There was the time when I got inspired by my voice and movement classes for theatre majors in college and started trying to re-create the guided meditations I loved so much during class. The problem was, once it was just my own inner voice guiding me, that inner voice liked to fall asleep instead of take me to my special cloud or whatever.
Then there was the time a few years later when I was going through what I like to refer to as my "Blue Period" after college. In a panic to find some happy place inside me while living in LA and working for a gutless celebrity gossip TV network, I thought meditation might get me through this rough patch. Maybe I would even find out what the next step should be on this bumpy little life path of mine. I would go to the closest beach and sit for hours, willing myself to be one with the earth and the sand crabs and the waves crashing in my ears. Picturing myself inside a tiny conch shell and breathing deep did nothing to send me to the deep recesses of myself.
Then I entered massage school, the epitomy of "New Age-y" and I was once again being guided through meditations almost weekly. And even though I seemed to still have a knack for passing out halfway through the Chakras, I came out of class feeling clear and relaxed and sure that meditation was the key to my personal well being. So I tried once again to bring myself there alone at home, picturing the red balloon attached to my coccyx at the root Chakra and hoping it expanded like my instructor had told me it would.
Nothing.
I tried a podcast of "meditation for beginners" made by some hot-sounding Australian man. His voice did little but turn me on and make me want to unleash my inner self in a different way. I do remember that one of the sessions from the Aussie had me staring at a candle flame and I did manage to feel affected and started tearing up. But that could have been because my eyes were burning from staring at a damn flame for so long. I think I saw the residual dot of light in my field of vision for the next 3 days.
I still have hopes that I will learn transcendental meditation David Lynch style, but I am not even close to ready for that at the rate I am going.
So imagine my surprise when it dawned on me recently that sometimes during massage sessions, I go somewhere far away in my brain and find a calm, peaceful inner space that allows me to quiet all the noise and just be. The repetition of the motions, the rocking of my body as I dance around a client and try to keep my hands attune to their body and what it tells me it needs...all this seems to encourage my mind to open up and expand and flow with ideas and feelings and higher realizations galore. It is magical, really. I wonder if perhaps I have found a small window to the world of meditation I have been trying to find for so long.
All I know is that I can go through a million thoughts and ideas during a massage and come out of it feeling a peace I rarely get a chance to experience after staring at a dumb candle flame.
Perhaps it has become my version of meditation. And maybe we can all find each of our own versions of meditation. You may like to rock in your bed and bang your head against the wall to come to a place of peace. He may find that listening to the hum of a washer/dryer soothes him enough to quiet the voice of the world around him. Maybe it is a particular piece of music. Or staring at the most beautiful piece of art you have ever laid eyes on. Or you could be lucky enough to be able to guide yourself through a meditation that brings you to that special cloud.
What is your thing? Do you even realize it brings you there? If you aren't sure, keep searching for it. Maybe it will fall into your lap unexpectedly like mine did.
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