Today I started meditating again. It’s been a long time coming. We have been tossed about by the world for the last 12 months, we have raged against things, worried, cried, fought; but still I did not turn to meditation to calm me and really, goodness knows why I didn't?
The trigger for this act was oddly banal. On Friday night we were out shopping for shoes, and it suddenly became clear how much meditation was needed in my life.
I wanted to buy a couple of good pairs of shoes for the trip. Not the normal, cheapish, dress shoes I buy – but a pair of nice boots that I could walk in, and another pair of plain flat black ‘ballet’ type shoes, but with a decent sole and comfortable arches. The intention was that they would be really good quality, that I would spend a couple of hundred dollars on each pair, and then instead of lasting 6-9 months, they would last 2-4 years.
I was determined to do this, to find the perfect shoes and went to this task like a woman possessed.
A little truth I have to share here, that many people who know me would not know about me, but...... I hate shopping. I love clothes, books, music, and other goods, but I hate shopping. I like to make a decision about what I need to buy, go to the shops buy it (in two colours if possible) and leave, allowing me then not to have to shop again for another few months.
I have also become more anti-consumerism in the last few months. I cleaned out my wardrobe last week because in a couple of weeks we are moving, and then heading off on the trip a few more weeks after that. So, it seemed the time to trim the fat, and I was just shocked by the amount of ‘stuff’ I had accumulated that I never wear, don’t even like, doesn’t fit. I felt disgusting – why had a bought all this stuff, it was just stuff that looked pretty, made me feel good for about 10 minutes, so I bought it, but it served no other purpose in my life.
So the intention was with the new shoes and boots, that they would be good quality, I would have them for years and never need to buy more 'shoe-related stuff’ as the shoe situation would be sorted.
The lead up to my realisation on Friday night was also triggered by a pretty yucky few days at work I don’t want to discuss the details in this public domain but to say it wasn’t good kind of sums it up. As it all unfolded all I could think was ‘I cannot WAIT to be away from here, in our lovely van on the open road just N and I’, and even though this reality is really only a few months away, while I was in it it felt as if it were a hundred years away.
So I went shopping for shoes on Friday night with all this pressure weighing down on the one occasion. These shoes were going to fulfil all shoe requirements for the next 5 years, they were going to make me feel better after my awful week, and they were going to bring me one step closer to our marvellous trip together.
Hmmm, how does shoe shopping match such expectations.
Instead we rushed to get to this store that closes at 6pm on a Friday, but which sells all the brands of shoes I thought would fulfil my requirements. Of course, as happens with intense and unrealistic expectations this didn’t happen. Instead I flounced around the shoe store, whining like a 5 year old, feeling ugly, fat, a failure and that the weight of the yucky week was pressing on me. All the fears and anger that was sitting inside me started to swell and make waves provoking angry tears to spring in my eyes, and me to assume an ugly 'chook-bum' face.
Poor N then had to read me the riot act (which he did very kindly) telling me that I was acting like a goose, and if I was going to be so foul we would go home (my disgusting childish behaviour forced him to become the parent). And somehow, instead of spiralling into a flurry of tears and tantrums, I managed to pull myself together and go forth into an evening of lovely times with my husband but without the perfect shoe outcome.
I got home that night and realised how flabby I had become. Not physically necessarily (although I haven’t been taking good care of my body), but emotionally and mentally I was thick waisted. I was stressed all the time, five words away from tears and anger, all of my muscles – both physical and mental were slack from lack of use. I had been feeling this for awhile now, but had been able to blame the hard time we had been having for my ‘flabbiness’, but blame really only gets you so far.
So I woke up on Saturday morning, and started to practice meditation and mindfulness again. I sat for maybe 7 minutes focussing on my breath, I then did two yoga moves that I used to do daily which are about grounding yourself to the earth, and I must say I felt a lot better.
This morning I did the same thing, but with the help of a Thich Nhat Hanh book I purchased (sometimes consumption is helpful) to guide me through my mindful meditation. As I read his insightful words lights that had long been dimmed started flashing brightly, particular during the reading of one particular story.
Here’s the basics - it is about a man eating a tangerine, he’s eating it piece by piece, enjoying each quadrant. Then he begins talking about future plans, aspirations, intentions and gets so caught up in these thoughts that he stops thinking about the process of eating the tangerine and instead he eats the fruit like a robot would; like an automatic gesture. During that time he stops living, he stops enjoying the fruit, because he is not conscious, he is not mindful.
I am like this man every day of my life. I never focus on enjoying the task I am doing at any given moment, I instead flit from thing to thing, idea to idea and in this way lose myself, lose my life.
This is really what I mean by flabby. I am flabby with too much stuff and no focus, I eat beautiful food without thinking (or I eat not beautiful food at all, just to give me fuel to run to the next thing), I sprint from one thing to the next never enjoying the moments, I exercise just because I should do this, I don’t enjoy the process or experience. And, I keep imagining it will all change when N and I are off in our van together travelling along without any commitments or concerns.
I now see that these commitments and concerns are always present unless we live mindfully, and that I cannot put off living my life this way until it’s convenient, I must live it like this now.
