Tag Archives: meditation

Cloudy thinking

Yesterday at my archery practice my thoughts were my enemy. I got into a negative flow of thinking that I couldn’t break. It seemed as though every thought I had related to reasons why I would not hit the center of the target. My scores weren’t horrible, but they also weren’t anything close to what I’m capable of. It wasn’t so much the score that bothered me, it was my inability to get out of a negative loop of thinking.

I often wonder what goes through other people’s heads when they think. Are their minds as busy as mine? Do they have a constant internal dialogue that doesn’t shut up? For me, there is always a dialogue going on, and it isn’t always helpful. I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of attention deficit issue, with my mind bouncing from idea to idea.

Sometimes I feel like this is a super power, because I can make lateral connections to things others don’t see. Other times it’s more like a disability, with an inability to truly focus. And still other times (though less common) my thoughts can sink me into a zone of singular focus. This can happen when I’m writing, and I can start to put words on paper, intuitively knowing the beginning, middle, and end, before the world can get from my mind to the page. I love these moments, but they don’t come often.

What comes most often is a busy, somewhat clouded mind that is easily distracted. One that requires constant reminding to stay on task. I’ve figured out how to manage this, how to be effective, even when my mind wants to wander and wonder. But sometimes, like yesterday’s archery practice, I become my own worst enemy. I try to convince myself that I can focus and get away from the negative thoughts, but I can’t. Negative thoughts prevail. Negative internal dialogue persists.

I can get this way with meditation too. I can get so that every attempt to focus on my breath lasts only seconds before I’m fighting off distraction. And then the distractions become the only thing I can think of. These sessions don’t prove to be very meditative. They become 10 minutes of thinking that I need to be better at mediating, rather than actual meditation.

Yesterday, a clouded mind took over my archery practice. I didn’t practice archery, I practiced the art of negative thinking. The art of getting in my own way. The art of distraction. I need to learn a strategy to get my head out of these dark clouds when they come. I need to metaphorically clear the skies, and let the sun shine through… or at least pack an umbrella.

Ocean waves

The ocean has always spoken to me. I love the sound of waves gently crashing on the shore. When I do my morning meditation I have the sound of the ocean in the background. Today as the meditation was ending, I thought of a shoreline and how it is a great metaphor for constant change.

A shoreline is an interesting idea. It is something that can not be measured accurately. The more you zoom in, the longer the shoreline is. From a far distance, the shore on a straight stretch of a beach is almost a straight line. Zoom in and you see an uneven wavy line. Move closer still and within that wavy line are small ebbs and flows, and closer still we see yet a rougher edge, with water moving unevenly across the sand. If you try to measure that shoreline, every zoom in gives you more zigs and zags to measure, lengthening the distance.

The shoreline constantly changes, and still remains a shoreline. We constantly change, yet we remain ourselves. We follow patterns we create over years of being who we are, yet we always have the opportunity to express ourselves differently, to zig and zag in ways we have not done so before. What is certain is that we change over time, but we tend to follow patterns in our lives just like shorelines tend to follow patterns. The difference is that we can make choices, but the ocean must follow set laws of energy, gravity, and viscosity to determine where the shoreline is. We on the other hand can determine how we will move next.

Most often we will follow the patterns we have laid out before us, but sometimes… sometimes we can break free and choose to create a whole new shoreline for ourselves. We have the power to do so, but more often than not, we listen to the waves, we don’t make them.

A One Dot Day

Starting January 1st, 2019, I’ve been tracking my healthy living goals. Four goals each getting a sticker, on a year long calendar, when I do them each day. This year the stickers/goals are:

  • Red – workout: 20 minutes cardio (10 if rowing), and some strength, core, and/or stretching
  • Yellow – writing on this blog, and some audio book time (usually while working out or commuting or doing chores)
  • Blue – minimum 10 minutes meditation
  • Green – Archery, with an original goal of 100 days this year, now updated to 125.

On Saturday, I had a 1-dot day, (one sticker on my calendar), for the first time this year. Then forgetting to meditate again Sunday (yesterday), I had my first back-to-back miss of mediation in over 2 years.

This made me look back and find a pattern I don’t like. I’m getting lazy on weekends. I’m not waking up early to start my routine, then I no longer have a routine. When I started these goals, I intentionally started them at the end of a holiday break when I was going back to a job that was the busiest I’d ever been. I told myself that if I could maintain these habits when at my busiest, I could develop life patterns of staying healthy. Before this I always had the excuse of “I’ll start again when things slow down.”

Well now I’ve been able to maintain my healthy goals through the craziest of busy times, but I’m becoming a bit of a sloth on weekends/breaks when I have more time. It’s good to notice the pattern and learn from it. No more one dot days for me this year, and I’m going to endeavour to always have three dots on days off work. This isn’t a chore, it’s a lifestyle choice, and my lifestyle is going to include lots of daily dots.

