(Note: in this post, you’ll get a rare glimpse into my personal life. I am offering this content only to share with you that what I present on this site is also what I practice. I would never advise taking on the practice of anything that I myself wouldn’t do. Hence, the following post….enjoy!)

When Life Falls Apart…Meditate!

I shy away from sharing too much personal information on this site, hoping to keep the content mostly applicable to all readers who happen upon its content. However….

….lately, things around me have been falling apart. I’ll not share the personal details, but – suffice to say – I’ve had more than enough cause to be kept up at all hours of the night pondering how to deal with yet another ensuing crisis.

What I can share is that I am grateful that none of these crises have to do with my family, my spiritual practice, or my book. That’s enough for details.

Meditation Is About Being With Whatever Is…

I write this post not because I need to vent to my readers but to remind you, and myself, that the real gift of meditation isn’t the peace that we find when we’re formally practicing “on the cushion.” The gift that we find in meditation, one that we’ve discussed before on this site, is the gift that comes when we’re in the middle of the mire, when we’re standing up to our knees in the cesspool of “yuck” that circumstances can dump into life. It’s the gift of presence and awareness.

Meditation – at its best – brings us to a state of non-distraction, to a mind unaltered by our habit of stirring things up, to a peace in the midst of all “apparent reality,” to find within ourselves a reality untouched by change and circumstance. Meditation brings us to an inherent nature of ourselves that doesn’t fall apart even when the rest of life seems to be doing so.

Here are five things to remember when we find ourselves overwhelmed by life. These five things can be found within our meditation. That’s why we practice!

1. Everything that we experience within our mind is impermanent. Needless to say, when we look at our surroundings, our environment, even our bodies, we can see evidence that nothing is permanent. As we become more skilled at meditating, we’ll also see that the same applies to our thoughts and our emotions. No matter how stirred up our mind may be due to circumstances beyond our control, the thoughts and emotions – like waves in the ocean – will eventually fall back into the nature of our mind. Nothing is permanent, even our suffering is impermanent.

 

2. All things change. Much like number 1, everything that we experience will – eventually – change. Even physical pain isn’t constant and unchanging; it has periods of less intensity, periods when it is unimaginably intense, periods where it bubbles in the background. Everything in our life will change, even the difficult circumstances. I’ve been working with the phrase, “Two months from now it will all be different.” Try it.

 

3. Even in the midst of turmoil, the mind can remain still and at ease. This realization comes with practice, but what I’ve noticed is that even when my physiology is agitated, even if there’s upset stirring within my body, given time and practice, I can remain still within my mind.

 

4. We can only entertain one thought or emotion at a time. This means that when we’re scared or worried, that’s the emotion that’s occupying our attention and our mind at the moment and that’s all that we know at that moment. But, if in this moment, we can shift our mind to another emotion, perhaps gratitude, then our mind can become grateful. While it may seem that our mind is racing at one-million miles an hour, the truth is that when we focus on one thought – gratitude – then that’s what will occupy it and other thoughts will recede, slowing it down.

 

5. Regardless of the circumstances, our mind is the only thing that we can change. Why is this good news? When we work with our mind through meditation, we gradually come to realize that despite our best efforts, many things in life can’t be changed. Our circumstances may have come about through a series of events that we had no control over. Or, perhaps at one time we were able to make choices but some of our choices lead to a situation that we can no longer control. Regardless of the circumstances, we can change how we respond to them and how our mind deals with them.

These five reminders can take time to learn and to integrate into our lives. What they require of us is persistence in remembering them and in using them, again and again, until they overtake our usual habits of panic and despair. Gaining even a little success with them is worth it!

If we can remember these five things, no matter what’s going on in our life, then whatever happens, while it may still rob us of sleep and even cause ripples within our mind, we’ll be able to come back to the present and to our presence.

In the beginning of this post, I wrote about what I am grateful for. I skipped the most important thing; I am most grateful for having been given the tools and techniques to work with my mind. I hope that this post and other posts on this site will provide you with the same, allowing you to engage with your life in whatever shape, color or flavor it comes in. Enjoy!

For more information on how to meditate and how to deal with challenges in life, please see the Related Posts below.

How To Meditate

Maybe you’ve already got a meditation practice. If that’s the case, great! Keep it up. And feel free to use all of the content from this site to support you in your efforts. If you haven’t started to meditate, begin now.

Many people don’t meditate because they believe that they need to do “something special” in order to meditate, maybe you’re one of them. “Doing something” special isn’t the case. All you need is your breath, and a few minutes of time set aside to begin your practice. Here are some tools to get you started:

• Meditation audio for using your breath as the anchor of your attention during meditation.
• Ebook and two chapters from the book, Minding the Bedside: Nursing from the Heart of the Awakened Mind, on how to meditate.
• Even though my book was written with nurses in mind, I continue to get feedback from those who have bought it who aren’t nurses that they find it useful in their lives. So, check out the book, Minding the Bedside: Nursing from the Heart of the Awakened Mind. It’s really written for anyone. You can even buy it in a Kindle version!

This site has tons of tools for learning how to meditate.

I encourage you to look through the HUNDREDS of articles that I’ve written and especially check out my weekly meditation tips and other useful meditation materials provided for your health and well being. And please let me know if you’d like to discuss anything with me, have any questions or need clarification regarding anything that I’ve written about.