Wednesday 6 March 2019

One Hundred and Fifty Five

I have been meditating (using the Headspace site/app to help) now for one hundred and fifty five days straight.  That's five months!

I have a calendar page (for the month) on one of my kitchen cabinet doors and I mark off the day with a big black dot (cuz I have a big black marker handy) when I'm done and that helps me remember on a busy day if I've done it or not, but also to motivate me on a day when I don't feel like it (which happens, honestly, quite a lot) because I don't want to mess up the streak, and because I want every day on that calendar to have a mark showing I did it.

I may have mentioned that I started in October when I saw someone post a "one month challenge" and I thought well, hey, I can maybe do that.  Because the idea of doing something for the REST OF MY LIFE is overwhelming.  But trying it for thirty (or so) days?  That felt doable.  And then once I'd done the thirty (one) days I didn't really see the point of stopping.  Plus, maybe I could do sixty (something) days?

So yeah, I've been meditating now, almost always in the morning for nearly half a year.  As I said, I don't always want to.  A lot of the time I'd really just rather not.  But then I'd break the streak... so I throw on a short one and even on the days when it's not easy to do (because it's not really an easy thing to be frank, and that, they say, is part of it) I don't feel *worse* for it.

And at this point, to be honest, I'm not really willing to stop doing it just to see if I feel worse, you know?

Like I feel about a lot of things, other than it costing a few dollars (Headspace does charge, but I don't mind paying, I really like it) and other than taking up a few minutes (which really, how many minutes do I 'waste' online on things that make me miserable or stressed?  SO MANY!) there's no harm to it.  If it's "not working", I'm not losing much.  You know?

I'm certainly no monk at the top of a mountain or anything, and I mean, heck, I lie down when I do it rather than sitting up (so what!  Am still doing it!) but I do think it makes a difference to things and to me and to my calm.  So, here's to a good few months of consistent, daily meditation, yay!

4 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

I'm impressed... they say if you do something for that long, it's become a habit.

Good on you.

Victoria said...

Thanks :)

Jonathan Beckett said...

The way you describe it almost makes it sound like Pascal's wager - he believed in God just in case it was true - with the argument that if it all turned out to be rubbish, it had done no harm either.

Victoria said...

Works for me for a lot of "good for me" things ;)