Monkey brain meditation

Six times I had to back up my guided meditation today. I was instructed to breath naturally and count my breaths for one minute. A seemingly simple task, but not for my monkey brain.

In… out, one, in… out, two, in… and drift into thinking about something else and don’t notice. My 6th time I got to fourteen, but might have missed one around 12. Before that try, I didn’t make it past five breaths before my meandering mind wandered off thinking of something irrelevant and unimportant.

You would think my 3rd, 4th, and 5th attempts would have been more successful, after all, I only had one task to do, and only for a minute. But like the dog in the movie ‘Up’, my mind was pulled away, attracted by squirrels, no mater what I was trying to focus on. I can’t even remember what pulled my thoughts away, none of it important, just monkey-mind distractions, or squirrels, or whatever metaphor you prefer to describe an unfocused mind.

I just tried again and counted to 9. I’m sure that was wrong, because I don’t take 6+ second breaths. I’ve been meditating for 2 and a half years and I can’t relax my thoughts enough to count my breath for 1 minute. Perhaps 10 minutes guided meditation is not enough of a daily practice to truly quiet my mind. I’m not quitting, I’m sure there are other benefits to starting my day with this activity. But perhaps it’s time to add some silent meditation to my day as well.

I’ll start with 3 minutes, and I’ll try this now.

And for pure comedy, my cat came meowing up to me 30 seconds in, wanting me to let him out, and clawing the couch to ensure he had my attention.

Let’s go again!

Well, that wasn’t so bad. I will need to add silent meditation to my daily practice. I’ll keep it short enough at the start to ensure that I actually commit to the habit. My goal: simply to be able to sit and count my breaths for a minute, without my brain doing mental gymnastics. My date I hope to achieve this? I don’t know, I think I will just look for gradual improvements and progress, that’s probably better than an arbitrary date and the pressure that distraction would be. One less monkey thought, one less squirrel to pull my attention away… and maybe put the cat out first.

Still a rookie

I sometimes need to remind myself that I’m still new to archery. Yesterday I did something bizarre. Twice in less than an hour, I launched an arrow into the wall about 8-10 feet above my target, mid draw. My trigger release didn’t misfire, I somehow pulled back at a bad angle and let the string slip out of the release. Both times I was shocked. Both times I had no idea what I did to cause this. Both times I knew it was human error and not my equipment, but didn’t know what to do differently?

I spent the rest of that practice paying so much attention to my draw that I didn’t shoot very well. Today in practice I looked down at my hands just before I drew and I saw the problem.

Before I begin the draw cycle, I put tension on my bow string to get the feel of my bow into the right spot in my bow hand. I don’t know when I started doing this, but I was pulling on the release with my thumb up. However, the draw cycle involves drawing back with my pinky finger up. So, I’d put tension on the string, thumb up, raise my bow, and as I started my draw cycle I’d have to rotate my wrist 180°. In that process I must have twisted my pinky finger too far back allowing the string to slip out of the release… twice. Two arrows destroyed, and at the time, not a clue why?

Today I shot very poorly in my first round, then mostly much better the second round. Mostly.

I scored a 280 and my personal best is 281. But I don’t see the the good shots, I see the 7 in the red outer circle of the third target.

I don’t see the perfect score in end 2, I see the two 8’s in a row in end 6… the 7 after the two X’s overshadow the X’s in end 8.

Cognitively, I know that I need to ‘let go’ of the mistakes. To learn from them. To not let the previous shot affect the next shot. I like archery because it can sometimes feel like meditation. But then I treat it like a competitive sport and get mad at myself for not being better than I am… Like I’m not still a rookie, learning the ropes and shooting arrows accidentally, because I lack body awareness.

I’m my own worst enemy, placing too much pressure on myself, and not celebrating the successes. I forget that scores under 270 were a regular thing for me just 3 months ago.

I forget that the journey is what matters, and that I’m on a good path to getting better. And I forget that the path will be faster if I focus more on doing things right, again and again, rather than being upset and clouding my brain with unproductive thoughts and feelings.

I’m just a rookie, and I’ve got a lot to learn. 1,000 arrows from now I will be better. How much better? Well, that depends on if I can keep my expectations realistic, and focus on improving rather than beating myself up with unrealistic expectations. 280 is a great score, I only got 281, my personal best, a few days ago. I learned a valuable lesson today, and hopefully won’t ever release an arrow during my draw again. I am getter better!

In a rut

My mind is a flutter. I seem to be hopping from idea to idea. At work my secretaries and I joke about me having a squirrel brain when I get like this. I start a task, get interrupted, and then don’t remember the task until much later. A student comes to ask me a question, and I can’t remember what I was doing after they leave.

