Meditation in Week 5

3/4- Awareness of Body

When I first woke up I meditated for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes I stayed in the same seated position and focused on my posture. I naturally slump forward a bit so I began noticing the labored feeling of keeping my back and neck upright and my shoulders pushed back. I could feel each muscle working to keep my spine erect. After sitting and focusing on keeping my back straightened I was actually more comfortable than before. I felt as though my neck was elongated and my head was inching toward the sky. Throughout the entire day I sat with perfect posture and it was almost effortless.

While climbing six flights of stairs I paid special attention to the muscles of my lower body, especially my calves. I felt the burn of each contraction and felt each toe gripping the ground as I elevated my heel to climb to the next step. I felt the connection between my hamstrings, quadriceps and abdominal muscles each time I raised my knee. By the top of the stairs I could feel my gluteus muscles burning. When I reached the top my heart was pumping, I had begun to sweat the tiniest bit and my breathing was more rapid. I felt like an oiled machine warming up. This made me view my body as a machine; each muscles one of the moving parts, and my mind being the command center. 

3/5- Awareness of Breathing

At the gym I always monitor my heart rate throughout my cardio workout but today I coupled heart rate with number of breaths.. At the beginning I didn't notice my breathing at all, but as I started to warm up and my heart rate rose steadily I noticed my breaths becoming more frequent. At the peak of my workout I felt relieved after each breath, as if I couldn’t get the air in fast enough. I have been thinking of my body as a machine all day and after the gym I felt like air was my fuel. Not food, not water, but each breath was keeping me alive.

I counted 16 breaths per minute as my resting breathing rate, with a resting heart rate of 116.  At the peak of my workout I counted 57 breaths per minute, with a maximum heart rate of 202

(written 3/6) As I fell asleep last night I paid special attention to the rise and fall of my chest. I typically have trouble falling asleep, but paying attention to my breathing actually helped me drift away. There was one particular moment when I was breathing normally, then I took a deep breath and suddenly after that my breathing was much slower. I felt as though there was a threshold on the sleepiness scale and once I had crossed it my breathing slowed and I was able to enter a “low power” state. I don’t remember much after that, but I slowly faded in to sleep.

3/6- Awareness of Emotions

Today my boyfriend came to visit me from NY (as he does every Thursday). I always get excited for him to arrive and today was no different. I tried to keep busy by doing homework and housework while waiting, but the anticipation of his arrival was very distracting. When he called to say that he was going to be late I felt deflated. I was feeling somewhat irritated and let down. Cognitively I knew that he had just hit some traffic and he wouldn’t be long, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit angry at him. I knew that this was unfair so I tried to be understanding and move on. When he arrived I was thrilled to see him and I couldn’t stop smiling. I was genuinely happy. 

After bringing awareness to my annoyance and unjust anger I contrasted that feeling with other times that he had called to say he was late (or couldn’t come at all). I felt that being more aware helped me calm myself down and take a more realistic approach to my emotions. The emotional journey is one that I experience inside, but I would not express this to my boyfriend because it is somewhat of an irrational emotion. This made me think about our inner struggle with rational and irrational emotions and how we try to conceal our irrational ones, or really any emotions that would make others uncomfortable. We have this social consciousness that tells us what is acceptable and what is not. Even though we may feel one way we often hide it or pretend to be unaffected by things that bother us.

3/7- Awareness of Thought

Today I went to track practice for the youth team that I coach. I worked with the ten year old group and after running and doing drills we reviewed their performances from the previous week. I noticed that as I was addressing each child’s event I was altering my tone and delivery based on the personality of the child and their performance. One girl in particular is very emotionally fragile and unconfident so when I announced her mile time I made sure to give her some positive reinforcement and congratulate her for finishing the race. I notice that some of the other kids who are more “mentally tough” got a different response from me. I monitored my thoughts about each child before reading their results: “Okay, this kid is a champ but he didn’t perform as expected, I need to fire him up and get him thinking about his next race” or “I know that this girl isn’t the most social and she just recently joined the team so I need to make her feel comfortable and welcomed. I should take a softer approach” and so on. Although the process was automatic and I didn’t even pick up on it until I was half way through I felt that I had complete control over these thoughts. My memories governed my thoughts and my thoughts governed my speech. It was a seamless journey and it was refreshing to reflect upon.