📿 Avoiding Meditation Practice?

Me too this week. There might be a really good reason. Here's mine. Also: Tonglen

Composition, jouets et branche fleurie (1906) Prosper Alphonse Isaac

QUICK NOTE: We’d love to have you at our annual weekend meditation retreat in the Hudson Valley of New York this year if you’re looking to deepen your practice or recommit in a meaningful way. There will be talks, community discussion, optional yoga, and really good food (important). If you’ve never been on a meditation retreat, this is a great place to start. Gentle connection and summer vibes. August 8-10 🌺

Hello you, Adreanna here with this week’s dispatch of The Laundry —

I’ve been practicing meditation for long enough now to spot my own patterns of resistance. It goes a little like this. I find myself “too busy” to sit down on my meditation cushion for two, three, four days in a row and my busyness is easily justified. I have a toddler to care for and work to do and I have to fold the (literal) laundry and make a grocery list, and all of these things are legitimately important.

I know at this point in my meditation practice that my resistance is reaching a fever pitch when I begin to relate to my surroundings through the lens of what I need to DO with what I see. I look at our dog Winnie, and what I see is the vet appointment that I need to make for his summer allergies. I look at the couch in my office and what I see are the loose upholstery threads that I need to shave off. I walk into my daughters nursery and what I see are the baby things that need to be donated. I see the the messy stack of crib sheets that need to be folded, the stack of books that need to be sorted, the humidifier that needs to be packed for the season. I begin to relate to my surroundings as a series of tasks that need to get checked off my list. Does this sound like an exhausting mindset? Because let me tell you, it is! Welcome to my mind when I’m avoiding meditation practice. My life becomes task oriented and my energy is BUSY.

It’s not lost on me that when I’m avoiding meditation practice, what I’m actually avoiding is myself. Because that’s what meditation is, isn’t it? What we call “formal sitting practice” is really a designated period of stillness where I practice settling into myself. Here I encounter a heightened awareness of what I’m feeling and thinking. I drop into the unfolding of the moment at hand. I stop participating in action for long enough to see what’s swirling around in my mind, and let the whole ass narrative settle so that I can see what is. It’s a lens shift, so that when I look at our dog, I see our dog, rather than my story about his allergies, and the action that I need to take. All the forward moving mental rush and blah blah blah subsides. It’s just me experiencing Winnie, experiencing me, experiencing him. Connection. No filter. Fresh in the present moment.

I swear this is actually intensely beautiful and a profound source of joy once we get the hang of it; both the practice of meditation and the ability to see what’s in front of us without all of the conceptual clutter. It’s refreshing. Clarifying. Practicing simply being and experiencing.

Which leads to the ultimate question — why would I ever AVOID it?