Meditation Monday: How to Get Started

Last Monday, we talked about some of the benefits of meditation for chronic pain. Today, let’s take a look at ways to start a meditation practice.
First off, let’s talk about what meditation doesn’t have to involve:
  • Sitting on a pillow on the floor
  • Crossing your legs
  • Being 110% silent
  • Staying still
  • Closing your eyes
  • Certain hand movements
What does meditation involve?
  • Being mindful
  • Allowing thoughts to arise
  • Being non-judgmental to yourself
  • Rest and relaxation
  • Personal insight
  • Compassion
The most important thing in meditation is to have compassion for yourself. It can bring feelings and thoughts up that we don’t often experience – or, rather, let ourselves experience. In meditations that ask us to focus on the breath, for example, it can be easy to think about how we aren’t doing well if our attention drifts elsewhere.
Self-compassion is at the heart of meditation.
Getting comfortable is probably the second-most-important key to meditation. If you’re uncomfortable positionally, it’s difficult to focus. That said, meditation with chronic pain is totally a go, though it can be a little difficult with higher pain levels.

 

There is no right way to meditate, from using guided meditations like those on apps to sending compassion to others to focusing on rough events and more. Some things can help, though, like aiming for meditating at the same time each day. Meditation before sleep can be quite helpful, provided you choose a meditation that doesn’t wake you up too much. Some people feel like mantras or chants help, but these are also not required for meditation.
You do want to try to aim for a quiet place free of most distractions. You also want to make sure you’re not too full because you might fall asleep – though, that’s totally cool, too. Conversely, meditation when you’re hungry isn’t a great idea for focus, either.
When you’re first starting meditation, using apps can be incredibly helpful. I’ve talked a lot about much I enjoy Buddhify because of how helpful their guided meditations are so helpful. They are one of the best apps out there. Other apps include Headspace, Calm, and Stop, Breathe & Think. These are all available for Android and Apple products, which is awesome!
If apps aren’t your thing, get in a comfy, quiet place. If you want to achieve anything – specifically, to think of anything in particular – think of this just before meditating. For this first time, since it may be difficult, it’s helpful to set a timer. Just make sure it’s not a super alarming noise. Choosing a screamo song as the alarm to come out of meditation may ruin the mood.
Take some deep breaths and focus on those breaths. Count them in a way that’s comfortable for you – out loud or in your head. You can count the ins and outs or just the full cycle of breathing as one.
You will naturally think of things during this time. Don’t fret! Simply recognize your thought and let it pass, then begin to count your breath again. Feel free to move as your body requires. As we talked about last week, walking meditation is also super common.
When your timer goes off, address it. It is helpful if you use a timer on your phone that you can easily silence without moving too much.
Focus on your breath again and slowly come back to the world. If you are sitting or in bed, make sure that you get up slowly. Like a visit to a masseuse or a physical therapist, this time can be rejuvenating so take it slow.
It can be helpful to keep a journal or diary about your meditation. Think about how you felt this time went. Would you do something different? How are you feeling now? Did it help you to feel rejuvenated? Did it help with your pain?
Again, I definitely suggest Buddhify. They have a great section on pain and illness that help us to deal with the stories that we create about our pain, our self-esteem issues related to pain, and similar issues. It has completely helped me to change how I address and see my pain.
Did you try meditation as a result of this post? How did it go?

 

Meditation Monday: Meditation Can Help Chronic Pain

I talk an awful lot about the benefits of meditation for my chronic pain. I thought it was about time to talk a little more about the science behind why I feel that way – aside from meditation being pretty badass.
First, we need some definitions…
  • Chronic pain: any pain lasting for more than twelve weeks
  • Meditation: a variety of mindfulness, personal focus, and introspection techniques
    • It’s important to note that, since there is such a variety in meditation as a whole, that one definition really doesn’t encapsulate much BUT some types of meditation involve:
      • Deep breathing
      • Guided imagery
      • Walking
      • Yoga
      • Vocalizations or chanting
      • Scanning the body
What can meditation do?

Lower sensitivity to pain? What?

