Sit, Rhonda, sit.

Clearly, I’ve been away. No excuses. Life. But I’m back, and here’s my latest mindfulness news. My beloved husband got me the Muse for Christmas. The Muse is promoted as a “meditation aid,” and for tightly-wound Type A folk like me, it is. I’ll let you read about the Muse here: https://choosemuse.com/

 

My take on the Muse is this…when I sit down to meditate, I spend a LOT of time thinking about not thinking. That is, I focus on my breath, then I think about focusing on my breath, then I think about breathing, then I think about the difficulties of focus, then I think about the respiration of trees, then I think about focusing one eye at a time on something, and on and on and on. You see how productive (bwahaha) my practice can be. I’m like a puppy distracted by my own tail. 

But with the Muse, in moments of calm (measured in biofeedback terms by reduced brain activity), I hear gentle rain. In moments when my mind wanders and brain activity increases, the rain picks up and can even become a loud downpour. And, in moments of particular calm, the rain stops, and I hear birds. Maybe it’s my love of all flying things, but I cannot stress enough how effective it’s been for me, this “training” myself to bring out the birds.

I’m back to very short daily sessions – 12 to 15 minutes once or twice a day with the Muse. For beginners (me again), short, successful sessions are much more motivating than 20-30-minute sessions that feel like failures (although there really IS NO SUCH THING as a meditation “failure,” except not trying at all or giving up).

 

Once my brain and body get the “habit” back, I will try random Muse and non-Muse sessions. I think of it as training my inner puppy: I’ll start by rewarding the puppy with a treat EACH TIME she sits. Then, I’ll start randomizing treat/no treat after a successful sit. Eventually, my inner puppy (I call her Rhonda) will learn to sit on command, with no treats needed.

 

Progress is SLOOOOOW and often impeded by, well, LIFE: schoolwork, family stuff, knitting, writing, etc. But you remember the tortoise and the hare, right? ;)