Day 26: Begin A Mindfulness Practice

The discussed candles....

I've been taking myself too seriously.  Carl, a mentor of mine, challenged me today to spend some time not thinking. After I blinked at him unsure about what that meant or how to even go about doing this, he suggested I try the following:

Meditate. Look at a candle and focus on the visceral experience of the candle. Its the beginning of developing a mindfulness practice. Empty your mind.

I wasn't even suppose to think about how the candle was flickering. For five minutes I was supposed to let all thoughts go. Carl said that if I did this activity today as my self care performance he wanted me to email him some of the thoughts that came up. Here's what I had to say:

I went to my yoga studio early to do this work. Lit my candles, sat myself on a mat and bolsters, and set my cellphone timer.  It is amazing how quickly a looong 5-minutes can pass. My brain was rapid fire. Series of thoughts popping up: the lights are flickering and dancing? what will I have for dinner? why can't I forget about so-and-so and what happened so-and-so night? my chest feels heavy and tight? the clock is ticking. I feel like i can't breath. maybe there's too much light and too many candles lit. maybe i should remove the bolster I'm sitting on. is the five minutes up? maybe I should try saying a few "Aum's". I begin saying "aum" and my chest feels a little lighter (I wonder if I am clearing out chakras?). I'm an orientalist. Must read more about chakras and aum before I start using them freely. okay. the aums are helping me to focus. I can be as loud as I need to be. {Phone vibrates. Times is up.}

At present, in writing this email and the ensuing blogpost, my chest feels a little lighter but as though there's more "guck" that needs to be released. It will be interesting to see where this lies in my future and how I can work on letting those things that sit before me *just be* (i.e. candles, people, situations).

Thanks and see you soon,

Kantara

***
A sort of update: I went to my yoga studio early for my work study and to take a yoga class.  I noticed a shift in energies between the time I had meditated and the time students began entering the space for class. It was like I had taken a happy pill.