Day nine!
I actually woke up 23 minutes earlier than my alarm today which is a little surprising. Especially when I only got a few hours sleep, but I feel pretty fresh now that I’ve just finished meditating and drank a full bottle of water.
Speaking of meditating, it’s not something I’ve discussed in much detail in these updates.
I’ve meditated on and off over the years but I’ve honestly never been very consistent at it. Only once in my life have I done 30 days in a row and once I did 30 days in a row with one day off (if that makes sense) somewhere in between.
The thing with meditation is that I don’t really notice the benefits too much when I’m doing it. I can go for weeks and not see it change my feelings or focus very much.
But when I stop meditating for a day or two, I notice the benefits it gave me so clearly.
I get more angry at bad drivers. I’m more likely to start flicking through tabs on Chrome. I’m more critical of others and myself. The clarity and empathy that meditation brings to my life is clear as day…when I stop doing it.
During this challenge, I actually haven’t noticed any kind of improvement in my meditation.
I just hit the 10 day in a row mark now – Headspace didn’t give me any “congratulations” like they did in the past (but did for seven days which never happened before) – and it isn’t any easier than day one.
I guess I’m writing about meditation today because this morning was my “worst” meditation in a while. My thoughts were completely dominated by what I wanted to do today, what I wanted to write here and certain changes I can be making.
For some reason I kept thinking about putting an FAQ on ViperChill, and no matter how often I returned to focusing on my breath, my thoughts would quickly go back there as I thought of all the questions and possible answers.
They say meditation gets easier but it really depends if I start to think about something creative before I meditate because if I do, it’s usually not a great session. Then again, I believe some early morning focus is better than none, so I’ll definitely continue with the habit no matter how it goes.
That’s all for now as this is one of my longer updates and I want to get started on some of the ideas that distracted me during said meditation.
Just writing a reminder for myself to write about the joy of silence in these early mornings in a future update.
– Glen