Today I had to redo my meditation because I fell asleep. Then the second time the 10 minute session ended I realized I completely failed to listen to the last few minutes or focus on my breathing, and had to go back to it again.

I don’t like when I get like this, because it’s like I’ve had too much coffee, and am overstimulated. But rather than fight it, for today’s post I’ll try to embrace it and I’ll throw ‘this and that’ out in a stream of verbal diarrhea, here goes:

I got my personal best score in archery, beating my old record by one… then repeated that score. I should be thrilled. My accuracy is way up. Yet I’m mad at myself because I started both record-breaking scores with two of three shots being 8’s. And in my second round, I ended with an 8, or I would have beaten my new record rather than tied it. Oh, and I’m also mad at myself because rather than celebrating my personal best, I’m upset about these things and can’t seem to let myself celebrate the success.

Workouts are still floundering, even now I’m writing this later than usual and will have to rush my morning routine. So much for getting back into it like I’ve shared here recently. I tell myself I’ll push harder, but I really don’t. I think I need to try something really different to break this cycle. I’m usually someone that can self-motivate, but right now I feel like I need someone else to light a fire under my ass.

I finally finished a 28.5 hour audio book. It was a wonderful story but it still took me almost three months to listen to, despite enjoying it. I listened to so many books the last couple years, and this year I’m listening at a snail’s pace. I’m also behind on podcasts. I just don’t squeeze the time out of the day like I used to.

I’ve been ‘working on’ a visual that puts together some of the things we do in order to share the Heroes Journey of a student at Inquiry Hub… except I’ve been too busy at work and am actually not working on it. It’s more of a decoration on the whiteboard behind me in my office than it is a work in progress. I look at it, I haven’t really added much to it recently.

My eating habits haven’t been great. My sleeping habits haven’t been great. I’m clueless as to what’s going on in the world because not only do I not watch TV, but I’ve tuned out of social media too.

I sound like a basket case reading this over, but I’ve caught up on my email backlog, and have been tackling my ‘to do’ list at work diligently, even if sometimes lacking focus. I’m functioning pretty well, yet focused on the things I’m not doing rather than the things I’m doing well. I haven’t laughed enough recently. I haven’t felt a sense of real accomplishment. I haven’t even enjoyed my distractions.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things I’m being productive, I’m staying healthy, my family is healthy, I’m listening to good books, I’m meditating, I’m improving my archery skills. There should be a lot to celebrate, or at least appreciate. Cognitively I understand this. But I don’t know how to give myself a break and appreciate all these things?

Well, I better get my butt to my home gym and go through the motions of working out. I’ll listen to a podcast while I do, and maybe some motivational music. I’ll get out of this rut soon, but for now I’ll just go through the motions, which is better than letting myself slip.

Meditation and a drifting mind

I’ve struggled with my morning meditation recently. My mind drifts and wanders, and I can’t seem to keep my thoughts on my breath for more than 30 seconds. Today was the 3rd day in a row that my mind wandered so much that I could barely call it meditation.

I like the Calm App, and use the 10 minute Daily Calm meditation. It starts with focussing on your breathing and for the last couple minutes there is always a lesson or topic that Tamara Levitt shares. Today’s was on Mudita. However I can’t tell you what that means despite the fact that I’m writing this immediately after meditating. I have no idea what Tamara spoke about? My mind had drifted for the entire lesson.

I know that bringing my focus back to my breath is meditation as much as staying focused. In the past couple years I’ve gotten better at doing this without being angry at myself, and understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. I’ve also started catching myself drift and bringing my thoughts back to my breath before Tamara reminds me. But my past few sessions have all seemed to involve my mind drifting, and me completely forgetting that I’m meditating. Then I catch myself and almost immediately drift again, unaware that I’m doing this. I’m hoping that writing this, and thinking about my intentions to stay focused will help… but I’m also open to suggestions.

Restless nights

Yesterday was a good day back to work. It was great to see staff and students, and it was a productive day. But the last two nights have been restless. Bizarre dreams and many times awake through both nights. It doesn’t feel like my usual insomnia that I’m prone to, but it is exhausting nonetheless.

I tend not to remember most dreams, but the ones I do remember are often stressful and include me waking up several times then stupidly going right back into the dream to continue them. Cognitively, I tell myself it’s just a dream, but I’m not awake enough to realize that I don’t need to maintain continuity and can just let the dream go.

I had one such dream that kept going and going last night, until I finally woke up to go to the bathroom. This is something I very rarely do, but last night it actually helped me get out of the restless dream cycle. Yet still my night continued to be broken.

I even tried meditation. I did 10 minutes timed with my meditation app to start the night, and I just focussed on my breathing to get myself back to sleep a couple more times. While these helped, meditation didn’t break the pattern of their uneasy dreams and many more wake ups.

