Tuesday: Body
Looking
back, after doing mindfulness meditation, I realize that my body experience was
informative, but no necessarily in the way intended. As a warm-up I think it
was still effective though. I was very aware of the way everything touched, and
I tried to make texture my primary information source outside of the
ever-dominating sight. For some reason I interpreted “body” as “skin, muscle
and bone.” I did not take notice of my other senses the way I focused on touch.
The lined fake leather of my steering wheel, the difference in temperature
between fingers when holding an iced drink – I noticed I grind my teeth
sometimes for comfort. The pressure feels good. I was much more touchy with my
environment as well, allowing my forearms to rest on pieces of gym equipment at
work, touching my clients a bit more often than usual, pushing my leg up
against a tree to feel bark against my skin. Overall I became more aware of my
environment and more free in pursuing a tactile experience, but I did not
notice myself noticing these things, I just noticed them. I’m excited to
isolate other senses besides sight in the days to come. I suspect that paying
attention to the senses in isolation will add up to paying attention to the
whole body. I meditated for the first time in over a decade on Tuesday night
and it created about 3hrs of profound experience, directly applicable to the
class I think.
Wednesday: Breath
Wednesday
was a study day and I only left my apartment to go to class. Sitting at my desk
for most of the day, I periodically would notice my breathing, forget about it,
and notice it again. It reminded me of trying to maintain good posture while
typing. The mindfulness youtube video that I have become enamored with also
mentioned breath, but was unique in that it put breath on an even plane with
the other senses regarding isolation and awareness. Even sight was addressed in
this particular video. I think I had my first “notice what I’m noticing” moment
when I switched from my breath to my hearing. I am naturally attuned to hear
music and investigate what I like when I’m watching tv or a movie, in a grocery
store or mall, anywhere really. It’s how I find new music. Shazaam. Because I
do this already, when I tuned into my hearing, I noticed that I was doing it,
and a light came on. I felt like my meditative experience from the night before
and my daily experience found something in common with each other. I also noticed that I primarily breath through my nose. I intend to make note that this is not something other people can hear, because I've always found that gross when others do it.
Thursday: Emotions
Noticing
my emotions on Thursday was very difficult. Rather than the mindful experience
I have had lately that seems to prod me to continually step back from my
thoughts and emotions, the best I was able to accomplish were various
realizations that my emotions were dominating my experience. In some cases,
they even briefly controlled my behavior. Someone that works for me let me down
in a professional experiment at work. I found out about this just after being
informed that my work day was going to end at 6pm, rather than the 2pm I had
been anticipating. I was managing the
negativity of the unexpected long day fairly well, but when I got the text
informing me that my employee had screwed up, and was unwilling to own up to it
on top of that, things did not go well. When I called her, I managed to pull of
a quick disclaimer before asking some very pointed questions about her
preparation and performance. After we
got off the phone I called her back and apologized for being so upset and laid
out a few very specific steps we are going to take together in order to help
her performance. I did realize in the moment that predictions I was making
about her intent and motivation were based completely on conjecture. I learned
a lot monitoring my emotions but it was through a crisis experience.
Friday: Thoughts
When
I read this exercise, I assumed that stepping back from thoughts would be
easier than stepping back from emotions. Emotions seem so much more powerful,
and I think that is why they are actually easier to observe. Thoughts are so
frequent and so often happen without any real consequence that it’s pretty hard
to notice them unless you are meditating. I did have a helpful combination of
emotional and thought awareness that led to a good decision. I was booked on
a comedy show that no one showed up to. By
no one I mean two audience members showed up. Six comedians were present, a
host and five performers. Without getting into the hows and whys, I realized that
the booker was not going to make sure the comedians weren’t gong to hold the
two audience members hostage for a show that was going to go on way too long.
The show started at 8pm, and by 9pm only 2 comedians had performed. Any hope I
had of getting anything productive out of the experience was gone. There was no
energy left in the room and the host came back on stage to masturbate in front
of the two audience members, completely disrespecting their politeness in
hanging out while comics interviewed them and made inside jokes. I noticed my
thoughts first, as I was imagining telling the booker to get control of the show
and shorten it significantly. This was a non-functional idea, and then I noticed
it was coming from an emotion of anger and disappointment. I sat back from the
emotions and thoughts and calmly informed the booker and a few of the comics
that I had to leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment