Meditation

What it isn't, how it helps

When I first started going to therapy after my car wreck, E, my therapist, was always talking about noticing things. During EMDR, she would ask, “What comes up?” and I would detail some thing that popped into my mind during the processing part, and she would say, “Notice that.”

I’ve written about noticing before, namely here:

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That was more than two years ago. My, how the time flies when, in your self-absorption, you are oblivious to everything around you. I should read my own writing more often. Maybe it would save me some heartache.

But I’m working on that. I have been learning the practice of meditation, which I’ll explain here before my brethren start squawking and flapping like a broody hen.

Meditation is not emptying your mind. It is not sitting in the forest folded like a pretzel chanting ohmmm. It is not eastern mysticism or the occult or giving place to the devil or worshipping we know not what.

Meditation, as I am learning it, is being aware. It is continually getting myself out of the ruminating, intrusive thoughts that dominate my head and coming back into my body. What does that mean? It means paying attention to right here, right now. Noticing the feeling of grass under my bare feet, hot sun on my arms while I’m in the garden, the slow breathing of the dog snuggled up next to me. It is staying present so I can stop the doomscroll in my brain that takes me from having a fine day to disastrous end-of-life feelings in half a second. My brain is fast, y’all, and I’ve had practice catastrophizing for a lot of years.

Aware is the word that is helping me most in this practice. Before I began this, I was almost 100% unaware that the thoughts in my head were just that—thoughts. I believed they were completely true and real and me. I was my thoughts. Meditation is teaching me to notice them, to be aware of them as discrete items that may show up in my brain but don’t get to rule it.

Did you know that when you think a certain way for a long time, it creates neural pathways that are wide and smooth, like a superhighway? They become the preferred thought paths because they’re the easiest ones to jump on and cruise 80 mph with the top down.

So when you continually think negative things, have critical or judgmental thoughts, or what-if everything to death, your brain is much more likely to continue thinking that way because it’s easy. Likewise, if you are a super-positive person who always sees the sunny side, your thoughts will naturally tend to follow that road, again, because it’s easy for your brain, and our brains like to be as efficient as possible. If there’s an easy road, our brains will take it. This principle can be seen in habits.

Have you ever tried to change a habit? Then you know how deeply rutted our brains can get. Changing a habit is essentially carving a new road in your brain. Not only do you have to show your brain the new way over and over, but you simultaneously have to keep your brain from going the old way.

This became abundantly clear recently when we asked our friends, Larry and Pam, to farm-sit for us while we were away for a few days. They had the cows, the chickens, and the dog, so it wasn’t like we left them with nothing to do, but Larry and Pam are not the type to sit around doing nothing. They get stir crazy, and there’s not a lot of excitement in the middle-of-nowhere place we live.

One of the days we were gone, Pam texted and said, “Larry would love to switch your refrigerator door, but it appears there is some additional hardware needed.” (The fridge door opened from the right, which was perfect for the last house, but opposite from how it needed to open in this house. The fact that we have lived with it being backwards for two full years since we moved here is a testament to our ever-changing priority list, which does not include conveniences like left-opening refrigerator doors.)

I was not about to miss this opportunity, so I texted right back, “I would LOVE that! I think the hardware kit is in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in a little box.”

Sure enough, when we got home two days later, there was the refrigerator door, opening in the correct direction for the kitchen setup. We were elated! What great friends! That was a full two weeks ago.

How many times a day do you think I open the refrigerator? Twenty? Forty? Eighty?

I still find myself reaching for the wrong side after fifteen days. My brain created a rut like the ones left by covered wagons leaving Independence, Missouri in 1840, ruts that are still visible in some places today. Creating a new rut for the newly hung refrigerator door will take a while.

Back to meditation: the practice of getting out of my head and back into my present body helps me regain control of my thoughts. It reminds me to step back and look at my thoughts as items in my environment, like the lamp on the table and the painting on the wall. Meditation (awareness) is slowly teaching my brain to notice thoughts for what they are—just thoughts. Some are positive, some are negative, but they are all just thoughts. They may be accompanied by an emotion or a feeling, or they may be just ideas. But whatever they are, they do not have to control my actions. I get to do that by reminding myself that I am in my body, in the present.

God gives us some instruction regarding thoughts in Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

To do that, we have to notice what our thoughts are now, and then measure them against what the Lord says they should be. The process of changing them necessarily brings us back into the present where we can choose to be obedient.

Then there is this admonishment in the first two verses of Psalm 1:

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

God tells us what to meditate on: his law, his word. It’s hard to focus on intrusive thoughts when you’re thinking about God’s word, right? So again, it’s learning not to let our thoughts run away with us and, instead, think the way God thinks. As my pastor recently explained it, meditate in this context means to “say it back.” It’s like a cow chewing its cud, munching on the same grass over and over. Keeping it in the forefront of your mind, rolling it around, purposely thinking about it again and again. But to do that, you have to be aware of what your thoughts are right now, and then lead them back to where you want them to be.

While it’s a slow process, the practice of meditation is helping me be slower to respond to stress with alarm. It is helping me notice when my thoughts are running away with me, and instead of following them, simply waving as they pass by. After all, they’re just thoughts. It is accepting that I am not at the mercy of my thoughts and I have more control of them than I ever realized I did.