“Meditation teaches patients how to react to the pain,” Zeiden said. “People are less inclined to have the ‘Ouch’ reaction, then they are able to control the emotional reaction to pain.” He explained that the meditator learns while sitting on the cushion that pain is fleeting and doesn’t deserve such a strong emotional reaction. (source)

This all has been shown to be especially true in chronic back pain.
I’ve been meditating on and off since I was about twelve. There was a Cosmo article I read about how yoga and meditation were good for our minds and bodies, so I got into it. There was even a point where I could do headstands up against the wall.
If only selfies had been a thing at the time…
I definitely fell off the wagon of meditation several times. Back in 2012, when Laura passed away, I got back on the wagon for a while… until I didn’t. Towards the beginning of 2015, though, I found the Buddhify app and fell back into the wagon hard – so much so that the creator of Buddhify, Rohan Gunatillake, interviewed me for his book, This Is Happening:

Mindfulness also shows me that even the hardest pain of the most difficult emotion is just a temporary thing. Noticing that change has made a massive difference. The pain is still there but now I can even be grateful for it. I now have the self-awareness to notice any discomfort and itching before it becomes full-blown pain. That’s quite a change from when all I could do was be angry and resentful.

Mindfulness has really helped improve my relationships which previous had been quite difficult. I guess that working on being compassionate to myself means that I’m able to be more compassionate to others. That’s also how I see all the blogging I do. Sharing my own story and struggles with others through blogging and other social media is an expression of my compassion. It’s part of my practice. (122)

One of the things I love from this chapter – and, indeed, every interaction I have with Rohan – is how very appreciative and caring he was about some of my thoughts:

I’ve met a lot of mindfulness experts in my time. But as she is someone who has lived with pain for the majority of her life, I’ve never heard as clear or as real an articulation of how mindfulness helps us transform our experience of the difficult as the one Kirsten shared with me. (122)

/SWOON/
One of my favorite things about meditation is just how restful and rejuvenated I feel when I take part in it. While it can be difficult at times, Buddhify really helps me to dive in even with difficult emotions.
I really enjoy meditations that allow me to remove the narrative about my pain. One of the Buddhify tracks does this, requiring us to focus on the actual pain instead of the tangents our minds can often create – thinking about what the pain is (size, sensation, location) versus the panic it brings (I can’t go to work tomorrow if I still hurt like this, etc).
Don’t already have a meditation practice in place? Good news – meditation has been shown to help even beginners, so get cracking!
Next week, we’ll look at ways to get started on meditation.

 

Meditation Monday: Happiness, Fun, and Your Life Purpose

There are so many things that we can do for ourselves in a healthy way to feel awesome, from experiencing and giving love to practicing mindfulness. Something as simple as getting outside when you can is really calming and healing, but so is playing and giving back to your community or friends.
Probably the biggest thing we can do to feel healthy is to make changes for the better in regards to our emotions. No one handles their emotions perfectly. That’s part of having emotions, isn’t it?
Changes can be as simple as deciding to recognize your beauty, inside and out (which can include faking it!), or setting new rituals for your morning. If you need help loving your body, check out this 7-day challenge from Blessing Manifesting.
For me, it’s recognizing something that I’ve wanted to do for a while.
Finding your life purpose is not easy, and not everyone gets there. I’ve been going through some things lately that help signal that I’m ready for a big change.
I’ve been looking for several months at an MA program in health care administration with a focus on advocacy and navigation. I’m excited to say I’ve started the application process!
This is a big step for me. I’ve been leery of graduate school since my experience with a division of the school I now work for. Going to school in person isn’t something that I can do between work and my health. It’s not feasible right now.
But this online program looks amazing. Even if I didn’t do something related to advocacy with my day job after completing this degree, it gives me more options for employment – and especially to help make some real changes to my local health care systems.
More to come on this as I hear more! Hopefully I get in!

Meditation Monday: Reflections on the best year of my life [super long post]

A year ago today I said goodbye to my mother.

Don’t get that wrong – she’s very much alive.

When I said goodbye to her, it was on my terms. She uninvited herself to my wedding towards the end of our conversation: “I’m going to do us both a favor. I hope your day in August is everything you want it to be.”

She tried to tell everyone I didn’t invite her because I’m a liberal snob (I wish I was kidding) but those words stick in my head to remind me that it wasn’t my choice.

