So, if you’ve been following along, you know life has been difficult for me in the past six weeks. Between my dad dropping dead (literally), friends getting really sick, and clients “forgetting” to pay their bills, my stress chart would look something like this:
There are a couple of problems with having one’s stress set to high: health deteriorates, work tends to suffer, decision making tends to be impaired, etc etc ad infinitum. Also, it sucks.
But all is not horrible suckage. In my case, the pain associated with the stress has pushed me back into my forgotten habit of meditation.
Meditation is like magic. For me, it acts like a kind of a reset button. After 20 minutes of sitting, I feel refreshed. I’ve dropped the bullshit of the day, and can face the coming day with a greater ability to tolerate more bullshit. Without meditation, I’m sure I would have snapped at more people more often with more ferocity.
Meditation has nothing to do with religion or spiritual beliefs. In it’s simplest form it is mental exercise. True, it often leads to spiritual insights. But that kind of comes as a nice bonus.
Meditating is the simplest, most difficult thing I do. There are many excellent free resources online to help you get into or get back to meditating. I particularly like the zencast podcasts myself. They have some great guided meditations, which are a terrific place to start.
