Tag: meditation

Prayer: The Hearts Sincere Desire

I’ve been praying again, at least making an honest effort.  I still forget that I’m praying sometimes and let my mind wander but I pull it back as quickly as I can, apologize to my Father in Heaven and push forward.  It seems odd that prayer is so hard for me.  That it was nothing before but “Please, Father, get me through today.” (And He did) But because of my meager efforts I’m no longer extremely anxious about taking the forward steps I need to into the haze of uncertainty because I know He will prepare a path for me even if all I can see it one step at a time.

It’s so hard to describe the sensation of this for me.  I’ve always known there was a higher power (mine is God/Heavenly Father/Elohim) for as long as I can remember.  At one point I wanted to be cloistered away as a nun;  a life of service and reflection apparently appeals to the writers heart.  However, I chose the secular world and now my realities are 1) my job is ending 2) my education to be a phlebotomist is a joke in the industry 3) I’ve not stuck anyone in years and 4)it’s going to pay less (especially a non-union job) than the pittance I’m making now. (I’m not even going to go into the lack of writing, lack of journaling and lack of any creativity in my life right now).  My mind races and then collapses from exhaustion.  I think R.E.M. said it best:

It’s the end of the world as we know it

And I feel fine

I’ve never been able to really make plans for my future because I’ve always had the concept hard wired into my mind “Live now for tomorrow we die”.  So now, I pray about it, when the anxiety, fear and general loathing of change overtakes me and then a calm comes and the gentle words of peace and comfort scatter the emotions like cockroaches in the light and I feel fine.

Though I’m still anxious about a lot of things:

  • Mom’s ultimate destination and getting her ready, getting me ready, fear of walking in on her and finding her when I’m alone
  • Money lasting to the end of the month and not being able to buy stuff with my own money
  • Getting money together for my nephews wedding (This is new one, he’s going on a cruise and we’re all invited)
  • Job ending
  • Job searching
  • Being trapped forever with Mom
  • Never getting my eating under control and never being able to eat Golden Mega Stuff Oreos again
  • Dying before I have a chance to live
  • Being around people
  • Dealing with my family and the anger it stirs up in me and the fear of not being able to control it around them

That’s just off the top of my head, the things that I can pick out when it’s spinning.  Though I know everything in my heart will be okay, the chemicals in my brain still won’t settle down and leave me in peace.  I’m hoping to replace my emergency anti-anxiety pills and the half one I take every day, with meditation and prayer.  It is my sincerest desire to be trusting and rest in the Lords embrace and know everything will be okay.  Though my heart is starting to trust my head is still overly paranoid and distrusting of everyone and everything, both physical and spiritual.  It’s not the end of the world, just a change, and I will be fine.  Prayer needs to be my bridge from this life to the next, I can feel that in my heart to be true and I need to be more persistent in following the whispers of hope and orient myself to the feeling of warmth and comfort the Spirit provides when I follow my heart.

Little Miss Cranky Pants

Mom is happily watching her 49ers play while I’m tucked inside the “cooling room”, the only room in the house where I can  bring the temperature down to a livable level for me…like in the mid 60s.  With headphones and a stockpile of cookies you’d think I’d be a happy camper, but no.  I’m irritated, my eyes want to pull down the lids and block out the world.  I’ve only taken my puppy upper pills this morning but that’s about it.  I need to change that so I don’t miss them any more.  I can be such an idiot sometimes.  I know better, I’ve seen the difference in myself between medicated and non medicated, the world knows the difference when I’m medicated or not medicated.  And yet I let these slips happen.  I’m such an idiot.

I want to just hide away in my room, in my bed where it’s safe.  And I would too, if my mother could take care of herself in the least.  She likes having a lady-in-waiting.  It fulfills her imagined royal imagining that she is of royal blood, the she was ripped from the courts of the refined and noble world and put into the mire with the rest of us peasants.  I’m not kidding.  It’s put more sarcastically than I probably should state, but since I discovered that we really are related to the Plantagenet kings of England it has amplified her delusions of royalty.  I haven’t researched the bloodline but I’m sure we’re there by way of a Fitz-Something*.

Okay, I know, cranky.  If I had the patience I’d try to write this out in my journal, or if I had the energy I’d try to get some work done or my beads put together.  I’ve decided that when I can sit and do 100 Om Mani Padme Hum’s in one sitting with beads interspersed for deep breaths then I will have the discipline to move into a more focused, or Zen like mediation.  That is a worthy thing to do, especially for the Sabbath, but F it, I think I’ll take a nap instead.

Om. Om. O My!

I started meditation. But not guided meditation like before. The woman’s once soothing dulcet tones were starting to annoy me. So I decided to go the more Old School traditional. So I chant…….

