It's You

Today I sat to do a meditation. Well, I laid down to do a mediation. Miles won’t let me sit during the day. He likes you to be on your feet which I think indicates to him that, “The fun will continue endlessly as long as she’s moving!” So, yeah, I lay down to meditate because fun mom can only be upright and on her toes for so long. 

While settling in, I usually start with a body scan to get myself out of my head. I start at my feet and check-in where there is any discomfort. Usually there’s a swirling feeling in my upper stomach area or a tightness in my shoulder that calls my attention, but today it was a rawness in my throat. From yelling. Miles is testing boundaries and pushing every single button he can to see what happens and today, I lost my shit. I thought I had it all together and could step back enough to not react in less than thoughtful ways, but overstimulation and pure exhaustion can really flip shit on its head. Needless to say, I feel like shit.

This happened within a few hours after coming off of a conversation with two good friends about how I am feeling so incredibly grateful and lucky for being where I am now and watching all of the things Miles says and does…in absolute awe. I thought back to where I was just three years ago and how low I felt and I could cry thinking about the sharp difference in happiness levels. But. It is still hard. And tiring. And sometimes I need a fucking minute! …Sometimes I also say “I need a fucking minute!” Like a bad mom would, and Miles parrots “I need a fucking minute!” So I’m taking one. And now back to the chaos! I’ll need to finish this post at a later time because there is no such thing as time with a 2 year old!    

That was yesterday. I actually just ran away from my family to come upstairs because I was getting elbowed in the side while Miles was cuddling up to watch one of his favorite shows while I responded to some text messages from friends. So while the TV is going with the most obnoxious, upbeat, music and dialogue, Justin comes over and closes in on my other side to play me a video he saw of a sad clown singing a remake of a Blink 182 song. All the while, the buzzing of messages coming in on my phone is radiating up my arms and to my brain, indicating that I am getting further and further behind on the current topic of convo that I so desperately want to enjoy…minus the sharp elbows, talking cars, and sad, singing clowns. I fucking catapulted off the couch and ran upstairs so fast. I would have done a front flip with two birds blazing in the air if I had the energy. So we’re up here. Processing feelings. Taking deep breaths. Overstimulation is REAL and it’s a beast that triggers all the reactivity you have inside you from unprocessed emotion. 

Should I sit here and beat myself up about it? You are entitled to your opinion on the matter. Instead, I found meditation to be a significantly helpful tool in managing…life. I recognize things about myself and how my reactive patterns came to be and where they're stemming from which helps me to reroute thinking in much more positive and helpful ways. Many people don’t like meditating for personal and preferential reasons and I was one of those people before too. I don’t know what made me keep trying it when I first started. I think I had just heard others talk about positive experiences and I knew there was something in there. When I started, though, it was painfully annoying and I did not get it at all. I remember savasana at the end of yoga and trying so hard to lay there quietly trying to figure out what all these people were tapping into and fighting the urge to yell out, “What are we even doing!?!?” Now I run away from my family to take ten minutes to sit in stillness and quiet to reset and reframe. 

Now. Here’s what I could have done better. I could have communicated to Miles and Justin that I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and could have gently redirected the elbows and calmly explained that I wanted to just focus on one thing. I could have requested a few minutes to myself in the other room. But life does operate in a vacuum! We get overwhelmed and I personally freeze and can’t effectively communicate when I’m super distracted by extraneous stimuli from more than two different sources. Reflecting on this and practicing trying my hardest to see things from a place of love has been crucial for growth and reduction of feelings of overwhelm, guilt, and shame. Especially after the fact. I am human and I am laughing at this situation in as little as a few minutes now. This would have ruined a day for past Meghan! How does meditating play a role? Well, I can’t explain it to you succinctly and wouldn’t try to because I think the experience is just very different for everyone. I just recognize so much more easily now that I have so much autonomy over my own humanness and self-compassion. When it sinks in, it is profound and game changing. It. Takes. Practice. Though.       

I recently had lunch with some friends who don’t regularly meditate and the topic came up. I explained the process and sort of vaguely described how I came to that sense of “knowing”, similar to the way I did above. Which I recognize is quite anticlimactic. I could see that I wasn’t getting the point across. I don’t ever want to try to push too hard because I feel like that just turns people away. I sensed, though, that one friend really wanted to understand. When you meditate you have to be aware that there may be a process of confronting real deep, dark, areas inside yourself. Ones that you may be repressing unknowingly. Sitting with the feelings and allowing them to pass is critical. It sounds so simple and brush-off-able to say it that way, so here’s what I shared with her. I would like to kindly warn anyone reading right now that the detail below is graphic and scary and related to my dad’s suicide. 

I don’t always have sessions that are paired with visual experiences but this one was unique. I was at a river. Like one you see at the base of a mountain with a healthy flow. It was extremely calm and peaceful. Slowly some materials began to surface and flow by me and I suddenly became very aware that these were pieces of my dad’s face. My dad committed suicide with a shot gun. I was not there when it happened but my subconscious has woven its own story.

I don’t know how I did it. But I stayed in the river and I let him pass. I still cry every single time I run through this meditation. Not because of the intense feelings of horror and extreme sadness that washed over me in that moment, but because I miss him so much and I am so profoundly proud of myself for letting him pass through and for not letting those feelings sit inside me anymore.  

I looked up and one friend was crying across the table and the other looked at me very seriously and said, “My body blocks me from sitting with those feelings because I’m too afraid that I won’t be able to get out of the river.” 

I didn’t think I could either. It was a slow journey to get to that place where I could watch him go but the wash of knowing that I that was where I needed to be in that river was an inexplicable relief. 

So. I’m not sure who needed to hear this all today. I hope you find your peace. I hope you try and stick with a practice that makes sense for you. I hope you recognize the benefits of taking the time you need for yourself and finding that capacity to love who you are to your own core and realize that you deserved absolutely none of the bad things that happened to you. I hope you give this meditation thing a shot even if you think you can’t get out of the river. You are the river. You are the mountain. You are the whole damn universe. Sometimes you just need a fucking minute. Over and over again. Until it feels right. 

I also hope you listen to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Si4MPktn7s