work, but the third is the hardest: fortunately, I’m giving myself permission to count blog posts & interesting food as creating! And my fourth goal is to forgive myself when I miss a few days, but then to start again. So, starting again — and looking forward to a fun and fascinating 2020!

Paying attention to what’s there…

28 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in Meditation, Personal, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

I’ve bought a bunch of graphics apps recently — one for my laptop, a couple for my phone — in the hopes of producing better images. But I still forget to take pictures, making the graphics apps a little pointless. Alas.

But this week could have had some good photos. I’ve been doing useful things — doctor’s appointment, service on Serenity, visiting friends — but in between those useful things, I’ve had times when I had no place to go, no place to be. It’s sort of a weird feeling. I can’t decide to go home or back to the campground because I am at home and my home is not situated in a campground. I just have to figure out where home should be, in between movements, if that makes any sense.

The easiest option is always to just find a big parking lot. There are seriously a lot of big parking lots in the world. Walmart, grocery stores, shopping malls… sadly, Trader Joe’s never has big enough parking lots, but I can usually find a parking lot somewhere in which to sit. However, parking lots are mostly boring. (I say mostly because the one I sat in on Saturday for hours and hours had a rescue group looking for homes for puppies. I was too stressed about my dogs to appreciate them, but cute puppies everywhere definitely improves a parking lot.)

This week, however, post-my lovely scenic ocean parking lot, I’ve used my GPS to find the nearest parks. It’s been weird because I’m very close to… well, to what was home. On Monday, I was three minutes away from my old house, because I was visiting my storage unit. I hung out in a park that I spent seven years living not five minutes away from and had never visited. The next day, I went to one that was about five miles away. It was lovely. A beautiful county park, next to a big lake, with boardwalks through old Florida cypress forests. And the whole time I lived here, it was right around the corner and I never knew, never looked…

It’s a good lesson, but I have to admit, I’d still much rather be off exploring parks in new places. I’m doing my best to appreciate where I am — and I do, definitely, appreciate my time with friends and family — but I’m also yearning to be off again. I’ve got things to do in Florida, but I’m pretty sure Texas is calling my name. Soon. First, though, a few more weeks in Florida and a few thousand more words in Tassamara.

 

Letting go of expectations

07 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in Boring, Meditation

≈ 5 Comments

The search for happiness begins with letting go of expectations.

I can’t remember where I read that (and I probably mangled it, since I can’t find the link) but I was thinking about it this morning while I was practicing meditating. At first I really thought it was one of those bullshit philosophical sentiments that make absolutely no sense with a closer look. Like, really, one of those “you will only find the thing that you are looking for when you stop looking” ideals that may be occasionally true, but is mostly not helpful. Sure, I’ve had moments when I’ve given up on finding my keys and suddenly remembered where they might be, but most of the time I find my misplaced keys by looking for them. And not looking, while it might eventually work, does not get me out of the house on time.

But while I was meditating and my thoughts were roaming, as they do, I realized time and again that what I was thinking about was an expectation. Example one, things to do. I had a moment of realizing that I still didn’t manage to do a two-minute job for a friend, felt guilty, resolved to do it immediately, or at least as soon as I stopped meditating — and then realized that my plan was an expectation, an expectation for what I would be doing next. So I reminded myself to let it go. (I will still do it, of course, but I let the pressure of needing to do it immediately and the guilt of not having done it yet go.)

Next I started worrying about Serenity. The dealer called yesterday and they couldn’t find anything wrong with the air-conditioner. Not an okay answer. But worrying is just another expectation, an expectation for a future that will be the way I want it to be. There’s nothing I can do to influence either what’s wrong with Serenity or what will happen next, so what value does worry have? It is entirely contrary to my nature to try to let go of that kind of worry, but I did it anyway. I thought of it as an expectation and tried to let it go.

I went back to trying to focus on my breath and still my noisy brain, but my nose was dripping. It’s tough to be peaceful when you have a runny nose. So then I started questioning whether I was sick or allergic and running back over all the things I’ve eaten recently, trying to figure out what I could be reacting to. But that’s another expectation, in its own way. I’m expecting that something I ate might be making me sick. And really, what difference does it make? My runny nose is going to stay the same, regardless of whether it’s caused by a cold virus or injudicious dairy intake. What benefit does deciding that I’m to blame possibly give me?

At that point, I was totally into the idea. Every thought that came up, I looked at and tried to see how it could be labeled an expectation. As soon as I defined the thought as an expectation, I tried to let it go. Unexpectedly, I got happier and happier as I did so, until the bell rang and I finished my meditation on a pleasant glow.

I was talking to a parent friend a few weeks ago who’s struggling with her adolescent daughter. She’d snapped at her daughter, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” Her daughter’s answer, “Right, of course!” I think wanting to be right is expectation-thinking. I’m not sure I can express it better than that, but for today, I’m going to try living without expectation (to the extent that is even possible for an obsessive, controlling, perfectionist type) and see where it gets me. Because I think at this point in my life, I’m grown up enough to decide that I would rather be happy than right.