My mother is someone that needed (needs?) a lot of therapy for the things she went through growing up and she never got it. She thinks that is a sign of weakness anyways. She had concerns for how much to share because, after all, the environment she grew up in was all about looking perfect on the outside and not exposing any dirty little secrets to anyone, something that tends to follow certain religious sects.

This is also an environment she created for us.

She grew up in a world where discipline was doled out by the handful, with physical violence and screaming matches the norm. She had to help raise her siblings when she should’ve been being a child. She dealt with abuse not only from her mother but from others outside the family as well.

It’s a sad story for sure. However, none of what she went through excuses how she perpetuated that cycle of ‘discipline’ and abuse towards her daughters.

You all know how I feel about secrets, and this family situation is the biggest reason why. If someone – anyone – had shared a secret along the way, perhaps my mother could’ve gotten help she needed – and her mother before her. Alas, mother refuses to even get help with her physical health issues that could be life-threatening, so mental health issues are far behind on the priority list.

It’s not worth the interventions I’ve staged, the false promises, or the fights. And that’s really sad.

I wish they weren’t. I wish things were different. I wish I didn’t feel so much like an orphan who had to raise herself and help raise her sister… and to some extent, her mother really.

With my sister moved away and me out of contact with my mother, I feel so much like an empty nester who gets to accomplish things she always looked forward to now.

It’s such an odd feeling at 27.

I very much wish that we had been allowed to have a more normal childhood. I wish having normal relationships with other children happened instead of the abuse at the hands of other children that we went through – and instead of the emotional incest and oversharing about sexuality we endured from the adults in our home… and the physical abuse. (EDIT: want to learn more about this type of parenting? Click here – Kels & I could practically have been these kids.)

I wish that I hadn’t been told the absolute worst would happen if I did xyz… I never was abducted for playing outside. I never was harmed by a stranger offering to help. Because of the apocalyptic views, I grew to have horrible anxiety attacks to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night because that’s obviously when crime happened. If I slept, someone might have snuck into the house and hurt my family.

That continues off and on still.

It probably will for the rest of my life.

And I fucking hate it.

People say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I have enough strength already – I did growing up. I don’t need my illness crud or current family crud to add to that, thanks much.

That said…

From the moment I stopped having a relationship with my mother, I gained strength. Emotionally, I began to process and accept what I have been through – something that I will have to work on until the day I leave this earth. I began to mentally deal with the abuse I’ve been through, which is a similar process. Recognizing what is and isn’t abuse is hard. So many people write things off as dysfunction because we refuse to believe or deal with what’s in front of us.

I also began to physically decompress from all the stress of my whole life. My body isn’t perfect. I’m still sick. I still have to take and switch meds to get better and better (eventually). However, I’m feeling the best that I have since I was just starting college. I’m able to be physically active and not have to pay for it afterwards.

Heck, if my labs weren’t awful, I would think remission was close at hand.

The amount of stress a relationship with my mother causes physically alone isn’t cost effective. If we add in those emotional bits, it’s like trying to be bffs with Voldemort.

In the last year, I have taken my life back. I’ve done things that I’ve always wanted to do, from traveling alone to meeting my dad and starting to become a part of that family to getting married to my best friend to getting an amazing job and moving to visiting my sister on the west coast and trying to take her mind off things to truly learning who I am.

I’m a wife, piggie momma, awkward daughter, sister, good friend, quirky feminist, gamer, writer, musician, hard worker, fun person, a fixer… I could go on and on.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is who I am not and what I will not do.

I am not a victim. I refuse to play that part, despite all the shit I’ve gone through, because I see where that leads me in my mother and grandmother. I am not an abuser. I am not a scared little girl who will keep quiet because of threats. I am not someone who can be lied to and conned into believing everyone else is awful or that everyone else is to blame for our problems. I am not gullible nor am I a liar. I am not someone who will choose a religion when it’s convenient and turn my back on it in better times. I am not perfect and I will not pretend that I am. I will not even set perfection as a goal anymore because it isn’t realistic. I will not threaten my loved ones with my suicide when things are tough. I will not lean on my future children to be my best friends instead of raising them. I will not neglect my siblings or niblings, no matter what comes. I am not someone who feels entitled to everything. I am not someone who would allow children in my care to be abused by others and do nothing about it. I am not someone who will badmouth everyone behind their backs, only to act like they’re amazing to their faces. I will not neglect or beat animals. I will not bow down to a man I act like I need to run my life. I will not spew bigotry and argue why others should believe as I do.

