My Meditation Journey

I easily established the habit that upon waking up, I read the 91^st and 54^th Psalms. Why? My grandmother told me to read the 91^st psalm daily which became a habit and the 54^th – I’m not quite sure but I can say it sets the tone for me to read today’s message from the Daily Word and Science of the Mind magazine. I have maintained this habit while traveling for work in various countries and in many time zones. I always feel it provides a positive start for my day and seems to have the ability to keep me balanced.

On the other hand, meditation – for many years I tried to no avail. I started small as people suggested, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, I even spent over several years timing 12 minutes and 3 seconds using my iPhone. As I understood it, there should be attention to the silence but I found that wasn’t prevalent in my experience. Sometimes I daydreamed, many times I would open my eyes to see how much longer I needed to remain still. While I felt failure at first, I stopped those thoughts as I grew in my spirituality because thoughts are things and I wasn’t going to be negative about this. It has been written meditation is hard, difficult, you have to keep going with the practice so I continued.

There are those who were very successful as they began to meditate – I don’t know who they are, I’ve never met them, I just have this belief in my heart and in my mind that they are the exception. If you are reading this and meditation comes quite easily to you, I no longer envy you, I wholeheartedly applaud you. I’m very comfortable in knowing who I am, a spiritual being living a human life, what others think and believe I admit I’m curious and I try not to judge. I grew up in an organized religion environment and it did not resonate with me. What did was when I was led to understand my whole self, my being, and for me, realizing Source/God/Spirit, whatever you feel comfortable calling it, is all love, plain and simple.

When the student is ready, the teacher does appear. A few months ago, a human spirit made an unsolicited suggestion. She told me to start very small (2 minutes), focus on my breathing, and every time my mind reminded me of anything, I needed to remember to continue to breathe in, breathe out, and say to my mind, back to center. 

After all this time this is the process that appears to work for me, I started at 5 minutes and am currently up to fifteen on a daily basis. I’m very much looking forward to a goal of 30 minutes. I’m not pushing it, I’m taking small steps without a care on the amount of time it takes to get there. On my meditation journey, I found the hardest part is trusting you will get there even though you really have no part in how you got there. Namaste