Being in yourself

In the moment, just being, awareness, awakened, in the now, in the present, fully conscious . . . there are many terms for this state we all, or possibly not all of us, experience at regular or regular intervals. I think I've blogged about this before but it's lost somewhere in a blog backlog - nice tongue twister! (red lorry, yellow lorry) anyway, meditation having become more prominent in my life over the last couple of years requires further feature in my ramblings.

I usually find a twenty minute spot during the day - it works best for me in the morning after writing, but can be at anytime - in place of flipping through a stack of thumbed magazines in a waiting room/ phone scrolling, or after a frustrating call to sort some tedious piece of bureaucracy when the mind needs a sense of reality. Anytime, even five minutes to listen inwards, feel one's body doing its miraculous continuous activities and stop any futile overthinking.

I do use recordings, and favour the voice of Sarah Raymond from the Mindful Movement; a clear and gentle voice. I tend to stick to her videos which have emphasis on breathing and mindfulness and with little or no music rather than the more instructive and personal development type ones. 

Two phrases of hers that always stick with me are: living between your thoughts, and you may find you notice more. The former is a valuable line of words to carry about in the head especially in stressful times. The latter is certainly true. I always was a cloud/bird/tree gazer but now, through practicing meditation regularly, even more so, happy to walk locally and find continual amazement in the small and overlooked details of nature doing its thing without our interference. Unfortunately there's a lot of interference in our particular stretch of countryside with fields of one-use plastic mini-tunnels, which brings me onto the subject of acceptance - something often talked about in meditation and of which I am trying to practice as it's true it does make for a much easier and more pleasurable day-to-day 'life experience'.

So, how much does one accept? The past and its stories of events and times that may feel hard to accept, an obvious one to work on; the way other people function, accepting that they may do things differently to oneself, yep, certainly reduces the small and unnecessary pressures and irritations which are so readily present if we let such things bother us. What about the bigger things? Like the one-use plastic and general ravaging of our countryside for winter salad that I know most French folk push to the side of their plates. If I do nothing and everyone else does nothing it will get worse, more hedges cut, habitats destroyed etc. So, I've gone ahead and made enquiries, contacted environment bodies and it's worked so far in that a keen sounding young man is coming to look at our immediate surroundings and add our complaints to the many others he is apparently receiving.

In a highly turbulent and worrying time, which is probably pretty much the entire history of mankind, I feel meditation could and possibly should have a place in everyone's lives. On another plus side, it costs nothing, unless you go on a fancy retreat, and often feels like the mental equivalent of a relaxing massage, and personal reboot for those muddy-minded times.