Who I am, quite simply, is someone who chooses to live in the present, who wants to help others and to do the most right things, and who loves with her full heart.

Most of all, through all of this rebuilding, I have discovered that I am worth it. I am worth the efforts I take, the money I spend on such things, and the time I use on myself.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that mother and grandmother refuse to even acknowledge that there could possibly maybe be a hint of a smidgen of truth in what I remember. But like, they also don’t remember a whole lot, so… whatever. That’s irrelevant. If you’ve hurt someone – even if you think you didn’t – you apologize and learn about it so you don’t do it again.

I am sure that, as usual, my mother will throw a fit about this post.

Despite the fact that I’ve made it clear that I don’t want her in my life, she continues to ‘check up’ on me online. It bothers me that she gives no fucks about my wishes, but it doesn’t surprise me either given the last 27 years of crap.

Nothing does at this point.

While it pisses me off that she won’t let go, I refuse to stop blogging or talking about what I’ve been through – especially after all the sweet things that I’ve been told lately by readers on social media about how helpful I have been… and especially with big things in the works for me. I refuse to tear down this mini-empire of helpfulness that took me so long to build and to get recognized.

I’m meant for too many amazing things to let someone like this stop me. That’s not being cocky or self-centered either – it’s called confidence.

I will continue to be me and to live the life I was meant to live – one where I love myself and help others to learn to do the same, despite these dang illnesses or issues stemming from abuse that we deal with every day long after perps are out of the picture.

I won’t hide myself to make the lives of others more comfortable, not ever again.

Someone asked me how I’ve been able to cut contact with my mother, which is a great question. Cutting contact when I did, right before getting married, was difficult with the expectations from society on mothers’ and fathers’ roles in weddings and such. So much to say there for another day.

It’s very simple really. Any time I thought maybe I was on the wrong path, I pictured a vivid scene in my mind – usually having to do with my sister.

It’s mother picking on my sister, telling her to grow a sense of humor because mother making fun of her wasn’t something sis thought was funny.

It’s when our uncle would take my sister and me to the other side of the house and cover our ears, but we could still hear mother and grandmother screaming threats and horrible things at each other – and sometimes physically assaulting each other as well.

It’s my mother continuing to sleep with someone who sexually assaulted me, long after I told her about it, and making excuses for his actions. It’s forcing me to be around him after she promised I’d never have to see him again. It’s not believing what I’d said until Kelsey saw him try to drunkenly kiss me. It’s forcing us to lie, to say we were his friend’s kids when we stayed at his house with his WIFE there.

It’s my mother telling me she’d let me marry my high school boyfriend at FIFTEEN when he turned 18, and to start asking the extended family for wedding tips, only to laugh at me afterwards.

It’s her sharing very personal things with the extended family, like when I lost my virginity or started my period.

Most often, though, it’s when my sister would be beaten. I tend to think of the times she was beaten with the buckle end of a belt while I hid and cried. You could hear the blood-curdling screams through the house. It’s a scene I can’t describe – one that always makes me cry no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

I never wear belts, and this is why. I can barely look at one without thinking of this – something I know is from my PTSD.

No child, no matter what they have done, deserves to go through what my sister has been through at the hands of my mother alone. Add into that what other children did to her and I’m very lucky that she’s still alive – and still my best friend.
I’m still not sure how the cops weren’t ever called to our house. If more people called when they heard things like this, so much abuse could be prevented. I find myself angry with people who easily could’ve gotten us help. I know it’s misdirected, but still. As someone who is hypervigilant due to the abuse, it’s hard for me to not get how others didn’t see these things. It was so obvious.

 

It’s been the most validating thing to have people I knew in middle and high school contact me throughout this to let me know that they always sensed something off, but didn’t know what to do or how bad it was. To know that sane, normal people see this too as abuse is amazing.

