One of the things I’ve been doing in the last couple weeks—since that conversation I told you about—is a kind of meditation.  I do it when I feel my peace getting wobbly.

The whole thing came about because of an image I got in my head.  It was an image of me being spread out over too much space.  Like the parts of me worrying about things in the past and the parts of me thinking or scheming about my future and the parts of me trying to keep track of laundry or groceries, say, or whether or not Elijah will stay asleep long enough for me to finish a task—in other words, the present stuff, too—all those parts of me are spread around.  That’s a truckload of space!  I picture taking up a broom and going around collecting all of it.  I picture sweeping it all into here, right now, into this very skin I’m wanting to inhabit.

Once I’ve done that, then I try to be more mindful of what it feels like to be in this moment, with all of myself here.  I start to listen; what are the sounds in the space around me?  Even a quiet room has some.  I try to feel what the chair or ground or bed feels like beneath me, what the air feels like on my face.  I even take note of my itches (have I told you the mites are back???).  The great thing is I can do all of this anywhere—even walking down the street.

Something is so peace-inducing about this process for me.  I imagine it’s like a parent feels when the teenager out doing who knows what is finally back in the house, safe in their room.  The parts of my psyche given to worrying about past or present or future get to relax, knowing that all of me is here right now; their work is unnecessary for the time being. 

It makes me feel calm, and, quite literally, collected.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 9:41 am and is filed under Psychology, Mindfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.