Where Is My Mind?
So now that I have a blog, I've been racking my brain on what to write about on a weekly basis. A weekly post is the goal I set for myself. In hindsight, that may have been a little lofty. In my daily brainstorming sessions something occurred to me. My brain feels like a pin ball machine. I have so many ideas bouncing around all the time it's hard to stay focused on one thing. It's mentally exhausting sometimes. In all fairness, I've made a lot of goals recently, so I've got a lot on my mind. But the truth is I've been feeling like my brain has no off switch for a while now.
I'm not diagnosing myself with anything here. I'm calling it a creative/stressed brain. It's gotten me in trouble a few times too. For instance, the other day I was getting my son ready for school and had my to do list running through my head and he had a million weird 5 year old boy questions. When we got in the car I was thinking "did I grab my phone" and "oh, it's nice out, I should take him to the park after school" "he doesn't get enough exercise" "what time do I pick him up again" and then WHAM-SCREEECH! I hadn't let the garage door go all the way up before I started backing out. As you probably guessed, my snitch of a son totally ratted me out at dinner that night. Now I have a visual reminder that I need to slow down and focus. Full disclosure, this was the second time I did that. The first time I only took out the antenna.
I decided that it might be helpful to give myself a little daily mental break if you will. Meditation is supposed to be helpful. I read online that an easy way to introduce meditation was to do it while you brush your teeth. I figured that would give me a chance twice a day for 2 minutes to clear my mind and focus.
This was going to be a challenge for me because the usual routine when I brush my teeth is to flit from room to room picking up toys or rifling through a laundry basket looking for pairs of socks. Basically, not standing still.
Day 1. Ok, here I go. Meditate Jamie. How do I meditate? Should I think of what I want to achieve for the the day? Hmmm. Peace, I want to have a peaceful day. One goal, I want to accomplish one goal. Oh, man, maybe I need a new eye make up remover, look at those raccoon eyes. Ahhh! STOP. This is not meditating. When I'm done brushing I'll google it.
Day 2. We are going to skip day 2. Stomach flu. Enough said.
Day 3. Ok, I googled it and I must clear my mind. Focus on the feel, taste, sound of brushing, etc... Wow, my electric toothbrush sounds like a lawn mower. I miss summer. Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style. Darn you Taylor Swift and your catchy pop tunes! Back to the minty paste and good vibrations.
Day 4. I'm still standing in one spot. That's good. Focusing better. I'll write that in the blog. What else can I say in the blog? Ahhh, come back to focus. This is hard. I need to clean the mirror.
Day 5. Here we go, last day. Paste, vibration, teeth, 30 seconds uppler left, 30 seconds upper right, 30 seconds lower left, 30 seconds lower right, annnnd spit. Wow, I did it, sort of.
I'm not even giving you the full spectrum of what I think about in a 2 minute span of time. This is just a little taste. I don't want to totally freak you out.
5 days of attempted meditation and what did I learn? I do not particularly like meditating. I really prefer the running around while I'm brushing routine. I'm like a shark, I like to be on the move. I do the same thing when I'm talking on the phone. I do realize that my mind does need a break from time to time and meditation is probably a great idea. For now, I'm going to stick to watching movies and reality TV at night to give me the mental break I need. As for the rest of the day, I'll just deal and go with the flow. I don't however get in to the car anymore until the garage door is all the way up.
“With your feet in the air and your head on the ground, thoughts arrive like butterflies. Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales. You’re a daydreamer, oh, and it’s the same thing over and over.”