And then there is my therapy and how much that is helping. I’m getting new ideas, new ways to cope with all this crap.

One of the ways I’m dealing with these experiences is to tell my story here, but also to tell my story on my body.

The mother’s day after cutting contact with my mother, I got my first tattoo – the stars from the pages of the Harry Potter books. They mean so much to me. I love Harry Potter for many reasons – the triumph against evil, abuse, stalking, etc. The stars on my foot remind me that I write my own pages now and that I’ve turned the page – and will always keep moving forward. They’re also a reminder to not put up with Dursley-like abuse any longer.

 

I just recently got two more tattoos.

Heart from the Heart & Brain comics is SO me, from the impulsive and silly attitude right down to loving Batman. He now adorns my right shoulder. I’m also treating this as a tattoo for my niblings between Sam’s congenital heart condition and Marissa’s love of superheroes.

I also have this on my left wrist. It’s is a little tricky to explain.

I’m not religious, but I consider myself spiritual.

In any case, this tattoo has nothing to do with that.

I see so many people with illnesses getting tattoos that include the word ‘hope.’ I know it sounds weird, but I hate that word. Hope is so inactive. It leaves things up to the universe or deities or others. When we hope for a cure, we wish, but don’t always act.

Believe, instead, feels active. If I believe in something, I will throw my support behind it. I will do what I can to help that task get accomplished.

I choose believe over hope also because hope is so up in the air. There is no timeline, no plan, no certainty that the task will ever be accomplished. Believe comes with certainty – something that I have regarding cures to illnesses.

Simply put, to find cures and better treatments or raise awareness, we must act and engage others. We cannot sit idly by while researchers and doctors don’t hear us or act on our words. We cannot hope it will be better without taking actions to make it so.

This serves a dual purpose too. Blue is not only the color of the arthritis ribbon, but also the one for child abuse. My foot and wrist will always remind me of where I came from and where I’m going. It reminds me that I’m a survivor, not only of my physical illnesses but also my mental ones stemming from the abuse.

It tells me to believe the very real things I remember, no matter how hard they are to believe.

Combined, they all remind me to be myself, to be real, to believe that I’m worth those actions… and to always be Batman. Duh.

This is probably like 5 blog posts rolled into one. Brevity isn’t always my strong suit.

Anyway.

Today is my independence day.

I’m going to enjoy it.

All the things I’ve done over the past year have been amazing, and it’s wonderful to know what life is like when you’re not paralyzed by fear… or as much fear anyway. It took me hours to build up the courage to call someone last night. But when that someone is your dad and you’re practically in the courtship phase of your relationship, it feels hella awkward sometimes.

That’s especially true when you still don’t get boundaries, normal relationships, and all those things you should learn through socialization or family.

In the end, all that matters is that my family and I are happy and healthy. We’re all working through some fucked up shit honestly. Mother can sit there and try to lie to everyone, as usual, to get them on her side and to make her the victim. Grandmother can do it too. That’s fine. For me, there aren’t sides – there’s the truth and the lies, and I know where my family of choice and I stand in that.

Meditation Monday: When your dream dies…

I subscribe to Tiny Buddha and love getting their daily mailings. I’m sure you’ve noticed, because I’ve shared many with you. I also recently finished reading Lori’s first book and will definitely be sharing about it in the days to come.

Recently, one of their articles REALLY hit home for me – when your dream dies and you’re not sure what to do next.

Back in late 2011, when I had to make the decision to stop going to graduate school due to multiple illness issues, I was devastated. My depression and anxiety picked up and I became agoraphobic, if only because I was worried about running into classmates or TAs or professors. My fibromyalgia went into a flare that only ended in the last year, and my Still’s had a blast with my stressed and scared body.

Sometimes I think that if I had really been more invested in the subjects that I would have stuck with it and excelled. Then I remember just how very sick I really was – and these pictures are from the year before I quit even!

It took a long time for me to deal with those feelings. It really wasn’t until recently that I was able to let go of those emotions – and really only now that I’ve been able to get proper medical care and get a lot of things under control.

