Meditation Journey Week Two

04.03.19

I began a few weeks ago with candle meditation, yet didn't do it last week or write about it. So buying a fresh candle for a fresh week I will do it tonight and break it down.

I didnt get back up to University until late evening, so after runnnig a few errands was ready for my first mediation of the day. I COULDN'T WAIT TO GET BACK TO TWO A DAY

1. Candle meditation.

I use different candle colour meanings, which I will break

down in a future post, and basically watch it burn for 13

minutes. This is one type of seed meditation, meaning you

meditate with one idea which is physical; a candle, photo,

object (anything that doesn't drastically change or move in

front of our eyes inn that duration). This gives the conscious

a focus and a point to return to if and when the mind

wanders.

2. My guided meditation i did just before bed. Today my thoughts were all rushing in, and i was a lot more distracted. I found myself remembering old memories and ideas and arguing with myself about why I was doing what I was. I kept going back to the letting them go like the clouds in a sky analogy but found it very difficult. When allowed to let the mind run free it was just as sporadic between happier and sadder thoughts, and at the end of the session I left with these ideas more forward than feeling resolved. I think this was the less relaxed and first time leaving not as calm experience, but is showing me that healing is occurring. The symbolic messages at the end were of emotions and how it is ok to not be as sure or have days. Its a strange feeling as it is like waking up from a dream and the ideas and words given throughout the session are lost quickly (I am writing this straight after and already forgotten the symbolic messages). Bits that flooded my brain come back in 30-60 mins after the meditation as little reminders of the jobs that distracted me during meditation.

05/03/19

I followed the guided mediation before bed and found myself focusing more on the sensations of breath. I tried to feel how it affects my neck (being an area of most tension and also being disconnected from the rest of my body especially in dance) and how it expands with an inhale. I had moments where I could feel a rush of energy go up from my upper spine and into the top of my neck where it meets the skull. This wasn't consistent but began to give me sensations and ideas to focus on when moving.

I am finding the transitions from paying attention to the sounds of the room to then the weight of the body with what it is in contact with to happen quicker and smoother.

When allowing my mind to wander, I thought of jobs I had to do and then left the idea knowing I would write it down afterwards. The weirdest thing to cross my mind was ancient Egyptians (I have no idea why). It was a calm cloud passing. I think when I am more stressed about a topic I leave feeling calmer (in general) whereas I feel at the moment I have been more calm throughout the day and feeling it less dramatically after an evening meditation. Good things I guess.

06/03/19

My candle meditation I did once the first flat mate to move back to Ireland left- around 4pm. The most exciting bit was right now I can pick my colour candle depending on the mood or what I want to meditate on.

I choose pink- love, friendship and self-love.

I found it harder to just focus on the candle today so then tried repeating mantas while doing so, a mantra being a phrase or ideology to focus on. These were around self love and self worth, and i repeated each one until i felt secure or distracted onto another insecurity- where i then worked on that one.

App meditation

I am on a new course on my meditation app now, increasing to 15 minutes intervals on appreciation. It is definitely from the post-classical yoga period which is all about focusing on the present moment and giving away fear from the future or living in the past. Again I found the introduction and 'life coaching' at the beginning to settle my mind into the task I was to undergo. The added time of being 'in the breath' didnt feel extendd to the 10 minute daily sessions I was doing.

I am noticing that by gradually increasing you have more of a chance of sticking 1. to the plans and 2. be more engaged in the session and build up tolerance and skill.

07/03/19

My candle was going crazy today. I picked yellow and all about creativity. But when I say crazy I mean like the flame was bigger than I have ever seen, it was moving for fast and uncontrollably and then every few seconds was juts of black smoke as it rose and then went back to its high natural burning before repeating the cycle. The creativity was insane and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to work it out. I'd ask questions and see if it would roar more or calm down.

Though my mind was VERY distracted today- towards the end of my session, when i focused with Mantras again, I found a burst of life. Suddenly my dissertation was in my head and a structure came out, and links of choreography made sense. I knew to stay with it and not break to write it down trusting my mind would recall everything.

It did.

I think looking at a yellow candle, thinking and believing in my creativity and being calm will do me wonders throughout my life. Plus i think its such a pretty and cute colour candle right now and is my favourite smelling one too.

Meditation App

I began today by listening to an except about 'worry'. It spoke about how worry and anxiety are natural human emotions and vital in some cases but about the importance of knowing its time and place. It made me automatically think back to when I was a teenager having my own 'rituals' to 'deal' with my anxiety which ended up taking over my life. A simple breathing excersise in a new area of the house which would become my 'safe space' could have helped overcome this process sooner and with more ease and less 'damage'. Hindsight is a beautiful thing but we are too often clouded in the haze of the moment. THIS IS WHY AN OUTSIDE EYE CAN BE IMPORTANT. It made me think more about the essential balance of emotions and how we can help them.

On session two of the appreciation course, it spoke more on, well to be honest when writing this I don't remember. I was distracted and felt my mind wander from all sorts of things. Its like the issues I had allowed to flow through in the candle meditation were having their try again. It took longer to notice I had zoned out than many other times and was the most frustrating of these sessions, especially as today the candle ended up working in the end.

08/03/19

I am really starting to get into the swing of my meditations in the evening.

I began with the meditation app. See I'm still on a trial so now I get one session from each course, today about judgment. How we can only meet people to the level that they have met themselves, being something I PREACH and live by.

When focusing on the breath, I found myself being able to control where it went in my body. For instance I could make it run up my back and feel how it would assist a contraction, and then worked the opposite by running through my front to a high release. It worked in many directions. Then the man on the app reminded me to not be thinking and just feel the natural breath- and so i did. Though I wasn't in a meditative state in those moments I found the control I am developing priceless in my life and especially in my dance practice. Now i need to try it out in a studio, exercises and then finally sequences.

After the opening messages, the meditation routine continues as normal. This ritual allows the body to ease and get used to how to react and create new habits. I mean you don't think about the opening message throughout, you can, but it depends on where you mind is taking you then. Today it was distracted with a few jobs but nothing I couldn't get out of.

09/03/19

Again I began my meditation at night, and to start with it was my meditation app. Today's was about beginning the unlocking of our creativity and using visualization as a tool.

For me I found having the colour candle that I spoke of the other day -yellow- worked better for me than focusing on breath and body. As I was meidtating in the normal routine my brain wasn't pushed to any more creative avenues than other times yet I felt the pressure to be creative then and to also push everything out of my mind.

What really worked for me, and when I say work I mean I was awful at, was visualsation. We had to imagine in the centre of our chest a light. This light is our creativity. All of a sudden I was smiling, I felt my purpose my flame inside of me is still burning. It told me 'you are alive, you are here, there is light and beauty within you and this can be seen even in the darkness- it is seen more in darkness'.

Taking this light we had to visualise it spreading outwards: first inside our body and then out of our body and across the country to then out in the universe. I could manage it inside me and spreading almost to the edge of my limbs, yet felt this energy being lost the further my light traveled. This could represent me right now saying that I am comfortable in me but not pushing my light out enough, though it easily can, feeling a 'stuck'. At the end of this technique, the app stated that this is something that needs to be practices and can be done separately from the meditation routine. By taking just 30 seconds to a minute you can work on how we see things in our minds eye. What we see we create. If i can start imagining my creativity spreading then I can spread, I can burn brighter. I can put this into other areas of my life. I can shape my reality.

10/03/19