14 Mar Getting Centered When Things Are Off-Kilter
Last night the wind howled and rain poured. I woke up in the middle of the night listening, feeling a bit hypervigilant. Then realized I couldn’t go back to sleep. My awareness was outside caught by the storm.
I began to meditate, or tried to. My mind wasn’t focusing even as I set up the circumstances. I wasn’t quite there. It made me realize that we can’t meditate on top of something. Do you know what I mean by that? If we’re having a scramble inside us and we try to meditate without dealing with the inner scramble meditation just doesn’t work.
Instead I got back to basics. Noticing my body, my muscles, the physicalness of my body. Bringing my attention to my body allowed me to begin to land in it. I hadn’t been aware that I was almost operating on top of my body, slightly out of it.
As I did that my awareness shifted from outside to inside. Now I was less drawn to the sounds of the storm and more aware of the warmth of my body and the gentle kind breath that moved my chest. In some ways that was so comforting I didn’t want to do anything else.
And then sleep arrived while the storm continued.