Dabbling in Meditation: Now is the Sculptor’s Chisel.

I feel as though I exist in a gentle turbulence today, as though deep underneath the sea and I’m being tossed around by confused currents. I sat in my car, closed my eyes, and went into my daily practice, in search of stillness.

It was difficult. “Meditation is hard” I found myself thinking. Then I found myself thinking again, worrying, lamenting. I returned to my breath, inhale, exhale. I became aware of the tension in my body, the anxiety in my mind, the connection of the two, the neither here nor thereness of it all. I thought about this session being over, thinking into the future. I reminded myself that it’s for this very reason I’m attempting to stay in the perfect now, the inhale, the exhale, the feeling of air going through my nasal passages, into my trachea, my lungs, my blood gasses exchanging, breathing out carbon dioxide which the trees will breathe in, taking the carbon, and turning it into more tree, growing, becoming more out of thin air.

I am physically tired today. I’ve been working out twice a day for the past two weeks, averaging a total of an hour aand a half. I’m physically tired all day, I’m not sleeping well, I wake feeling like I don’t want to move. I drink more coffee to compensate. Yesterday I realized the excessive caffeine is likely the cause of my poor sleep.

I sat meditating, a thought came to me, a reframe- the feelings of exhausted muscles, the uncomfortable warm toxic tingles, the synesthesia with negative emotions, how the one encourages the other, anxiety creating tension, tension fueling anxiety, clouding the mind, impeding progress, I do not have to conceive of these feelings as anxiety and exhaustion. I can choose to accept that these are signals to my soul that I’m gaining strength, that I’m solidifying healthy habits. They are not aches and pains, they are cheers and encouragement- Do I see the old lady or the young woman in the drawing? it’s my choice.

I can choose the successive nows as taps onto a tiny sculpting chisel. Each effort, each movement in a workout, each fact learned, each person I help, each breath, each smile, each movement is a chipping away. I am a sculptor of my existence.

Find your action from deep within I hear myself say. I remember spotting something earlier today I’d jotted in my journal last year, “Quit your mind, start your spirit.” Kind of a cool little buzz phrase. As the stranger in the strange land, today I grok it.

Now is the sculptor’s chisel and I, my true “I”, am the hammer.