I fell asleep right at the beginning of today's meditation:
Day 12 - You Are the Healer and the Healed
I often lie or sit against a chair that supports my back. Many people caution against this practice since people are susceptible to falling in these positions. In my experience, I usually don't fall asleep and I also think that one must be comfortable when meditating because it increases the chances of someone sticking with it and decreases the chances that someone's thoughts will be drawn to the source of discomfort.
As someone who has lived with chronic pain for over a decade, it is hard to imagine a day entirely free from pain. I have a fairly high pain tolerance, yet there are days when things flare up and the pain captures my attention to the extent that I am unable to focus or concentrate and end up neglecting a great many important matters.
I really do not like taking pain medication - even things like ibuprofen or acetaminophen - yet, I know that sleep is crucial to my physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. I seldom nap because doing so really compromises my night sleep (which I am grateful to be able to fall into within 5-10 minutes). Today, however, I ended up taking a 2 hour nap and now I still feel exhausted and ready for sleep.
In many circles, a lack of sleep is seen as some sort of status symbol. In even more circles, rest is seen as unproductive, inefficient, and even lazy. While I cognitively don't buy into these notions, I think my "heart" buys into them. On some level, my body's needs horrify and disgust me - they fill me with frustrating, impatience, and shame. "Giving in" to my body's cues feels like an indulgence at times and though experience has taught me that trying to whip my body into subordination is about as effective as flogging a dying horse until its legs give way.
Life - and our bodies even to a cellular level - takes part in the building up and breaking down process for as long as we are alive. When we are young, the building up outpaces the breaking down and when we are older the breaking down leads. Like the ebbing and flowing off a tide upon rocks, beating down and retreating until they form a beautifully jagged pattern upon the coast, so too do experiences leave leave unique marks upon our lives.
QUOTES:
PS Article roundup:
When Women Feel Their Partner Demands Perfection, Sex Life Suffers
A Massive Aquaponic Lettuce And Fish Farm Will Grow In A Brooklyn Warehouse
Leonardo DiCaprio Faces Deportation Threat After Criticizing Indonesia’s Palm Oil Industry
Test All School Water in N.J. for Lead Contamination
In a first, HIV-positive donor's kidney, liver given to HIV-positive patients
PPS
Day 12 - You Are the Healer and the Healed
(Chopra Center 21-Day Meditation Challenge: Shedding the Weight
Centering Thought: I embrace my role as both healer and healed.
Mantra: Har Haray Haree (My healing intention manifests.)
Quote: "We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work." - Thich Nhat Hanh
I often lie or sit against a chair that supports my back. Many people caution against this practice since people are susceptible to falling in these positions. In my experience, I usually don't fall asleep and I also think that one must be comfortable when meditating because it increases the chances of someone sticking with it and decreases the chances that someone's thoughts will be drawn to the source of discomfort.
As someone who has lived with chronic pain for over a decade, it is hard to imagine a day entirely free from pain. I have a fairly high pain tolerance, yet there are days when things flare up and the pain captures my attention to the extent that I am unable to focus or concentrate and end up neglecting a great many important matters.
I really do not like taking pain medication - even things like ibuprofen or acetaminophen - yet, I know that sleep is crucial to my physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. I seldom nap because doing so really compromises my night sleep (which I am grateful to be able to fall into within 5-10 minutes). Today, however, I ended up taking a 2 hour nap and now I still feel exhausted and ready for sleep.
In many circles, a lack of sleep is seen as some sort of status symbol. In even more circles, rest is seen as unproductive, inefficient, and even lazy. While I cognitively don't buy into these notions, I think my "heart" buys into them. On some level, my body's needs horrify and disgust me - they fill me with frustrating, impatience, and shame. "Giving in" to my body's cues feels like an indulgence at times and though experience has taught me that trying to whip my body into subordination is about as effective as flogging a dying horse until its legs give way.
Life - and our bodies even to a cellular level - takes part in the building up and breaking down process for as long as we are alive. When we are young, the building up outpaces the breaking down and when we are older the breaking down leads. Like the ebbing and flowing off a tide upon rocks, beating down and retreating until they form a beautifully jagged pattern upon the coast, so too do experiences leave leave unique marks upon our lives.
QUOTES:
“I
learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in
the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has
imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” - Henry David Thoreau
I did
not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to
practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and
suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put
to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive
life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” - Henry David Thoreau
“There
is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted,
all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On
such a full sea are we now afloat.
And we
must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” - William
Shakespeare
“My
dear,
In the
midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the
midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the
midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I
realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was,
within me, an invincible summer.
And that
makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against
me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right
back.
” - Albert Camus
PS Article roundup:
When Women Feel Their Partner Demands Perfection, Sex Life Suffers
A Massive Aquaponic Lettuce And Fish Farm Will Grow In A Brooklyn Warehouse
Leonardo DiCaprio Faces Deportation Threat After Criticizing Indonesia’s Palm Oil Industry
Test All School Water in N.J. for Lead Contamination
In a first, HIV-positive donor's kidney, liver given to HIV-positive patients
PPS
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