Meditation

Meditation has always been a struggle for me, and I imagine in some ways I will continue to struggle with it. But lately, I've been so lucky to have been having wonderful meditation sessions.

In China, we were never given the option of whether or not we should meditate. It was part of our program, and if you weren't there, it was considered an unexcused absence. We never really worked our way into it, we were just taught how to "sit" told to focus on our breath, and basically were forced to do it for an hour straight off the bat. Which for some was totally fine. Probably exactly what they needed. But I always struggled through it. Even in the end when I was sitting for an hour voluntarily, I was never really getting any pleasure out of it. I did it, because I knew somewhere in my mind it was good for me.

So I've always wondered, how does one become good at meditation? How can you qualify good vs. poor meditation? Should I be focused so much on how long I'm sitting? How can I improve the quality of my meditation minutes?

The funny thing is, I have no answers to these questions I've pondered for so many years. I've painfully sat through countless meditation sessions wondering how my peers were improving so much more than me.

So here's my post GBS breakthrough. My mind is quieter, I worry less. I sit, and I'm less comfortable, but I just don't care. I take pleasure in just sitting quietly and breathing. I don't set a time limit. I do it. And it feels really grounding. It feels good to feel the muscles in my back that are tired and sore. I breathe into them and they relax. And I relax. And I feel like my day was a good one. Even sometimes when it wasn't. It's so much easier to let my mind go and just breathe.