Om Mani Padme Hum

Yes it feels silly some times but trying to remember the sounds takes a lot of my mental concentration. Each syllable has a meaning. For example Om means generosity or hum means wisdom. I say this to myself when I need to take a pause or when I have a pause and instead of doing I chant. I can’t say that it’s miraculously cured me, dang it, but I felt the hum of wisdom this morning while I was stuck in traffic already irritatingly late to work.

I guess what it basically boils down to is I’m scared. I’m scared that I won’t be able to handle the extra load of taking classes, that I’ll drive off the twisty-windy road and plummet to my death because my eye lids were too heavy to keep open during the coming and going to class. More likely than not it will prove too much for me and I’ll have to withdraw from class and take an F or incomplete and have to start all over again. Wisdom stepped in and calmed my mind and simply said:

“Not trying is guaranteed failure. Trying and failing is practice for the time you try and achieve.”

So I’m now trying to decide which is better. Going to a semester long class close to the ocean or two quarter classes close to home. I guess I need to keep Om Mani Padme Hum spinning along with my brain until something flys out at me.

What do you think I should do?

Wanting Vs. Doing Vs. Needing

I want……….

  • to go back to school to spiff up my phlebotomy credentials (long story)
  • to write at night and on weekends
  • to have a clean and neat room, with my bed made and laundry done
  • to go on hikes on weekends and maybe learn to Glamp from time to time
  • to make jewelry for gifts and for myself….maybe even to sell
  •  to keep working a full time job so I can have a full time pay

Vs.

I’m doing……….

  • 8hrs a day on a less than taxing job but still need to take a nap in my car
  • I’m registering for school but will have to do it in person instead of online, terrified I’ll sleep through it or fail
  • I clean my room by turning off the light and turning on the TV
  • I get out of bed late on weekends and then require a few naps to get through the day
  • The thought of pulling out and putting away all my jewelry making stuff is exhausting in itself
  • Honestly, I don’t know how I’ve been able to keep a full time job.

Okay, I’m tired right now. I really have no reason to be, other than I stayed up too late last night. But when I’m in these moods I wonder if I will ever be able to have a normal life, if I’ve ever had a normal life. My Mom is insistent that I just need to “push through” and “fight back” and basically “get over it” and I will be fine. Sometimes I think she’s right, very rarely, and I try and spin myself back out of control. I think I need a routine…a “doing” and slowly build from there. I keep changing this idea of what my day should look like beyond going to work, going home, going to bed, getting up and going to work, going home, going to bed.

Right now I’m thinking that Mediation is the direction I should be going in. Of course I can’t do that until I have a space cleaned in my room, which means I need to work in my room, which means I need to do my laundry and find a meditation pillow and make hand knotted-silk strung beads and a tassel for meditation……See how the wanting and the doing are always dancing?

I need to……….

  • JUST meditate

    • I don’t need a clean room to do it
    • I don’t need my laundry clean to do it
    • I don’t need a special pillow to do it
    • I don’t need specially strung beads to do it (yet, I want them because it means shopping and creating)

The only thing I need to do is make time. Or in my case take time.  And take comfort in the hope that the needful will allow for the mental space for doing the wanting.

Closed for Business

Okay, so I’ve been hunkered down getting my New Years Resolutions together for the new year. This is one thing OCD is good for…organizing thoughts on paper and then trying to achieve the different tasks that are assigned each year. I will do a post later where I outline my mental/emotional goals. The overriding goal for the year is to be HEALTHY. I want to pull myself out of myself and try to re-engage in life and to no longer be a afraid of it. It will take some time, and I’m aware of this. I think with all the internal deconstruction I’ve done to turn myself inside out to be among the world would be like exposing a third degree burn to the sun on the hottest day in July. Much, much too painful. But I’m taking baby steps.

I’ve discovered if I make my bed in the morning I won’t crawl back into it at the first chance. I learned yesterday that it needs to be done while the bed is still warm otherwise I snuggle back into it. If I can find comfort outside of my bed to make me feel safe then I will become stronger. I’m not saying their won’t be bad days ever again where the only place I’m safe is my bed, but I’m saying in general, until the sky starts to fall again, my bed is closed  for business. Mom, of course, is thrilled I’m following her example (well, her helper person makes her bed). To her doing things like that means that I’m all better, not still in the process.

The other step I’m taking is trying to get my room organized and to keep it organized. For example, I want to turn part of my room into a yoga/Meditation space. But that is the space that I normally drop my clothes when I change out of my work attire. So, I’m training myself to change on the other side of the bed, tear down the pillows and fold back the comforter before I walk around and turn off the light. If I choose to leave my clothes on the floor, I can, or if I choose to put them in the sorting hamper, it’s totally up to me, but I will have my meditation/yoga/Zumba space if it kills me.

As for the near future, I am going to try and participate in Lent again. I didn’t do it last year because it’s not something I regularly do. So this year, instead of giving up anything I’m adding meditation and showering to my schedule. I know, showering is a strange thing to put down, but I’ve not been showering as much as I should and I want to fix it. So maybe if I do it every day for six week is something might stick….instead of stink.