Month: April 2020

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On gratitude…again

IMG_2312I’m not new to expressing and writing about gratitude and I don’t think I’ve struggled too much to feel grateful for what I have and/or what I’ve experienced in my life. Even very painful and difficult events in my life have led me to something much better that I’d have expected and I’m grateful for them now, despite feeling horrible when they were happening.  But I’m not a blind believer in Nietzsche’s ‘what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger’ as becoming stronger requires making that choice of wanting to grow, open-mindedness, vulnerability and effort.  I haven’t always got it all right, but I’ve always chosen to learn a lesson or two and use it later in life for my benefit. And I’m grateful I’ve made that choice.

This period of lockdown seems to have forced a lot of people to reflect, notice those supposedly little and taken for granted things (and people!) in their lives , rethink their priorities and face the reality with humility and gratitude.

I’m grateful that I have a safe place to live in and that I have a garden, which makes life during lockdown a bit easier. And that I can plant flowers, veggies and herbs.  And that I can compost vegetable scraps. I’m grateful there’s a huge park just across the street that I can go to (it’s big enough to follow social distancing rules). I’m grateful that I have water and other utilities. I’m grateful that I have shops in walking distance and that I can afford buying food, despite not earning any money at the moment. I’m grateful that I’ve been learning to be careful with what I buy, so perishables won’t go to waste. I’m grateful that I connect and reconnect with so many wonderful friends I have in different corners of the world. So I’m grateful for technology too! I’m grateful that I don’t live alone at the moment. I’m grateful that I can still study. That I can meditate. And that I’m healthy.

I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world 🙂

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Unplugged

Let’s go back in time a little… At the beginning of 2019, on the 2nd January to be precise, I sat in meditation. There’s nothing too strange about it though as I do it daily. During my meditation that morning, however, I had this idea arising- what if I put a day a month aside for nothing but meditation? I did it before as a part of a mindfulness course I was doing when I unplugged everything and committed a full day for meditation. I did different kinds of meditation that day: guided, silent, sitting, lying, walking, body scan etc. and it felt great! So after meditation that morning, I decided to find a day in January and mark it straightaway as my Meditation Day. I felt I wanted to have something more tangible in my calendar, so I can organise my life around the meditation and not the other way round. As I was marking a day in January, there was this voice from deep within me saying ‘why not marking one day a month for the full year NOW?’. And I did just that! Now I had 12 days in 2019 marked as my Meditation Days ? There were 11 Sundays and …my birthday, which is actually a Saturday that year: why not spending my birthday meditating? I was feeling really pleased about listening to my heart and actually ACTING on what was arising in my meditation.

So, just like in life, lots of things are easier said than done..However, if you’re expecting that I’m gonna write that I missed my Meditation Days in 2019, you’d be wrong! I didn’t, however I moved things around as they needed to move around, so, for instance, a Sunday meditation became a Tuesday meditation and so on. But I’ve kept them all up!

So how does it work?  Basically I start meditating straight after I wake up and then I do different kinds of meditation for 12 hours (once I did 10 though).  I do eat in between, no worries 😉 I unplug everything- I don’t check my phone, I don’t go on the Internet. If I use my laptop, I only use it for recordings of guided meditations. Sometimes I go for a walk, but avoid contact with people.  I especially enjoy mornings- I love sitting in the garden, if it doesn’t rain, and just observe nature.

Unplugged in nature. Peak District, November 2019. Photo taken by my very talented friend, Magda.
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I’ve really wanted to kept my unplugged days in 2020.  But I have to admit- first couple of months of the year things didn’t go so smoothly for me…. I caught myself not wanting to meditate… I didn’t book an unplugged day in February . I found myself a bit overwhelmed with other things, like work, new university course, work that has been being done on the house , some emotional challenges etc. Ha, yeah, I know – when we’re stressed or feeling overwhelmed, meditation and taking step back and unplugging may be the best thing to do, but sometimes it isn’t such an easy thing to do. I still meditated or at least was listening to positive affirmations, but my mind was going wild. I felt really reluctant to meditate or even to do anything that could potentially benefit me. 

Luckily, things seem to have changed for me lately. I let go a bit more, took a step back and decided to be less harsh towards myself. I had my unplugged day in March and it was good. I don’t always feel benefits straight away and after all those years of practising mindfulness and meditation I know that they will come sooner or later, so I’m not worried about it anymore. I’m happy to see that due to this lockdown there are more organisations that offer mindfulness and meditation meetings online for free. I’ve started following Heart Based Living Initiative guided meditations (although I’m not doing them every day) and Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project , with the best metta (loving kindness) meditation teacher ever ! I’m pleased to notice that I’ve started to meditate on my own too and enjoying my sittings again 🙂 

It’s nice to see that during this lockdown people started connecting more and more by using technology. It’s encouraging that, perhaps, we’ve started noticing how important it is to have significant relationships in our lives. Building connections is a fundamental part of life. However, it’s also good to put devices away, switch off all notifications and just to have a nice, peaceful Unplugged Day 🙂