I think I’ll try a hot tub before bed tonight. I’ll shut down my devices early. I’ll listen to some music without lyrics. Hopefully I can break the cycle and get a good night’s sleep. While I know I’ll be fine today, and I have a schedule that will prevent me from napping after work (which is a good thing), I know I’ve got to break my restless sleep schedule. It will lead to some very tiring days if I don’t.

I’m ready for some sweet dreams tonight.

Habit tracking – what’s next?

I’ve been reevaluating my healthy living goals over this holiday break. I’ve realized that I don’t need to track a few things that I was tracking on my healthy living chart.

The yellow sticker was originally for 20 minutes minimum reading (listening to books, not podcasts), and/or writing, which I didn’t do much of until the middle of 2019, when I started writing here daily. I don’t think I’ve missed a day of writing since, and I listed to 33 books this year. So, mission accomplished… and such a regular part of my day now that I really don’t need a sticker to track this behaviour.

Also, I started tracking intermittent fasting in 2019, and continued this year. I needed at least a 14 hour gap to earn a sticker. My original goal was 5 days a week with breaks on Friday and Saturday nights when I might have snacks or drinks after dinner. I think this is really healthy but I’ve been pushing myself on my morning workouts and actually struggling to keep weight on, after years of having too much weight on me. I am now my university weight and fitter than I’ve been in about 25 years. But I struggled once we hit September to go 14 hours on most days, and while I’d get close, tracking it seems moot, because I often felt self care was not the objective of holding off on getting some food in me and feeling strong.

My other stickers are exercise and meditation. I usually worked out 5 days a week, and I know that many weeks this year, when I missed 2 workouts early on, the lack of stickers that week really motivated me to exercise daily and keep going. So this sticker reward and tracking is really working for me.

For meditation, I have been doing 10 min. guided daily, and almost have a perfect record. There are some days when I would take too long writing and do a rushed workout and forget to meditate later, having skipped my morning routine. On this break, where I’m not getting up between 5 and 5:30am, I’ve remembered to meditate after 11pm on 3 different days. I think next year I’m going to try to meditate twice daily, once guided in the morning and once silently later in the day (at least 4 days a week). Then I’ll give myself a sticker for each, so I can contrast the amount of times I meditated twice, while also tracking if I skip both on a given day.

So where am I right now with my 2021 healthy living motivation chart?

Red: Workouts (continued)

Blue: Meditation (1 or 2 stickers)

Yellow: A writing goal that I haven’t figured out yet?

Green: I don’t know yet?

Starting this chart 2 years ago has been significant in me being able to create a healthy lifestyle that I’ve been able to monitor and maintain. It’s not a light choice to make, it’s a year of dedication with significant rewards to my personal health and mental well-being. So, over the next few days, I’ll have to solidify my last two targets… and there you have it, writing this has given me something new to track… archery. Now I just need to make my writing and archery goals specific and I’ll be all set for the new year!

Body and mind

Background:

I’m loving my return to archery. I now realize that when I readjust my healthy living goals for 2021, they will need to include finding time to shoot arrows. Just like I created time for writing and exercise over the past couple years, I need to carve out some regular time to shoot. Over this week the first thing I’ll do is figure out a way to do so indoors at home… that’s not just safe, but safe in my wife’s eyes.

These last couple of sessions, I’ve been working on my release. With a compound bow, the goal is not to squeeze the trigger with your thumb, but rather to pull your entire arm back and have the back tension of your arm and hand cause your thumb to trigger the release. To do this, your hand needs to be relaxed, your thumb needs to be securely around the trigger, and your back tension should cause the release such that the release surprises you. Being comfortable with this surprise takes getting used to, and so does the idea of not squeezing your thumb.

Body:

It’s interesting when you learn a new skill how easy it is to fill your conscious mind with everything except what you need to focus on. I want to be surprised by the trigger release, but my body is waiting, anticipating it, and taking my attention away from my focus on my release. I want to relax my sight, and let the scope pin float around the target center, but my thumb bounces on the trigger when I see the pin dead center. I want to feel my arm pulling back but instead I realize that my thumb pushed down… only after I’ve taken the shot.

With any new physical skill, I find that my body awareness is my biggest challenge. In the past, when I’ve gone to a core fitness class, the Physio guiding us would adjust my body during an exercise and say, ‘Do you feel the difference?’ Usually my response is ‘No’. I need to look at a mirror and practice the difference, but I don’t feel it.

And Mind:

With archery, I’m starting to feel the difference… but I have to be both focussed and relaxed: Focussed enough to be paying attention to as little as possible, honing in on just my release and not anything else that distracts me; Relaxed enough that I am genuinely surprised by the release, and not in a heightened state of preparation for it. The state of being simultaneously focussed and relaxed is not easily attained.

It’s about unifying body and mind. Having both act as one.