I’ve been meditating for a week now, using Medito’s 30-day challenge. It’s been pretty great. For me, meditating can be difficult not because I’m easily distracted (I am, but not when I’m meditating), but because meditating tends to dredge up whatever energy I’m holding onto or trying to push away. So when I’m done I often feel melancholy or sad, which makes me feel like I’ve failed the meditation, which is trying to get me to acknowledge and let go of thoughts and emotions.
But lately I’ve come to realize that this is all part of the plan. Some things are easier to let go of while meditating, while others require some purging, so to speak. And lately I’ve been finding myself both feeling depressed and acknowledging my depression, almost as it from a third person perspective, which feels different than normal. Normally I feel bad about myself when I get depressed; now I am able to compartmentalize it, in a way. Not the right word — I give compassion to myself for how I am feeling.
After I meditate I write a little bit in a journal which is meant just for after meditation. It’s another one of those notebooks I’ve had forever (2016 in this case) but barely write in. Another acknowledgement: I have to stop buying notebooks. But I write how I feel or just whatever thoughts come to me, and then I write down three things that I’m grateful for. That part is the hardest, because for some reason I decided in my head that the three things have to be different each morning. A couple of days ago I realized I was doing that and very kindly told myself that they don’t have to be different things and, in fact, they could all be the same three things if that’s all I could think of. The idea is not to think about it or give that many rules to it; I only picked three things because it seemed more beneficial than one, but writing ten things every day sounded like a chore.
Anyway, the holidays always tend to make me depressed for reasons that go to the therapist, not to my blog. Suffice it to say, it’s nice to be able to acknowledge that without wallowing in it. I can’t say that every day will be like this, but it’s good to know that they do exist, and that the feeling of them will pass. My higher brain telling my lizard brain that things will be alright. It’s good.
