Simon Says

This picture has nothing to do with the blog. 
I just liked the cool pattern the shadows from the window panes made on the floor.

This morning, I had a hard time getting out of bed. I had a rough day yesterday.  Sleep came easily last night.  When I woke, however, I didn't feel rested. I brought the angst of the day into my dreams, it seems.  So, when my alarm forced my reluctant eyes open, the old habits seemed determined to become the order of the day.  Okay...who am I kidding? Those old habits were my actual habits, like, two days ago.  I guess it just feels good to pretend that my new habits are my actual habits.  In any event,  it was very tempting to just throw my hands up, toss aside my convictions, lay in bed and avoid all the good things my body wanted me to do.

But I didn't.  Victory?  I think so.

I read the daily devotional on D365 (totally recommend, by the way) and then settled into a comfortable position for meditation.  I'm doing the beginner course and it was time for session #2.  The kind of cool thing about this app is that you get to decide whether the voice that guides you into enlightenment is male or female.  Usually I'm all about girl power, but for some reason I chose a male voice.  To my surprise a gentle, soft spoken British?/Austrailian? voice that I promptly named Simon began to tell me how to get control of my consciousness.

I don't remember all that Simon said to me today, exactly. So far, meditation seems to be all about paying attention to the breath and noticing how your body feels as you sit in that space.  What I do know is that I would do exactly as Simon says and then promptly forget that I was supposed to be focusing on my breath and how my body felt.  I thought about work, my kids, the angst of yesterday, the chores that need to be done, etc., etc. etc. My brain would meander away from meditation and then I'd realize what I was doing and scold myself back toward the task at hand.

I fumbled my way through five-ish minutes of this and then Simon began to wind our session down.  I was feeling proud of myself for following through and doing this activity even though I really didn't want to. At the same time, I was berating myself for not doing it "right." Then Simon said something that kind of blew my mind.  He said:

Meditation isn't about getting rid of your thoughts. It's about learning how to be at ease with them.

Well, holy cow, Simon!  Way to challenge every ounce of my being in two concise sentences!

You see, I have spent my whole entire life trying to do all the things as "right" as I could.  I've stretched and bent and crammed myself into the spaces of this world that I thought I was supposed to fit into.  I've achieved many things, but always, always, always in the back of my brain has been this belief that it was not enough.  I could do more. I could be more. I could be better.  When I don't meet my own expectations, I scold myself soundly. Even worse, if I, God forbid, find out that all my contortions weren't enough for someone else, the self loathing I feel is worse torture than most prison sentence.

There I was, sitting on my bed, scolding myself for not doing meditation "right."  Then, my virtual BFF Simon gently told me that showing up was what mattered most.  I will sometimes have a brain that wanders, but the actual trying is enough.  Success is not the focus, but surrender is.

This is what I imagine Simon looks like.  Don't judge.
Also, I totally ripped this picture off of the internet.
You can go here to find the actual image and give them credit and traffic.

It's a really interesting idea, isn't it? It's really remarkable to think that showing up with a heart full of grace and a willingness to try is all that is required.  This notion is something I'm going to try to bring into this day. Instead of scolding myself for failures that haven't even happened yet, I'm going to just show up today.  I'm going to bring an open heart and a curiosity about what this day can be.  And that will be good enough.  Simon says so.

Loving ourselves is hard work.  It's so much easier to love other people.  What I'm learning, however, is that loving myself makes me better at loving others.  I think THAT can change this world.  In fact, I know it can.

Love you...