I think I felt pressured to study the Middle East, Islam, and Arabic. Honestly, a lot of it was wanting to set myself apart from the others I did my undergrad in and choose a religion that wasn’t Christianity. I often think that perhaps I should’ve chosen Buddhism, but I knew that wouldn’t have the potential to be a real income maker like Islam. I was raised with the thought that I would be a diplomat in the UN to make my mother proud. That was pretty heavily pushed on me. With all the conflict over there, the Middle East seemed like a great area to start that career in – especially since I was so used to conflict and fighting every single day of my life.

In the course of my studies, I found out so many interesting and beautiful things about that part of the world. I shared frustrations with my TAs about how the university had us learn words related to terrorism before we learned colors – something that would never happen in languages like Spanish. I tried Arab coffee, sweet treats, held conversations in Arabic, and spend times discussing the similarities between Arabic and other languages.

Honestly, removing myself from that world hurt more than words can say. I’ve always excelled and been a great student, so to have to ‘fail’ something really hurt. I know now that it wasn’t truly failure, but it sure felt like it for a long time. I’ve always persevered, and suddenly I couldn’t anymore.
We’ve now reached the point where I would’ve graduated and probably had to move to a different state for a job. The nice side of that is, as much as Wisconsin sucks sometimes, Madison is beautiful. I do miss the west coast/northwest scene, but this is good for now.

I’ve been able to channel all of the energy I had put into school work into my activism, redefining what I wanted, and that’s helped me tremendously. It feels sometimes like so many of the things I’ve done have been more behind the scenes type of things, which can be frustrating when I want to have bigger roles. It makes it hard when people in those roles make hurtful comments. I have to step back and really analyze not only what is going on but if I’d want to be involved anymore when that’s what happens.

I wish things were different. I wish that I had really thought about what I wanted to do after college, aside from me and my roommate having a backup plan of living in a van or hanging out with basketball players.

I wish that my body hadn’t have crapped out on me. At the same time, I love where I’m at now between our place, my loved ones, my job, the docs I work with, etc. I feel like I’ve really found where I belong, and that wouldn’t have happened without the death of this dream.

Meditation Monday: Link Roundup on Self-Love, Self-Care, and Buddhism

With everything going on lately, I haven’t worked on new blog posts for a bit. However, I’ve been collecting some links to share with you – enjoy!

If you’re feeling off and out of control of your own destiny, it’s not a bad idea to check in with yourself, especially with your intuition. I really connected with the second point on this, which is to talk to yourself like a friend. That idea is really what has turned things around for me self-love and -care wise. You have GOT to practice self-care. It’s not optional – it’s something you have to make time for and do. One big reason? It helps us handle stress better.

Something else that’s helped me a lot is learning to say no. It’s hard to break the habit of wanting to please people. As someone who grew up in a home where you didn’t want to upset someone, I find it’s even harder than I ever thought it would be. It’s definitely something I’m working and making progress on though, which eliminates a large amount of self-loathing and doubt as well. Saying no takes a lot of courage. We should always remember that.

Recognizing abusive tendencies is hugely important, and is taking the time to learn about and find yourself once you’re out. Self-discovery happens at different times for everyone – I’m just glad I got to it before I hit 27! Healing from abuse is hard work, but it’s so incredibly rewarding. Also, as a reminder to myself, it’s never okay to deny the emotions you’re feeling. That doesn’t mean you have to act on them though. Something that’s important to do is to identify emotional triggers so that you can work on handling them.

Learning to let things go is a huge step we all must take. It’s not easy to do unless you learn to say no and love yourself though. It’s very easy to make excuses to stay in a difficult place or in contact with abusive people. There’s often peer pressure associated with these things, which doesn’t make it any easier.

I really enjoy reading things that other people would tell their younger selves. This one is focused on a person in their 20s, so pretty relevant for me right now.

The last point in this article hit me hard – be a rebel with a cause. You don’t have to follow what others are doing, and you can still make an impact by being unique. Don’t compare yourself to others either. Something that might help is to make a fuck it list (yep, you read that right).

