Near the end of my nasty downward spiral with methamphetamine abuse, a few months before I officially got clean, I picked up a prescription for Adderol.  I was at the mercy of my dealer, and several conflicts between us made acquisition of my weekly supply difficult. That homestretch before getting truly sober was very hazy. I did not want to feel the way I felt, so there was recognition of my tragic state, but I was so highly dependent upon the drug, and I was desperately seeking to replicate the euphoric feeling from the early days. Which, I now know,…

Like many people, I walked into my first 12 Step meeting never expecting to wind up there, with no clue what to expect other than what Hollywood had taught me (which I soon learned was nothing accurate). The meetings I first started attending were for friends and family members of sex addicts, and they were tiny, just four or five women sitting in a circle in a church meeting room. After lengthy, scripted readings (those fifteen to twenty minutes certainly never make it into the movies), there would be time for “sharing.”

Because our group was small, sharing was less structured…

Today, I ran into a situation that would have caused me enormous frustration in the past. I’d finished my work around the house, I’d eaten my lunch, I’d even written a blog post about how I couldn’t write a blog post and I was left with a stray five minutes before my daughter was due home from school. Five minutes. Ugh! I can’t get anything done in five minutes.

Oh, sure. I know there are efficiency experts out there who will say there’s plenty that can be accomplished in five minutes. Make a phone call! Dash off an e-mail! Chop some vegetables…

There’s a picture of me somewhere, when my son was a few months old, sitting at the computer and uploading pictures of him to share. I got lots of advice to sleep when the baby slept. I was told by plenty of people that those early sleepless days of parenthood are temporary, that things settle down eventually and I would sleep again. When that shift happened, I would have time for those things I ought to put off in favor of sleep now. That all made sense to me, yet I look at that picture and think about how isolated…

Meditation has been a great help to me in recent years, helping me calm and center myself. For the last several months, I have been sitting with a group once a week and meditating for forty-five minutes. I have been meditating regularly for shorter periods of time, but I still find that stretch of forty-five minutes to be incredibly difficult. And I’ve been noticing a pattern lately:

When I first sit down, my mind is tumbling forward and my body is tense, as if I’ve been moving fast but inertia prevented me from noticing or feeling the movement until the brakes…

I can remember when I would go to the Dentist just to try and get pain pills.  Now, if you have a mouth like mine, that’s a pretty easy task.  I have spent literally tens of thousands of dollars on my mouth during the course of my lifetime.  I was born with teeth that are prone to any and every kind of problem possible.  I can’t even remember the number of fillings I have AND the numbers of fillings I have had to have replaced. My mouth is so bad that I even had fillings in my baby teeth, for…

I was recently reading a book on Buddhism and the Twelve Steps that describes a meditation exercise in which you label your thoughts: “desire,” “aversion,” “thinking.” The author mentioned one woman who was surprised at how much of her thinking centered on desire: I want, I want, I want… Thinking about thinking? That’s hot. Of course, I wanted to try it. Oo, right away, “desire!” But as my day progressed, I noticed: 1) that the exercise was really hard and 2) I spend most of my time planning for the future, specifically what I want to say in the future.…

from today@dailyom.com

March 3, 2009

Taming Monkey Mind In Meditation

It’s been called the monkey mind – the endless chattering in your head as you jump in your mind from thought to thought while you daydream, analyze your relationships, or worry over the future. Eventually, you start to feel like your thoughts are spinning in circles and you’re left totally confused.

One way to tame this wild creature in your head is through meditation – although the paradox is that when you clear your mind for meditation you actually invite the monkey in your mind to play. This is when you are given the…

My husband came with me to meet my guru for a session yesterday. He’s never practiced meditation before, so it was an initiation for him.

It was kind of exciting for me, too. Meditation has become a special, sweet part of my life, and I’m glad that he’s interesting in pursuing a practice of his own. I also believe that it will only have positive effects for his recovery, and I’m grateful.

The last week or so, we have both begun to treat one another with respect again. I am not sure how it happened, exactly. I do know that I was…

A few nights ago, I was surfing around the ol’ internetz, looking for some guided meditations. I’ve been struggling with both depression and boredom lately, and I thought I might find some visualization and relaxation exercises that I could use to help get me to a better place.

I did find some meditation podcasts that were pretty good, but the most intriguing thing I found was this video of a young, pointy-haired, British man tapping himself in the face. I have to admit that my love for Brit accents sucked me in more than anything, and then there was the what-the-heck…

As I continue to grow in my recovery, I am finding that lots of people who I seek to advise me have lots of opinions about what I should do with my mornings and nights. Last night, my husband was waiting for me to go to bed as I went through my long, laborious ritual of self-care and God-seeking, and he finally had a mini-mantantrum to get my attention after an hour had passed.

