Tag Archives: meditation

Missing silence

Leave a reply

There are two things that make me feel old. One is my back, it aches in the morning and reminds me that I’m not young. It cautions me not to do any physical activities without warming up. It feels older than I feel. The other thing that makes me feel old is my hearing. First of all, I don’t have the range I used to, for example, I can’t hear the tones my fireplace makes when it is turned on and off. I can stand right by it, with my ear almost against it and I hear nothing to the surprise of my wife and daughter who ask, “How can you not hear that?”

But this is something I’m actually ignorant to, other than when I’m told to lower the TV. Although subtitles are always on for me, so I often don’t realize how much I rely on them compared to not having them and struggling. What really makes me feel old with respect to my hearing is my tinnitus, a constant tone that I hear all the time. Most days I can ignore it for long parts of the day. It sort of disappears and the sounds of activity around me drown it out. But when it’s quiet, like right now when everyone is in bed and it’s just me up clicking away on a laptop, this is when it really bugs me.

I don’t get to experience silence anymore. I miss it.

I miss it now, in the morning quiet of the house. I miss it at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. I miss it after a snowfall and the snow muffles all other sounds. I miss it when I’m trying to meditate and it distracts me and becomes the focus of my attention.

We don’t often appreciate what we have until we miss it. I miss silence.

Creativity struggle

Leave a reply

The one place in my life right now that I seem to be struggling is with being creative. I can find time for everything I need to do… except when I want to do something creative. This includes writing. It doesn’t seem to be about time, it seems to be more about focus.

I can put my head down and get to work. I can push myself on the treadmill or exercise bike. I’m struggling a bit to work out hard for strength exercises, but I still do them. I’m home a good amount of time now after a lot of late nights at work to start the school year, and I have been sticking to my routines that I’ve created.

But I can’t seem to focus on listening to books or podcasts. I can’t sit and start any creative tasks, and I find myself easily distracted any time I have down time. Normally blog post ideas come at me and I throw them into a note on my phone, or I see something interesting and my mind starts making connections to new ideas. Normally, but not right now. Now I’m in a bit of a creative slump. I’ll keep my routines that are working. I’ll try to get more sleep, since I tend to not get enough, and I won’t try to add anything new to my plate. I think I’ve got enough going on.

The one thing that seems to be working well right now is a new meditation app called Balance. So I’ll continue to meditate, exercise, and of course write something daily, all while being grateful for the things going well right now. I don’t know what to do differently to spark my creative juices, so I won’t stir things up, I’ll just be patient. It’s hard to come up with creative ways to be more creative when you aren’t feeling creative.

A quiet mind

Leave a reply

While we don’t sit in silence very often (yesterday’s post and one from 2022), we also don’t sit with a quiet mind. Our ‘To Do’ list, obligations, and plans fill our mind with things in the future rather than the present.

The idea of stillness eludes us even when it’s quiet. The notion that we are fully present escapes us. A happy experience? Let’s take a photo to remember it. A pretty sky? Let’s take a video. A beautiful walk? Let’s plan our next meal. We seldom stay in the moment.

Maybe it’s just me and my monkey brain. My brain that tries to meditate and spends its time wandering. I want to wonder but I wander. I want to be quiet and still but I fidget internally as well as externally.

I want the gift, the present, of being present. I seek the now and not the future… Not the thoughts of what’s next, what I must still do, and what I should or should not say to someone not currently with me. Imagining future conversations, or worse, past conversations and how they could have been better.

A quiet mind is not an empty mind, it’s a mind focused and aware of the now. It is not in the past or the future, it is in the presence of the present. I will meditate after writing this. Meditation must come after writing or I’m even less present as I think of what I’m going to write. Even then, my mind will drift, I will accept it and understand that refocusing is part of the process, it actually is the process. But I long for the quiet, the stillness, the moments where I’m fully present.

Perhaps it’s that very longing that prevents me from getting there. The desire to be more present is a desire and want of something not in the the present and thus something I can not seek without being less present. It’s the paradox of letting go: the more you try to let go, the more you are holding on to something… the less still your mind is.

Hello 2024 – Healthy Living Goals

Leave a reply

A new year, a new plan.

I’ve learned a lot about setting goals and keeping them since I started my Healthy Living Goals back on January 1st, 2019.

I picked up the book Atomic Habits around then, and it both reinforced some good systems I had in place and also gave me new and powerful insights to keep my good habits going. I used a year-long calendar to track my goals and continued doing this for ’20, ’21, and ’22, but decided I didn’t need it for 2023. And while I did a fantastic job with my fitness. I did however develop a herniated disc in my neck that set me back quite a bit at the start of the year, but I came back with a new focus and feel that my body has responded and recovered. But on a less successful note, I totally let my meditation commitment slide.