A few weeks ago, I talked about loving kindness meditation and how it helps me. If you’re working on the same practice, here are some other intentions you can use in addition to ‘may you be well’ and the like. On that note, I’ve spoken a lot about Buddhism as of late. It’s something that comforts me and gives me tangible goals to work towards, not unlike the author of this piece. If you’re interested in learning more, you can always ease into it by learning about meditation terms or short five minute introductions. You can also investigate mindfulness on a very basic level and see what you think.

Even if you’re not into Buddhism, there are still ideas you can take from it to enrich your life. A few are included in this piece on mindfulness in relationships. It can even help us to think about our final breath. Keep in mind that meditation isn’t always easy to get into or a calming experience.

If you keep debating a choice, read this piece. Make an educated decision – but make sure to make your decision. Oftentimes it seems as though we get wish-washy and refuse to make a choice, even if it’s incredibly important. Sometimes the problem is that we start living on autopilot, isn’t it? Here’s a list of ways to stop that.

Spending time with my sister recently was so very much needed, especially with Sam still struggling. It also gave me some time to travel by myself, which is always an adventure. I’m starting to love things like driving in downtown San Francisco without my GPS on to see what I can see. I’m finding comfort even out of my element, and I love it.

If you’re having a really hard day, remember to be grateful, to let go, and to listen. You can always try some things to restart the day too, or remember that you can allow yourself to be imperfect. It all goes back to the beginning of this post – you have to learn to be your best friend so you can care for yourself better.

Side note: The Elephant Journal site limits you to three (3) free articles per day, so you may need to bookmark some to read in the coming days.

Meditation Mondays: Loving Kindness

There are a ton of different kinds of meditation out there. Some of them are a lot harder to focus on than others, like those where you’re dealing with difficult emotions. One of my favorites can be easier or harder depending on your focus and your mental state.

Loving kindness meditation (also referred to as Metta or Compassion meditation) is a great practice no matter your level of expertise. It helps with all sorts of things from PTSD and depression to happiness and self-love.

The basics of the meditation are as follows:

  1. Focus on the self. You can use any number of phrases, but the most common ones are along the lines of ‘May I be well/happy/safe/peaceful/at ease.’ You can even use all of these! This isn’t something to skip over – you really need to sit with the intention of these words guided at yourself. Show yourself compassion and love. It’s totally okay to get emotional when you do this, especially if you have self-love of esteem issues.
  2. Think about someone you love dearly. It could be your sister, husband, best friend – whoever you want to focus on at that moment. Some people focus on the first person to pop in their head while others try to pick someone who may be having a difficult time. Others do a mix. Find the idea that works for you.
  3. Focus on someone you respect – it could be your boss, a co-worker, a religious or academic figure. The important thing is for this person to be someone you appreciate and respect.
  4. Think about a neutral person towards whom you don’t really have any feelings one way or another. It could be a neighbor, the checker you always seem to get at Target, someone at work you don’t really interact with, etc.
  5. This is the really hard one… Focus on someone you have hostile feelings or dealings with. It could be a parent, health care professional you’re stuck with, co-worker, etc. It’s okay to feel anger, grief, and other negative emotions. Let yourself experience them. If it is too difficult, skip this part until you can build up to it – or pick someone less contentious.
  6. Now turn all of that hope, that potential for joy and happiness and love to ALL beings. May all beings find happiness. May all beings be peaceful and at ease. It especially helps to end on this note. You may be upset with the last step, and this can redirect you.
You start off with that focus on yourself – May I be well. May I be safe. May I be happy. Then you use those same phrases with the others. For example, here is a version of all of these that I might use: May my sister be peaceful. May my guinea pigs be happy and know how much we love them. May Dr. Vance be well. May Janice be happy. May Sharla at the bank be healthy. May my mother cease to be bitter. May all beings be safe and cared for.
Feel free to add to this too. Include your pets, plants, inanimate objects – whatever you can feel comfortable at the very least practicing sending love to.
It’s very likely that you will begin to experience a lot of emotions. For some, that comes right away once you start. For others, it’s something that takes time or only happens if you’re dealing with some rough things. I find that this practice helps me to put into practice and do something with the love that I have for all living beings. Everyone deserves these things – to be happy and healthy and safe and peaceful, etc. This practice can help remind us that those we don’t care for deserve those things too.
I’ve been skipping over part 5 for obvious reasons lately. Until I work through some of the things I experienced, I can’t wish my mother or my grandmother well – even if they wouldn’t know I was doing it. Everyone in my life is amazing and here for a reason, so I don’t really have anyone else to focus on. As I get further in my therapy, I believe that I can pick this back up. I may follow my own advice in the next paragraph and see if that helps too.
Some people find it helps to focus on certain events while practicing this meditation. Maybe for part 5, you focus on someone who carried out a terrorist attack or hurt others in a similar way. Some people focus on someone who paid you a kindness recently – someone who helped you at work or in your personal life – for part 3. You can focus on the event – perhaps your favorite coworker from your last job took you out for margaritas recently to catch up. You could focus on the joy you experienced while with her, how you feel at ease with her, and send that back in this practice – May Janice find herself at ease and enjoying her life.
The important thing is to keep going with this. Do it once a day or once a week – a far enough span that you feel comfortable doing it and can recover from any emotions you may have. Again, this can be a very emotional process.
The thing I love about meditation is that there’s no focus on being perfect, because perfection doesn’t exist in an attainable way. Don’t focus on perfection – focus on doing what you can to feel as happy and safe and peaceful as you can. This is one of that meditation practices that helps me get to that place. I hope it can help you too.

