A short while ago.. while actually some years ago now .. I had a regular meditation practice. I found some element of calm, albeit sometimes briefly. Sometimes it was just a means of sitting still for half an hour or so and finding some sense of calm, consciously turning my attention inwards and away from my mobile or computer and the constant updates from the ever present world.
For various reasons I lost my meditation practice and have since been struggling to return to it as I am convinced of the need to find inner peace within our hectic and demanding lives where we constantly ask more and more of ourselves and sometimes of those around us too.
It seems easy.. to set an intention to commit to a daily practice but then the monkey mind takes over and it’s interesting to step back and consider why it was so necessary to reply to that email or check for news updates instead of taking even just 5 minutes out of the day and dedicating to meditation. Maybe it becomes almost a meditation or a study in seeing why something that we know will bring calm gets shoved to the bottom of the pile when the going gets tough. I came to the conclusion that being confronted with what I maybe don’t want to see or don’t want to face is maybe the reason that I find it sometimes so hard to settle in the times when meditation would be of most benefit.
Sometimes the reality can be a bit too much “in your face” for want of a better expression, the reality that you are confronted with feels raw and scary. It’s tempting to run and easy to decide that the email does need answering now, the washing machine should be loaded or whatever is the first thing that comes to mind as a valid excuse to get up and go do something different to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation with yourself, your emotions and your life.