Yes, I failed to post yesterday. So, I'll write about both yesterday (17 minutes) and today (18+ minutes). Both days had a similar pattern. I started off without much trouble settling into a focus on breath and awareness of the pulls on my thoughts. Both days had strong external factors that began pulling at my... Continue Reading →

I knew it would eventually happen. But it doesn't make it any easier. I started off fairly focused today. But being tired, keeping the monkey brain at bay was a challenge. Entire thoughts made it through before I was able to return focus. And then... I woke up. Yep, I fell asleep. As time is... Continue Reading →

I tried a couple of new things today. I added some quiet background music (Enya, of course). I tried something new in how I brought myself back to focus. But first the challenges for today's meditation. Today was a rather stressful day all day long. At work, I found out that the connection to the... Continue Reading →

Things went very differently today. I don't know if the changes were from the fact that I increased by another two minutes or something else. I should clarify—from the knowledge that today's meditation would be two minutes later. The changes were there from the very beginning, not just in the last few minutes. I only... Continue Reading →

Day 5 Today's 15 minutes fell into three distinct time blocks. I have no idea if they were or were not of equal length. First block—the same pattern of attaining focus, losing focus, regaining focus. Again the time to detect the loss of focus felt quicker and the duration of the times of focus seemed... Continue Reading →

Sunday 1 I put off meditation today until rather late. It had been a mentally stressing day (dining table stuff). It had been a long day. And I was tired. As with the last time I was tired going into meditation, the monkey brain was a little more active than yesterday. The first thing of... Continue Reading →

Day 4 I increased my time to 15 minutes today. I started out fairly strong—keeping focus on my breathing and keeping the extraneous thoughts vying for my attention at bay. But that only lasted a few minutes. Valerie didn't realize I was doing my new daily practice and asked me a direct question. That tripped... Continue Reading →

Day 3 Today brought a new challenge — external conversation. Paul came home for the evening. Although I moved myself to a "remote" part of the house, hearing he and Valerie talk was unavoidable. The challenge was to note the conversation while not mentally inserting myself into it. It probably goes without saying that the... Continue Reading →

Day 2 Today, I worked 14.5 hours, got home at 11:15, had dinner, spent a bit of time chatting with Valerie, and then sat down to do my daily meditation. I was exhausted going into it. I was a little nervous that I might fall asleep. But that was not the case. Rather than falling... Continue Reading →