vendredi 14 août 2020

Meditation

Quite short meditation again. Under 20 minutes.

At some point I felt like a wave was overcoming me. I thought I was gonna cry, because it's been happening a lot lately as I'm releasing a lot of tensions and stuff. But I felt something telling me "It's ok, everything is ok. Don't worry, soon enough you'll be laughing, and spreading that laugh around." And I figured, it's ok to cry, I'll laugh in a few days or something, but the wave actually crashed in a laughter instead of a sob. I guess I didn't have to wait a few days. It's weird how similar the feeling is actually.. When you don't attach any emotion to it, and just feel what's happening in your body, laughter and sob are almost identical.

I don't have much more to share... 
All I want to share today is silence.

And gratitude.

jeudi 13 août 2020

Meditation

Today I recorded 30 minutes of silence, apart from the part where a friend/neighbour of mine barged in unapologetically, did what she came to do (something to do with a key that could absolutely have waited a few hours, or days), said what she had to say and took off.


Even before she came in I had a hard time settling, centering. I was distracted and more focused on trying to meditate than really meditating. 

When she entered I opened my eyes but tried not to move. I did end up answering her though, and didn't manage to stay comfortably silent as yesterday's lesson had advised.

After she closed the door behind her I sat a little longer but was even more distracted than before. I kept thinking of how rudely she came in, with no regard for my private quiet time (she meditates too so I thought she would know better). It really felt like an intrusion (my need for boundaries and respect of my privacy is quite high these days, it's THE issue I'm working on)

But, as I was indeed sitting there meditating, I kept observing my thoughts. I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right with her behaviour, but I was trying to let go of the fact that I felt disturbed and disrespected, to try and go beyond that. I was trying to let go of what I was feeling to try and connect to what she might be feeling. I ended up thinking that if she came and see me for a trivial reason maybe her need to be heard was greater than her need to respect my privacy (which I know she has). At some point I just stopped trying anything and thinking altogether, and let go. I wasn't completely serene and felt like I should sit a bit longer but I decided to get up anyway. I went to see her but she wasn't available. I sat down to write, and opened myself to welcome her if she came back. And indeed she did, and she talked, and I listened.


I could have considered her needs more important than mine (as I would in the past, it was my signature move), and come out of my meditation entirely as soon as she entered the room the first time.

I could have continued fixating on how disrespectful her behaviour felt to me and get angry at her, and then at myself for getting angry at her (frustration and guilt, also great moves of mine).

I could have considered my needs more important than hers and lock my door to her to take the time to find my quiet. 

I'm happy that I was able to consider both our needs important, and go beyond my direct emotional reaction, to connect with her and be able to be there for her, having taken the time to be there for myself first. 

I think today's lesson is that no matter where you're at, no matter how people come on to you, you can find a way to be there for you and for them, if you manage to get quiet enough and connect to the needs, and not the form they take.


Every interaction is an act of love, wether it be giving it, or asking for it. Even violence and aggressiveness are just ways for some people to exist, to be noticed, to express themselves. If you can find it in you to see beyond that first impression, you will always find that deep down we're all the same and all want the same things. We just have different ways of experiencing and expressing it.


Let's see what tomorrow brings !


mercredi 12 août 2020

New beginning - Meditation

It seems I’m always starting, beginning, and not following through much. But I don’t feel like I’m quitting things, more like they were not important enough to keep my attention longer. Sometimes these beginnings are a whole experience in themselves. The end is already there in the start.
I guess I just have to keep starting things and hope some of them actually turn into something. 

So here is another beginning. 
I will record my daily meditation, and post whatever comes out of it
I will just sit, let go, and see what happens.


This morning, I turned on the voice memo on my phone and sat down. 
I didn't know how long I would sit for, but having settled just when the church bells rang, I planned on sitting at least until I heard the next ones, 30 minutes later. 
I ended up sitting for almost an hour.
I just stayed silent for a long while, and then felt some presences with me (mostly my three dead grand-parents); so I started asking questions, and I actually got answers (It's something I was encouraged to do, to actually try and interact with whatever was coming up during my meditations).
I was repeating out loud the whole process. There was also some insights that came, not in a question-answer form, just phrases or whatever, so I voiced them out loud too. 
It was intense. I cried and let go of heavy things. I smiled and laughed too. I felt supported, overwhelmed, loved, humbled, ...
Mostly what came out of it was that I had to be myself and work on being comfortable with silence around other people and not feel guilty or rude about it. I'm ok with this as I've wanted to be a better listener for a while but always end up commenting on what people say and then talking a lot and getting in my own way.
Then I sat silent a little while and had some more insights but I felt alone again; centered, peaceful. 
I opened my eyes, grabbed my phone to stop the recording, and saw that I had had a missed call. I went to the voice app and realised that the call had stopped the recording, 11 minutes into my meditation. I recorded 11 minutes of silence, and everything that happened after will be kept in the silence of eternity. How fitting.
So then I went to my phone log to see who called, and who could it be but my grandmother? my 4th grandparent, the only one still alive, who called me wondering where I was and what I was up to. So of course I called her right back, because feeling connected to my dead relatives is amazing, but relating to the ones who are still alive is a gift.

So here we are, the first recording of my daily meditation failed in a way that is not a failure at all. 
I knew I wanted to share what came out of my meditation, what I took out of it, what I learned from it. But to do that I didn't necessarily need to share the actual audio file, which would have been very weird and intimate. 
I guess I needed the audio to actually not work, for me to realise that and feel free to share this experience in another way.

Let's see what I'll learn tomorrow!

mardi 11 août 2020

Notebook excerpts

31 Juillet 2020

Si le temps peut être long, peut-il également être large? 

Haut?

Ou Profond?


9 août 

(insomnie pendant laquelle Les Justes de Camus me tiennent compagnie)

" C'est tellement plus facile de mourir de ses contradictions que de les vivre."

Pour l'instant j'arrive à survivre à mes contradictions, mais je n'arrive pas à les vivre, à vivre pleinement. Je sens que dans l'art il y a une issue, mais je ne l'ai pas encore trouvée. Je lis pour survivre. Peut-être un jour arriverai-je à écrire pour vivre?


10 août 
(discovering and listening to Mike Posner and falling in love)

"The reason you chose to do it was to feel what you're feeling right now,

and decide,

to keep going."

Past & future don't exist.

Only never and forever


11 août

Art will make you fall in love

If you let it.

Are you ready

To trust

And let yourself fall?

Let go

Life will catch you

Always.