When I began meditating with my guru, he started me out with 10 minute meditations in the morning and evening. I’ve now moved up to 20 minute…

It was just three days of my life. Day two was definitely the most difficult. The fruit cleanse had one day remaining, and I didn’t feel so hot. I had a cup of coffee on day one to stave off a headache, but day two I went without. I was a bit head-achy and lethargic most of the day. I took two naps to deal with both, but by evening I was still head-achy, fatigued, and a bit nauseous. I ate some miso soup for dinner, which was allowed, and poof, I felt better. Must have been the salt…

Day three…

She asked us, “What if you said YES to everything? What if, instead of taking yourself out by saying, ‘I can’t,’ you kept yourself connected by saying, ‘I can, or at least I’ll try?’” We were in the midst of a very difficult balancing pose at the time. Our forever hopeful, helpful, and happy yoga instructor was coolly pacing about the room of sixty sweaty, breathy bodies. She was encouraging, cajoling, and inquiring as she passed. “What if you said yes to everything?” And I thought, “Hmmmm…what if?”

What if I said yes to everything? What would happen? Or as our…

I got to sleep in this morning! Whew… After weeks of 4:25 AM, getting up 4 hours later feels luxurious!

It’s been a few days since I’ve written here. I apologize for that. I’ve been busy, uh…meditating! Well, not really, for I still suck at meditation. I made it 10 minutes yesterday, but that was the first time I actually attempted meditating this week! Do any of you meditate? If so, I’d love to hear how you got started or what works for you.

I’m supposed to be doing this twice a day, ten minutes each time. It’s a requirement of this…

Up, down, in, out…breathe, breathe!
Dogs and cobras and swans.
Dead bugs, pigeons and camels.
Thunderbolts and warriors

Sun salutes and prayer twists. Prayer twist–that one comes with the instruction, “Ring out your guts. Twist from the base of your spine all the way up. Squeeze every internal organ you’ve got.” Geez, I thought yoga was supposed to be kind and gentle! I was mistaken.

It’s day nine of my 40 Days of Yoga Personal Revolution class. Not only am I learning all kinds of interesting lingo, I’m sore as hell! Well, okay, maybe only sore as heck. It’s likely half of my soreness is…

It’s day two of my personal revolution. We’re talking yoga, journaling, food diary, meditation, water, and more yoga! For some reason, I decided it would be a grand idea to sign up for this intensive course, which is being offered through The Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center–the health club associated with my employer. Just for chuckles, following is the opportunity which I just couldn’t pass up!

**Yoga from 5:10-6:10 AM every Monday through Friday and 7:00 AM on Saturdays.
**Studying the book, “40 Days to a Personal Revolution.”
**Completing the very personal journaling assignments in the book and as instructed.
**Meditating for at least…

I’ve been feeling really calm, serene, balanced and happy lately. And I’m back to eating healthy meals. Weird. Because a little while back I was feeling pretty darn frustrated and stressed out. I was scheming about how I might control my world to make myself comfortable and I was (sugar being my drug of choice) drinking Coke for breakfast (no, I really do) and eating M&M’s by the handful.

So, did the world suddenly conform to the beautiful pattern I’d set for it? Hm, no. My son is sick. The one present my daughter really wanted for Christmas (ordered several weeks…

It’s that time of year when it seems more difficult to hold onto serenity in a busy stressful world. It’s easy to lose track of things because there is so much that is overwhelming. Even choices in the grocery store are enough to baffle me. And if I have to go to someplace like Wal-Mart, I can’t wait to get out because there is just so much “stuff”.

What I decided this past year is that I’m not going to make lists of what needs to be done. I used to make a list of what I wanted to accomplishment in…

I saw my husband earlier this week, and the brief contact with him seemed somehow to invigorate me. It was a good visit, and I’m glad he dropped by.

I am concerned for my sanity, though, in that seeing him had such a profound affect on my mood for days. I’m feeling much better about life because of a few minutes of contact with him. I don’t want something outside of myself and my own control to have such a profound impact on my ability to function. I’m glad to be feeling more back to myself, but I’m concerned about the way…

A while back, I wrote a post here which was titled, I Suck at Meditation. It’s true. I do. If you’re interested, check out that post, and you’ll realize I’m not lying. However, today I realized I was actually performing an act of meditation while on my run! Mindfulness is probably more descriptive of what I was doing, but mindfulness is meditation, right? Since I’m part of the running, health and fitness group on this site, I thought I’d share my mindfulness technique. I used it to help me get through today’s tough workout. If you’re just starting out with…

My mind races. Often it races at the same brick wall again and again.

I was sitting down at the computer earlier trying to compose a post about something I’m working through in my recovery. My mind was spinning and spinning on the topic, but the right words wouldn’t come. I have learned when that happens that I need to leave that topic and come back to it, but I was feeling like an animal trapped in a cage, desperate. “I have less than half an hour until I have to pick Baby Girl up from school. I have to write something today…

POV is a camera direction, not a writing technique. Do not use a POV notation unless the imagery seen from one character’s point of view is distinctly different from the rest of the scene and, more importantly, that difference is integral to the plot.

Don’t let these problems ruin your screenplay - Surviving the Muse

Have you ever looked through a telescope? Or try to drive with one eye closed? Did you notice how everything turns flat? It becomes two dimentional and distance becomes hard to judge? Therein lies a problem: staring monocularly at any situation affords a singular and often useless…