For 2024 I’m going back to my calendar, and I’m publicly sharing my goals, because I know it’s a good external motivation for me to make my goals public. Here they are:

1. An average of 6 workouts a week. 20 minutes of cardio, stretching, and at least one body part pushed to 3 hard sets.

2. Meditation: A minimum of 10 minutes daily, and one day for longer than that, (tracked with a black dot on my daily sticker when I at least double the 10 minute minimum).

3. Writing my Daily-Ink every day… Continuing my streak from July 2019. While this is already a consistent daily habit, I think it’s great to have one goal on my calendar where I have a continuous streak running.

4. More writing/creating: My goal will be to write, or edit videos (a project with my uncle), or doing something creative, 3 times a week for at least an hour. Most if not all of this will be on the weekends, but I also plan on making more time for myself daily.

How will I find more time in my week? I plan on being on my phone less. A lot less. I haven’t always been great with my phone habits but I think it got worse in 2023. I’m going to cut my scrolling. I’m going to start writing blog posts on my laptop rather than phone. I’m going to schedule time when my phone is on the counter rather than on me.

I rarely watch TV, I don’t watch sports, I think I can meet my above goals by sticking to current habits and just using my time better. I’m writing this (admittedly on my phone) on New Year’s Eve. I tried before, but unsuccessfully, to write at night rather than in the morning, so that I have more time for things like meditation and stretching when I wake up.

So there you have it. I do have a few physical goals beyond regular workouts. But having just spent 6 and a half months getting my left arm (almost) back to full strength, because my herniated disc pinched a nerve that seriously impinged the strength of most exercises I did with that arm… I consider these goals secondary, and may cautiously change these if they push me too hard.

These goals include:

  • 30 pull-ups (I did 15 today for my first set and 10 on a second set). When I first had this goal it was also along with the goal of 60 pushups… I did that one morning last month. 💪😀👍
  • Bench 225 lbs (two 45 plates on each side of the bar). This is something I did (albeit not for full sets) at the start of the year, but I have a way to go to get back there, and even further to be doing full sets at that weight.
  • A 30 second unassisted handstand. I have had this (unattained) goal for a number of years. I was on a roll until a minor shoulder injury, then never got back to trying.

Again, these are goals that may change but I wanted to put them ‘out there’. My fully committed goals are the 4 numbered ones above. I’m truly excited about what 2024 has in store!

(Re)stacking habits

Leave a reply

I used to wake up, write a blog post, meditate for 10 minutes, and work out, all before getting in the shower around 6:45-7am. I used the Atomic Habits strategy of stacking my habits one-after-the-other so that I reduced a lot of friction in my mornings. I’d start writing and the rest of the stacked habits just happened one after the other.

A couple things happened to change this. I have been spending more time writing, stopped meditating, and started spending more time stretching. However, it was the writing time that was the big change since both the meditation and stretching were both 10 minutes long. What I’ve noticed is that my workouts and stretching are getting shorter.

So, I need to unstack my current habits. I need to write most or all of my posts at night, then I can start my morning with meditation, cardio, stretch, then a strength routine dedicated to one or two muscles, which is my usual routine. Essentially I’m not really unstacking my habits, I’m re-stacking them in a way that they give me the outcomes I want without compromising any of them at the expense of others… I just changed the title of this post from ‘Unstacking habits’ to ‘(Re)stacking habits’… Because stacking works, but it needs to work for all the habits, not just some of them.

As a good friend said, I won’t know how well this works until I try it for at least a couple weeks, because a few days aren’t long enough for a pattern to be formed, for a habit to truly become a habit. Let’s see how this goes. If I remember, I’ll give a progress report some time later this month.

Practice not information or knowing

Leave a reply

I have weekly conversations with my uncle. Most days we talk about geometry, but today our conversation was more wide-ranging. One topic we discussed was meditation. My uncle is a practiced meditator and I am on a journey to a really meditative state that seems elusive to me.

I’m better at naming the experience rather than just embodying the experience. I understand the journey, I haven’t truly travelled it like he has. And the fundamental difference is practice.

I don’t spend enough time practicing. I have travelled the part of the journey from being angry every time my mind drifts or focuses on a thought to understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. However, I have not travelled the next part where I’ve truly experience the letting go, and feeling fully in a meditative state. I’ve knocked on the door, but haven’t stepped in.

What’s preventing me? Practice. Making time, and giving myself time to meditate. Instead of a 10 minute guided meditation that is really 4-6 minutes meditating with a little lesson, I need to give myself more time. I have to practice for longer than the point where all I’m doing is bringing myself back from distractions, back from wondering and wandering thoughts.

I know what I need to do. I’m not lacking information, I’m just lacking time, the time to practice. Until then while I can name the experience I will not truly embody the experience.

