The inescapable pressure of time. It’s just everywhere! Generally though, it’s self-imposed pressure to get things done or choices we have made that puts our time in the hands of others (think the jobs we work, the commitments we make).
Finding the time to meditate is the biggest obstacle to starting meditation for most people. And then even if people start meditating, time then becomes a major hurdle in being able to make meditation a daily habit. Other things always push their way in and meditation becomes the thing that you’ll get back to later.
I know the feeling all too well. My normal routine is to meditate before I open any emails for the day. Or before doing any ‘work’ whatsoever. This morning I failed! Last night I’d left an important document on my desk that I just had to get scanned and sent off to the bank first thing. So sure enough, I fired up the computer, scanned the document, jumped into my emails, and sent it off to the bank. In that process I got well and truly into work (and frustration) mode. The document was something I had to resend as the bank had previously not stated the exact detail of what I needed to send the first time. Stupid bank! So then I was on a mission to make a point with a carefully worded email. Eating up more and more time for no real end result.
So before I knew it, I was off and running into my work day without a second thought. The plan was to write a blog post this morning. So checked out what was on the radar to write about, started to mentally plan it out. But then I had that argh moment, where nothing was coming and my head was all over the place. At that point, thankfully I took stock (which also doesn’t always happen). I thought, “I really have to meditate otherwise today will not go well!”. I’ve had it happen plenty of times before. Put meditation on the back-burner and never end up doing one by the end of the day, and then feel as though I have been chasing my tail all day with a constant head fog.
So I wrote the first sentence you see above (which was totally different from what I was actually planning to write about), and settled in for a 20 minute meditation on being in the present moment. On finishing the meditation, my heart rate has dropped, the words of the article are flowing freely and I feel totally energised. I look at the clock and it feels like I’ve been sitting at my desk for ages, but at the same time it feels like it was only a minute ago that I wrote that first sentence.
That’s not to say the meditation was straight forward and easy though. My mind wandered of a few times. Back to that bank document, to an impending move and picturing where we might put things. But each time I was able to bring my mind back to the present and the worries and thoughts just dissipated. And right now they are the furthest thing from my mind as I’m writing this and loving sharing my meditation experience.
That’s what meditation does for me. It slows time down. Makes it feel as though there is more ‘flow’ to the day. And makes me focus on the present moment at any given time.
“I don’t have 20 minutes” I hear you say. Or, “There’s no way I can meditate for that long!” Yes I know how hard that can be. We’ve all got to start somewhere. I started at 5 minutes every morning. And the reality was it wasn’t a quality 5 minutes in the beginning. My mind would be all over the place. It was just about giving myself a pat on the back for the times I was able to calm my mind which left me feeling happy and relaxed. And then I wanted more of it, so I practised and persevered to the point where I am today. Happy to do a 20 minute meditation to start my day as I know it will save me that time over and over again throughout the day because I can focus on tasks at hand without getting distracted nearly as much as I would if I didn’t meditate.
So yes, there is this inescapable pressure of time. But time is what you make of it. And it is entirely up to you what you choose to do with it.
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