My friend suggested an online meditation training course and I signed up without hesitation. I experienced my first Vipassana ten-day silent retreat last year, so while I was not new to meditation the anxiety and unknown of the global pandemic had put my practice to the test.
The three-week course, through the meditation training center Sura Flow, gave me a new appreciation of stillness. At a time when it feels like the world is falling apart and that I should be doing more to help others, I realized I can only do this if I am whole myself. I started to create space every day - as little as ten minutes – to be still, listen, and to quiet my body and mind.
At first, practicing ten minutes of meditation might sound too simple to address the emotions and feelings that the world is experiencing today. As meditation and mindfulness have become accepted buzzwords that can be applied to anything these days, it is amazing, however, how much intention and effort it takes for humans to sit still and do nothing. So while more people accept the idea of meditation, putting in place a regular practice is a whole other step. If you have experimented with meditation at all, you will immediately realize that it is not easy to quiet the mind and that when you take the time to observe your thoughts you probably discovered that they are constant, hard to control the flow of, and very often harmful to your emotional well-being.
Another major challenge to a maintaining a daily meditation practice, is that the results are not immediate. You may sit in total silence and calm for twenty minutes each morning for a whole week but then the next week you have an extra work assignment and you give all your time to that project and let your practice slip away. The benefits come from a regular and consistent practice. The intention and purpose behind a steady practice is to be more aware of your mind, emotions, and energy when you are meditating and then also in your everyday life.
If you are feeling overwhelmed due to COVID-19, finding yourself swinging from mental states of ‘I think I can survive this’ to ‘I can’t continue for another day’, I encourage you
to set aside as little as one minute a day to start, or maybe the start of your practice looks something like ten conscious breaths. At the beginning, it is not about how long you meditate but more about bringing awareness to your body and your thoughts on a consistent basis. Commit to what you know you can achieve on a regular basis and you might surprise yourself and start craving that moment of total mind and body presence and stillness.