In today's lesson, I learned lots about the (mostly) universal cause of all problems. The problem is that we cling to the mind movie we've created in our heads, and when things don't go according to our ideal, we get upset. During the day today, my family and a few friends went out for dinner. It was getting late and I had my race the next morning, so I was getting a little impatient. My dad and I arrived a little later than my mom, only to find out she had already ordered food. I had texted her my vegan order, but she left her phone in the car and didn't see my order in time. Instead of being thankful for the thought she put in to getting me a meal that had more vegetables than the others, I was upset that she didn't order my food or decide to go out for dinner earlier. In the end, I realized that the thought she put into my order was more important than being a little hungry the night before a minor race. When I realized the mind movie wasn't as important as the people around me, I was able to let go of my expectations and stop clinging to my ideals.
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The journal topic of the day is reasons for getting derailed from habits. Of the reasons Leo lists, I think Travel is the one that causes my habit plans to change most of the time. Some things I can do to adjust my habits to my travel plans include getting up earlier, and working my habits into my daily routine. For instance, I could get up 5 minutes earlier so I would have time to meditate. Regarding my running habit, I could simply run a short distance in every park I see while exploring a city. The flow mentality starts today.
The two main fears I noticed while I was meditating are that I'm either not good enough at meditation or that I'm doing something wrong. I treated these fears like clouds, noticing them before watching them drift away. In the end, it doesn't really matter whether you are good enough at meditation or whatever your habit may be, or if you are doing it correctly. All that matters is that you are happy. Be grateful for the opportunity to take the leap.
For my meditation today, I focused on seeing the gratitude of the moment. Instead of trying to wish I was finished with my meditation or better at my meditation, I enjoyed the process of relaxing and taking some time to calm down. It was wonderful.
During my habit today, I tried to extend the duration of my habit just a little past the point where it started to feel uncomfortable. My second habit sprint went well. I did my habit all 7 days of the last week. I faced the same obstacle of forgetting to do the 5 tibetans in the morning, but I overcame it by remembering to do them (my trigger) and then my habit at night.
Today, I practiced watching my urges. I noticed that the panicked feeling from a strong urge is very similar if not the same to the nervous energy I was feeling previously. Like a passing cloud, I just watched the urges come up and float away. This method works very well for me, because it doesn't try to hide the urge. It accepts the feeling as it is, embraces it, and then lets it float away like a cloud before acting on it.
Today I watched the story I was playing in my head. It was amazing how many expectations I had of everything in my life that I didn't even notice. Then, I was able to turn towards the reality of the moment and appreciate all the wonderful things in my life as they truly are in this moment.
My minimum viable habit is just laying or sitting down. Today, I practiced “just laying down” and ended up meditating for 5 minutes instead of the usual 1-2. Perhaps it was from lack of sleep, but I felt very relaxed and at ease.
The resistance I had today during my habit was my cell phone ringing. I forgot to silence it and I got a call soon after I started meditating. The resistance felt like anxiety because I knew my habit was just interrupted. However, I was able to find gratitude for the resistance by realizing that the call was one of my closest friends hoping to meet up. Afterwards, I went back to meditating for a little bit, and just focused on being grateful.
Today I felt the nervous energy again. I slept in, and was late getting started. I think because of this, my body had trouble being still since it wanted to get down to breakfast and off to practice. I tried to focus on it and realize it was just a passing feeling. This helped a little bit, but I ended up just cutting my meditation short by a few seconds.
Before I started my habit change, I thought I would start out by meditating ten minutes every day. Instead, Leo guided me to start with only one or two minutes a day. Although this is a lot less than I originally hoped, I am really feeling the effects of starting small and the confidence in my habit that it has given me.
It hasn't gone exactly to plan in the sense that I was hoping to start my day off with my five tibetan rituals followed by reading Zen Habits: Mastering the Art of Change and then meditating, but instead, I usually eat breakfast or even go for my run first. The changes that caused this to happen were mainly staying up late either with friends or watching a movie, and then wanting to sleep in to the very last possible moment before the hotel's breakfast ends, or cross-country practice starts. However, by ensuring that my meditation immediately follows my five tibetan rituals, no matter when in the day I do them, I have been able to start a habit change feedback loop. The changes didn't cause me to feel bad or mess up, however they changed my perspective of the habit change process. In the future, I will adapt more effortlessly by realizing that not everything can always have a trigger, but as long as you keep the triggers for the habit you are trying to change, everything will work out in the end. Today, while I was reading the Art of Change, I actually felt scared to do my meditation habit. I noticed this urge and shined a spotlight on it, and realized how strange it is to feel afraid of laying on my bed for a couple minutes and focusing on my breathing. There is no danger in this, nothing to be possibly lost. After I shined a spotlight on the urge, I realized how childish it was, and moved on with my habit.
During the meditation, I started to feel all this nervous energy coursing through my body trying to get me to do something. At first, I ignored it but the sensation kept coming back. So instead, I focused completely on it, and I imagined myself getting it under control and releasing it. Soon after, I realized the sensation had stopped. Today I focused on watching any urges that arose while meditating. Almost as soon as I lay down, the urge came to get up and do something. I watched it, but I used the nature of meditating to ignore it. I simply laid there and lounged around even more thoroughly than before.
Today I learned about treating habit change like growing a plant instead of forming a sculpture. You can't control the finished product but you can tweak the environment, how much you water it or fertilize it, to affect the outcome.
After some thought, I realized I am meditating to increase my self-control and self-awareness. I work on this because I know it will improve my relationships with others, and allow me to be more thoughtful and considerate about my words and actions. However, no one is perfect, and the goal is not to always be nice but instead to help others simply because it feels good. Like helping others, I enjoy meditation purely for the pleasant sensation. The mind movie: Starting out with my meditation habit, the mind movie would have me believe that meditation will give me complete control over all my emotions and thoughts. In reality, meditation gives you something much greater. Peace
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Noah AdamsNoah is a high-school student who enjoys traveling, meditating, creating new habits and running. Archives |