Ignore the Madness...

As I mentioned, I work in a mental health facility with teenage girls. My days at work are incredibly hectic and very stressful. When I talked with a friend last month about ideas for this month's challenge, she suggested meditation. I think meditation has some strange stigma...I know initially the image of some monk sitting Indian style with his hands on his knees humming comes to mind. I took a Mindfulness Meditation class my final semester in college. Admittedly, I did not meditate nearly as much as I was supposed to outside of the class, but I enjoyed it, and it certainly opened the door for further exploration. Some of my girls at work use meditation as their "self-control strategy", which is meant to help them when they feel an adverse emotion. I know that meditation can have awesome effects, and I am more than willing to give it a try. Unlike our failure of artisans last month, I think this month could have a very positive effect on my life, but I have to stick to it. After our February failure, I feel that I need to recommit to this idea, so I'm going to try much harder this March.

Yesterday, I tried to find some books about meditation at my local library. I could not find any with guided CDs that were available. But I saved a book I used in the meditation class because of my interest in mental health issues and psychology in general. Last night I took some time to read the introduction of The Mindful Way Through Depression, which I never did while in my actual class. The introduction talks about using meditation to cultivate patience and acceptance of one's thoughts and feelings. In the class, the professor used to have us imagine our thoughts and feelings as leaves floating down a river. We did not have to catch those leaves and examine them, we could just let them float by. It reminds me of the concept of "This, too, shall pass" when facing something unpleasant in life. Meditation is actually used as a medical intervention in the form of MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) for pain, chronic illness and stress. Research has shown that meditation can change the pattern of brain activity, too.

I'm not entirely sure how I want to structure this month of meditation. At the very least, I want to read this book in full, as I never did before. I think I will have to start meditation on some sort of schedule, too.

In the meantime, on the last day of our meditation class, our professor sent us the following email. I think the story that is mentioned highlights the basic nature of meditation...

When Jack Kornfield (an American Psychologist who spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia) was returning to America, he met with an elderly monk who had been living in the US and asked him if he had any advice for him as he came back to the West. "Only one thing, said the monk. When your running to catch the subway and you see it leaving without you, don't panic, just remember, There's always another train." It took me a while to appreciate how applicable this comment was to emotional situations that seemed to bear no resemblance to catching a train. The monk did not suggest indifference to the subway leaving the station, but he pointed to where control is possible. "Don't panic and go running after it, he suggested. Rather than letting disappointment turn into anxiety or self-pity, learn to see the disappointment clearly while restraining the action. Stay with the original feeling longer. Cultivate patience." "There's always another train," became a metaphor for me for how resistant I was to enduring frustration...I found that I did not have to go running after every lost opportunity. In fact, I discovered an important, if latent, capacity. I could wait.