Hoo boy, I need another meditation retreat like WHOA.
My brain is crowded! I haven't slept properly for a week now. Part of the reason for that is because I was working my ass off on a job application, and my brain was swirling with ideas and connections and existential thoughts during the five days straight that I worked on my application materials.
Literally. Five days straight, out-of-bed-in-the-morning STRAIGHT to the computer and then back to bed at the end of the day.
We'll see what happens with the job. It is pretty much my dream job. But one must continue to make plans and be joyful and look for opportunities no matter what, right?
Anyway, back to meditation.
Here is my continual problem with every good habit I try to set for myself:
I want to be able to do it without any help.
Anybody else out there do that, too?
Like, oh, I won't pay $20 for a drop-in yoga class. I should just be able to discipline myself and practice at home and develop my own practice. But then I don't take the steps to do so, and I end up doing NO yoga.
Or, for example, I don't have the time for a 10 day silence retreat! The world needs me! Priorities! I will miss updates on Facebook! I have a 9-5 job that neeeeeeeeds me.
BULLSHIT.
We all need support, infrastructure, encouragement, and a plan. Maybe you have the self-discipline to just pick up a new habit like *that*, but I think you're in the minority.
What's that, you say? You agree, but you can't afford $20 for every yoga class you want to attend, and you really can't just up and quit your job to go meditate for ten days?
TRUTH. Here's what you could do, and what I'm going to try.
Call your friends who feel the same way about yoga -- they want to practice regularly but don't want to pay for or travel to the classes.
Find a time where all of you are available, and commit to a group yoga session at the same time every week. Someone can host the 'classes' at their house, y'all can help clear out the living room, set up someone's laptop on the couch full screen and crank up the volume on one of those free yoga videos on the Interwebs.
Free information!
Accountability and sociability with friends!
FREE YOGA!
The key is that these people have to be your friends. People you actually want to see and hang out with. Not random people who you'll pull out on at the last moment. Motivation to see people you like, and social accountability because EVERYONE WILL KNOW if you don't show up.
This would work for weekly meditation sessions, too. The tricky part for me is that I consistently bounce between cities where I don't have a core group of friends to hang out with, AND that most of my friends aren't meditators and wouldn't be able to sit through an hour of silent sitting.
But! I shall persist! If YOU are a silent meditator, or a yogi, or a musician, or writer, or freelancer, FIND A BUDDY WITHIN YOUR FRIEND GROUP RIGHT NOW.
And drop me a line to let me know what you're working on, and how it goes....
