A Simple Step

As part of my healing journey to overcome my PTSD surrounding my friend's death from breast cancer, and in turn, that experience's effect on my own breast screenings, I am trying to meditate daily. (All for a story, TBA)

The biggest lesson so far, for me, is to calm my monkey mind, but also, to focus on the present, and not spin out all the "what-ifs" that constantly fill my mind--both good and bad. It is to tell myself each day, I did my best with the information I had. (Then I actually have to do my best.)

But for anyone who wants to meditate, who has had "try meditation" on their to-do list for, Oh, say, 10 years, but cannot quite make themselves sit down and do it, here is a fantastic list of simple, downloadable meditations.

They are so short there is no excuse. You do not even have to get up from your chair. Or exert effort. You just download, play, and a soothing voice (that of Diana Winston, who really was a Buddhist nun in Asia for awhile, but now helps teach medicine at the MARC center at UCLA) will guide you through the steps.

Try it.

Tell me how it goes.

Nature-Starved

Yesterday, inside the MRI machine, I tried to calm myself. Even deep breathing is out--it can jiggle your body, and hence mess up the images.

So all I had was my mind. I could hear music in the deafening electronic beeping, and voices and words.

But in moments like those, when I want to block out the world, I draw on beautiful places I have been. Usually I am floating in water, one with the world. But this time, my images were almost used up.

I have not been in the water enough. I have not been in nature enough. I had to scratch and scramble and scrape to find a fresh image. At last I found one: me, floating in the river in the Santa Ynez Valley, stones beneath my back, silver leaves blowing in the wind, giant blue dragonflies zooming by my nose. The mountains all around, the water carrying me so gently downstream I could barely feel it. It was cool, the sun was hot, and I felt completely tingly and alive.

I need to be out in nature more. I need to fill my cup, to replenish my experiential archive, to calm my soul.

What calms your mind when you are freaking out? Where does your mind go?