Trusting the Practice

Sometimes the thought arises during meditation, “How do I know this is working?” 

Last Tuesday, we filmed an 8-part Caring for the Caregiver video series with help from Grace Farms Foundation.  It was the culmination of something CMP had dreamed of doing - offering tips and tools for caregivers to care for themselves - since the beginning of the pandemic.  We had designed the content and Grace Farms Foundation generously committed the technical resources.  

Sleep eluded me on the eve of the 8-hour filming session.  Worries crowded my mind:  I’d never filmed video before and couldn’t figure out how not to look at my notes.  I desperately didn’t want to let everyone down - there was going to be an entire technical team there and what if I was no good at delivering the content?  As time ticked by and I wasn’t able to fall asleep, I began to worry that the day was going to require a lot of stamina - eight hours of filming sounded really daunting, and could I do it without a good night’s sleep?  And, of course, I really didn’t want to have dark circles under my eyes!

To complicate matters, my teenagers are night owls. Every sound they made snatched me from the edge of sleep, hauling me back into wakefulness.  "They know I have a big day tomorrow!”, my mind cried out and my body responded with tightness and adrenaline.

Then I turned to my breath, asking, “How close can I get to the breath?” I gently directed my full attention to the sensations of breathing.  The worried thoughts would come, and I would tuck in closer to the breath:  the effect the thoughts had on the body began to ebb.  The noises came, and I would tuck in closer to the breath:  the stories of unfairness and physical sense of frustration began to ebb.  

As the night wore on, I drew on many practices. I noticed thinking and returned to the breath, reminding myself that each return to the breath was strengthening my ability to stay focused.  I paid close attention to sensations in the body, eventually having a sense of fully inhabiting my body, rather than being controlled by a threat-seeking mind.  I noticed and named emotions as they came and went, and the ripples they caused in the lake of my awareness subsided. I opened to sounds rather than trying to shut them out, bringing attention to their tonal qualities instead of their stories, and paying particular attention to their beginnings, middles and ends.  I ran through the alphabet, naming things starting with each letter for which I felt grateful, soaking in a sense of gratitude and letting it seep into every cell of my body.  As the night wore on, sounds and thoughts, frustration and fear faded into the background - still there, but with no grip on me.  

I still didn’t get much sleep that night (late-in-the-day caffeine and too much screen time before bed the likely culprits), but the next day, rather than feeling exhausted and anxious, I felt as if I’d been on meditation retreat:  at home in my body, able to face whatever arose, connected to those around me... and there was a deep sense of peace and wholeness.  In some respects, I felt better after that near-sleepless night than after nights when the hours of sleep have been far greater.

All of this is to say, trust the practice and lean on it when you need it.  It will support you.

May all beings everywhere, without exception, move through the day with a deep sense of peace and wholeness,

Your CMP Family

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In these challenging times, your support is more important than ever. As a nonprofit, we can’t cancel our needs to fundraise. We need your donations to continue offering meditation sessions.CMP is a licensed charity in the state of CT as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Checks can be mailed to Community Mindfulness Project, P.O. Box 1713, New Canaan, CT 06840. Credit cards are accepted at www.CommunityMindfulnessProject.org. Thank you!

CMP has created a library of guided meditations that are available on our website. Our guided meditations have no preamble or discussion. They begin and end with the sound of a chime. If you aren’t ready to go directly to a guided meditation, you can also start with the audio discussions on our site. They provide an explanation of a practice. We encourage you to try one today!