Being present

Leave a reply

It’s not easy to be fully present. We can pay attention. We can focus. We can prioritize what is happening around us. We can’t always keep ourselves fully aware of our situation without our thoughts distracting us.

Play with a kid and they might be fully enthralled in the game or activity, but we are thinking about starting to prep the next meal. Talking to a friend, they say something that makes us think about something else, only somewhat related. Listening to a lesson in class, the teacher’s voice drifts away as our own unrelated thoughts get louder.

There is no malice, no intended distraction, we just aren’t as present as we could be. It’s part of the human condition. But sometimes we find moments of clarity. We still our mind, and it stops interfering with the one thing we are doing. Clarity and focus prevail. We are momentarily fully present.

But is being lost in thought truly being present? Is there a difference between being fully focused on a task and fully focused on a thought? Is there a difference between being present in a conversation and moving it forward in a different direction because that’s where the conversation goes, versus moving it in a distracted tangent? How do we know the difference?

It seems to me that awareness of being present takes us out of being present. But ignorance of our presence can equally be ignorance of distraction. So being fully present is illusive. It comes when it comes, and it drifts when it drifts. I guess that’s why meditation is so challenging. It is creating a state where that state needs to be unconscious to be fully engaged. Being present is a skill we can learn, but not one we can practice easily, because when we reach the state we want, the very awareness of it takes us out of that state.

I enjoy moments of being fully present, but now that I think about it, the enjoyment really comes afterwards… because in the moments of being fully present the idea of enjoyment doesn’t matter. What matters is the moment itself, not the appreciation of the moment. That comes later.

Attend and amplify

Leave a reply

One of the guided mediations that I listen to is Jay Shetty. This morning the topic was ‘Making Memories’. His message: Be present and attend to the experience, amplify your awareness of what you are feeling in the moment, and you’ll have better access to those memories. They will be richer and more powerful, if you attend and amplify.

One of the downsides to this is that traumatic and trying times also tend to heighten our attention and be amplified. That’s why they get played back in our minds so vividly. Then there is the playback that never happened, the dealing with a crappy situation over and over in your mind, wishing you did something differently. Sometimes that playback feels almost as real, and just as frustrating.

Those are the moments I most attempt to control. I work on seeing them in the distance, and in black & white. I try to make them grainy still photos and forgettable. Too many people that don’t deserve my thoughts and attention can take both because dealing with them is a ‘rich’ experience in my mind. Becoming aware if this is key. Recognizing that they are not worth my time and energy is the trigger to un-amplify. Then I have more time to appreciate all the positive things that I should attend to and amplify.

Feeling the earth spin

This morning I sat in my gazebo for my meditation. The sun was shining and I took my shirt off to enjoy the the heat and natural vitamin D. Where I sat, the sun rose to the point that the top of the gazebo ever so slowly shielded my face from direct sunlight. I felt my face cool. I saw the brightness diminish through my eyelids.

It occurred to me that I was experiencing the rotation of the earth. I wasn’t witnessing the rising of the sun… Instead, I was feeling the earth revolve. My positioning allowed me to have both a visual and tactile experience of our massive planet making it’s 24 hour spin on its axis. Even as I write this, my chin is no longer in the sun and the shadow of the gazebo is slowing making its way down my neck.

This morning I got to feel the spin of the earth. At once I am simultaneously reminded of how insignificant I am in the universe, and how unique I am to be sentient and to be able to experience such a beautiful moment, which only I had and no other sentient being had at that moment.

This morning I felt the earth spin, and it was magnificent.

The sound of silence

The sound of silence is a feeling, a stillness, rather than just a quiet. I have tinnitus and so I hear a tone, even when there are no other sounds. I’m in my living room and can hear the fridge. I hear a distant lawnmower, and the occasional car going by. But the house is quiet.

I remember a trip with my dad to southern Nevada, we split apart in a wooded area, it was close to noon and very hot. There was no wind and no sound, too hot even for bugs I guess. That was a real silence. I’ve heard that a few times at night in winter as well. Snow seems to absorb sound. I can remember going for a walk once in the snow and pausing after realizing my footsteps were the only sound being made. I stopped and heard a deafening silence, a void of any noise, and again it was a feeling more than just a lack of sound.

In our busy lives we sometimes forget to be still, to be quiet, to let silence happen. People leave the TV on for company, listen to music, even whistle a tune. I listen to books or podcasts. We fill the void of silence rather than let it envelope us. But sometimes, sometimes the opportunity for silence should be sought after, seized, for the sake of just feeling silence. Not just hearing it, feeling it. It’s not easy to find, my ear tones on, the fridge hums, a car goes by… but when I find it, my body knows.

The sound of silence is a feeling, not a sound.