Breaking my own suggestions

This is an ongoing series running through May to compliment the twice weekly meditation sessions that I will be hosting on YouTube (and are now archived on my YouTube page). If you have any questions, please contact me.

I titled one of the earlier articles in this Nudge series, “Beware of waiting for silence before you meditate.” While I believe that the advice that I offer in that piece is important, I am now going to apparently contradict myself!

There are times when the noise of life is getting to me. If I was to use an analogy, it is as though my mind is a glass of muddy water that has been shaken up so much that it is not possible to see the clarity of the water. I need to spend some time to allow that mud to settle, and get my clarity of mind back. For me this is exacerbated as I am an introvert and high sensitive person (HSP). I will find myself getting overwhelmed by external distractions that might not even register on the radar of the more extroverted amongst us. At times I simply need to take a break, have a rest and recharge. That rest can take on the look of say quiet time by myself reading a book, but I have also found meditation can play a part in this. Simply sitting, watching the breath, noting the thoughts and noise in my head as they distract me, and returning to the breath. With time the noise in my head settles, my mind becomes clearer, I feel lighter (both mentally and physically) and better able to reengage with the world.

The trick is to remember not to see meditation as an escape to a quieter place, as I warn in the Nudge article linked to above. Meditation can offer itself as a tool to bring the mind to a quieter place, but meditation can also offer so much more than that. For those times that I need to quieten my mind, when the sense of overwhelm that I am experiencing is hurting me, meditation can be one method available to get me to a healthier place. But remember that we then have to step out into the world which is far from quiet. It is then that I can use the Swiss Army knife of tools that meditation offers to help me deal with the vicissitudes of life, and perhaps help to keep some of the noise at bay before it starts to overwhelm me.