Meditation Mondays: Benefits & Getting Started

I’ve talked a bit on and off since I began writing several years ago about how meditation has helped me in my life. One of the biggest benefits I’ve received is better pain management. Is the pain still there? Definitely, but I find I can be more in tune with my body and acknowledge the discomfort instead of just feeling the pain.

I’m not the only one who has received these or other benefits.

One of the things I’ve noticed is how much easier it is for me to handle stress. Meditation has also allowed me to process some of my more difficult thoughts.

There is a misconception out there that you have to be a Buddhist to meditate. This is so wrong! While Buddhism created what we refer to today as meditation, most religions and philosophies around the world utilize some form of meditation. Buddhism is much more of a philosophy than always being a religion. It is compatible with so many belief systems. One of the coolest professors I had in college practices Zen Buddhism along with her Catholicism and has even written a book about the subject. I highly suggest you check it out!

Meditation is hard when you first start out. Our minds are so busy and it can be hard to silence all the little thoughts and ideas that pop up. It takes a while to get where you can acknowledge those thoughts and let them pass. Even then, there are still times where it can be hard to deal with those thoughts. A session of meditation is never perfect, but neither are we.

The easiest way to deal with the thought issue is actually also the easiest way to get started meditating – using guided meditation.

Guided meditation is exactly what it sounds like – someone talks you through what you should be focusing on. Not every session has a real focus though – sometimes it’s just to go through how your day was and check in with your emotions.

Two great sources for guided meditations are Blessing Manifesting and Buddhify.

Blessing Manifesting is a great website. I’ve talked about it before. Dominee is a great person who encourages everyone to develop self-love/self-care techniques. She provides ways to do that as well as a safe space to talk spirituality or anything else you’d like. I found her website shortly before Christmas and I really enjoy the things she puts out there.

I’ve also talked about Buddhify before. It’s a great guided meditation app you can get for your iPhone or Android device. They have short meditations to ones last half an hour on a ton of different subjects from pain and illness to sleep to dealing with difficult emotions. Several other spoonies have now started using this app and love it just as much as I do. You can meditate using just a timer as well once you feel comfortable with guided meditation and want to move on to solo.

I certainly encourage you to check out these or other resources for guided meditation. It honestly is the easiest way to start. There are plenty of tips and tricks out there to help you get started all over the internet.

Life with chronic illness can suck big time. We spend so much time wrapped up in our bodies, often ignoring what our mind is dealing with. There is also so much ableism out there, both external and internalized, that we begin to feel like we’re not worth the time or effort to care for. This spills over into our relationships with friends, intimacy with our partners, and our perception of how much we can achieve. That feeling of worthlessness can turn into a vicious cycle and run our lives.

I think there is a way we can use our illnesses to get more in touch with ourselves, mind, body, and soul. For some, diving into volunteer work helps. For others, being physically active does the trick. For me right now, meditation is where it’s at. I invite you to try it and see if it would be a good fit in your life.