Meditation

How do I slow things down?

As I am sure most of you know, my life is very busy, almost too busy most of the time. I run my business and it absorbs 75-85% of my waking hours. However, I have been desperately trying to slow my days down. 

I live for the weekends

I really do love my job, but I also really crave my down time with my family. I noticed recently that my weeks were flying by and so too were my weekends. I could not figure out how to slow my weekends down, and it was really frustrating me. Just this past week, my Thursday actually felt SLOW! I felt like every hour was going at the pace that an hour is supposed to go. And I think I figured out why.

I started to meditate over a year ago

When I began to have anxiety 6 years ago, I was told that I should try meditation. I tried and failed multiple times. Mostly because what was presented to me was that I should try to clear my head of all thoughts…ummm impossible, so, I kept starting and giving up. Then, I found Headspace. It is one of many meditation apps out there. I have many patients who use Calm. Either way, guided meditation is where it is at for me. 

What is meditation?

The definition of meditation is an activity in which you spend a period of time trying to focus your thoughts on one thing. Sometimes it is breathing. Sometimes is it the sounds around you. Sometimes it is how your body is feeling at that moment. Your mind is going to wander during this time. That is completely normal. However, the skill is in bringing your brain back to what you were focusing on in the beginning. The purpose isn’t to clear your mind. It is to learn how to focus on whatever you choose to focus on at that moment. 

Why do we feel so scattered?

At the end of the week, we feel exhausted and scattered because we had so many things going on in our brain that we couldn't focus on one at a time. Think of how good you feel when you have accomplished something like a big project or task that you set your mind to. Well, the reason you feel so good is because you stayed focused the entire time on that one thing.  Your mind isn’t wiped out by all the jumping around that it typically does. 

What happened on Thursday when things went slow?

I was solely focused on what was happening in each session with each patient, and I wasn’t thinking about the weekend, or what I would do when I got home, or anything else that would keep my mind totally unfocused. It was something that in the past would have had me saying, "Why is my day going SO SLOW? I just want it to be the weekend.” However, this time I celebrated it! The day was going slow, and I didn’t feel like I got to the end of it and was wiped out! 

How did I get here?

I meditate every morning for 15 minutes with my app. It is a guided meditation. It is only recently that I have been working to implement the tools that I am learning during meditation to utilize during the day.  During the day, multiple times a day, I take note of how I am feeling, what is happening around me, how I am breathing, and my thoughts in that moment.  he more that I check in with myself during the day, the slower the day goes and the more relaxed I tend to feel. 

Time will tell

I have been meditating for a long time, and it is only recently that I have been able to experience this slowing down of time. Only time will tell if I am able to continue to do this regularly so that my days feel long and full. On the weekends, this is actually harder for me to do because my days are much busier (believe it or not) than my scheduled workday. However, I worked at it this weekend and it didn’t feel like the weekend flew by at breakneck speed. Either way, I will keep you posted.