Deep breaths, clear mind. Deep breaths, clear mind. Deep breaths, clear mind.
Did I transfer my son’s karate clothes to the dryer last night? And I think I signed the karate graduation form, but I’m not positive. I’ll just print it out again this morning before school drop-off. Except I think we are out of toner for the printer. Did I order any extra cartridges? And did I order those big garbage bags for the outside garbage can? I really need to take out the garbage today. Actually, I should make my son do it. He needs to learn responsibility. Am I doing enough to teach him to contribute to society and be a good human? Probably not. I can’t even move clothes to the dryer, much less raise a responsible person.
Ugh. Deep breaths, clear mind. Deep breaths, clear…
I wonder what’s on the lunch menu at school today. Not that it matters, because my daughter will want me to pack her lunch regardless. You would think I put some sort of magic in those baby carrots and that PB&J (I absolutely do not. I barely remember to put J in the PB&J.). Maybe if I printed the menu, she could be enticed to choose hot lunch and I could get ten more minutes to sleep. I should print it, but there’s that whole no toner thing. Plus, I don’t want to be the one to kill the trees. Listen, if I print her lunch options every month, there might not be any trees left when she’s grown. Oh God, what is the world going to look like when my baby is grown?
Damn. Deep breaths, clear mind. Deep…
Was I supposed to call the spider sprayer? Or was my husband going to call and schedule service? It was probably on me. Great. Now I feel like spiders are crawling on me.
Deep breaths, clear –
OMG. I canceled the kids’ dental appointments when they were quarantined for the 286th time, and I didn’t reschedule them. Their teeth are going to rot and fall out. I have ruined their oral hygiene for life.
Double ugh. Try meditating, they say. It’s simple, they say. So I sit here and I close my eyes and I try to focus on my stupid breathing. And now ten minutes have passed and I feel like I’m covered in spiders and I haven’t accomplished anything at all. I could have made a grocery list, at least.
Actually, wait, it’s only been two minutes. How can it only have been two minutes?!?!? I’ll try once more.
Deep breaths, clear mind. Deep br-
“Mom!”
Forget it.
And thus I discovered that unguided meditation is not for me. I had read somewhere that you can come up with a mantra (mine was – you guessed it – “deep breaths, clear mind”) and repeat it to yourself while focusing on your breathing, and – bam – you’re meditating. And in a fit of self-improvement, I thought I’d give it a go.
The problem is that you can’t leave me alone with my thoughts. I cannot be trusted. I will burrow down every rabbit hole and peer under every rock I can find in the cluttered landscape of my brain, just looking for things to stress over. I understand that it is a “practice” and thus unguided meditation might be something at which I could improve over time, but…I don’t think so. I know who I am, and I am well-acquainted with my limitations.
Still, I do think meditation is useful. And I’m not usually very woo-woo, relatively speaking. I’m not into crystals and I haven’t met my inner child. I mean, I regularly print things and spray spiders… and shave my legs.
Yet I discovered that I love guided meditations. I love having someone else in my ear, in my head, doing the heavy lifting of redirecting my thoughts and leading me to relaxation. Jade and Anushka (yes, those are their names) regularly help me fall asleep, stay asleep, and just generally calm the heck down. Meditation gives me permission to stop and regroup for a hot minute.
Lucky us, we live in the internet age, so we can find someone to help us meditate just about anywhere these days – YouTube, several different apps, even good ole Facebook. With phones constantly in our pockets, this means we can sneak in a three-minute meditation any time we are waiting for a Zoom call to start or, heck, sitting in our SUV at school pick-up. I especially like to do guided meditations on my Fitbit app, because I can see how my heart rate is affected during the meditation.
And it is affected.
They say meditation offers all sorts of other benefits, from decreased stress and improved memory, to a reduction in chronic pain and blood pressure. I say maybe. After all, “they” are the same folks that suggested I could handle unguided meditation, so let’s agree to take what they say with a grain of salt. I certainly haven’t noticed any memory enhancement – and neither has my kids’ dentist, for that matter. Ooops. But meditation can get me to stop spiraling over printer cartridges and PB&J, so I give it two thumbs up on that basis alone.
Have you guys tried it? Does it work for you?