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How to Combine Meditation and Gratitude When Living on a Wonder Woman Schedule
I admit it. This past month I’ve failed. Big Fat F. For the past 2 years, I have diligently committed myself to practicing what I preach. I preach extreme self-care, starting each day clearing the clutter from my brain, then centering and grounding myself with gratitude and mindful meditation, yada yada yada.
However, with the holidays, facilitating Wayfinding Women’s Save Our Sanity Holiday Brunch and a last minute women’s get-away weekend to NYC (which was FABULOUS, just sayin’!) and OH YEAH…organizing our one and only daughter’s New Year’s Eve vintage-themed wedding aka Gatsby-PALOOZA (which was BEYOND fabulous) I did what every Wonder Woman does…I stopped doing everything that keeps one grounded and insures life’s goodness keeps flowing.
Being a facilitator of Brené Brown’s Daring Way/Rising Strong programs, I work hard to not completely denigrate myself by getting all up into that judgment-thing (or for all you Brené-ophiles “SFD”); not an easy task for this perfectionist-in-recovery-with-frequent-relapses kind of gal. So this weekend, after spending some time re-aligning with my essential self, I re-committed to starting my days with meditation and gratitude. This morning straight out of bed, I grabbed a tall glass of ice water, lit the fire in the fireplace, plopped myself down in my comfy place, took a deep breath and…
My mind felt like being in the middle of the General Assembly at the UN. Thoughts were coming at me like members from the 193 countries debating at opening session; all vying LOUDLY for my attention. “You don’t have time to meditate; you have deadlines!”; “Don’t forget to make that call so you have the right AV equipment for the speaking engagement!”; “You really should have dusted yesterday”. As I felt my blood pressure rising, I reminded myself to breathe and hear another voice in my head shouting, “no skipping one of the sides of the square!” (see diagram for BOX breathing below.)
I breathed in…held…breathed out…held. And my mind started to quiet. More breathing…more quiet. And then I took a sip of water. Delicious, cold water that, as I swallowed, I could follow all the way over my tongue, through the back of my throat and down, down, down my esophagus. In that moment, I realized, “wow, I’m pretty lucky that I can swallow so easily and everything goes where it’s supposed to go”; a thought not often in the forefront of my mind. This thought led to the question, “what other parts of my body have been neglected for all the hard work they have put in these past months?” I immediately touched the top of my head and thought about all the work that goes on in there. How much work I put my brain through trying to store information, make decisions, organize, prioritize, create…wow. I said an audible, “Thank You, Brain, for really giving this past month everything you had and more. That limbic system up there almost blew a fuse on December 31st while trying hard to keep me from wailing loudly as I was escorted to my MOB seat. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I had no sooner said my last thank you when the muscles on both sides of my neck let me know they were feeling neglected like twin toddlers in the checkout line at the grocery store. They were jumping up and down, twitching and wanting some of that lovin’ gratitude, too. I closed my eyes and sent soft, quiet messages of relaxation and love to my neck muscles. They had worked overtime trying to hold my head up during the migraines I had over a period of four days last week. They must be EXHAUSTED. Rest, dearest muscles…and a special shout out to you sternocleidomastoids!!!
I made myself aware as I took another breath. I glanced at the clock. I’d been still for 15 minutes, mindfully meditating. I wasn’t seated cross-legged on the floor and I hadn’t uttered “OM” once, but there was no assembly in my head. It was all quiet and calm. My body felt more relaxed and renewed than it had since leading our retreat last October in Tuscany. Why had it been so long since I had taken time to mindfully meditate? Or really practice gratitude?
I am certain that, like most women of passion who are attempting to live a purpose-driven life, there are times we all find ourselves caught up in busy-ness and forgetting our good intentions, action plans and promises to ourselves. Those little tsunamis of life…the happy stress tsunami as well as the overwhelming, anxiety-provoking, full-blown panic attack tsunami can pull us from our routines and getting back takes conscious effort. And then there is the time thing. I don’t know about you, but my to-do list is so long, I am guaranteed to have something to do until the year 3000. It’s easy to fall prey to beliefs like, “I just need to do this other thing, first” or “I will get back on track as soon as (you fill in the blank)”.
Studies show that just 15 minutes of mindful meditation makes a positive impact on our ability to be more calm, clear, and overall happier with our life. The scientific benefits of regularly practicing gratitude have also been well documented. We feel more alive, sleep better, are more compassionate people and even have stronger immune systems. So here’s my epiphany.
As a modern Wonder Woman, one who wants to do it all with conscious choice and intention, live with purpose, passion and joy, find satisfaction and success in business as well as personal life but without the need for people-pleasing, striving for perfection, measuring self-worth in terms of productivity and tangible accomplishments, an inability to say no to others, or other frenetic behaviors associated with the SuperWoman Syndrome, I discovered it actually IS possible to fit meditation AND serious gratitude practice into my morning and still have an entire day to take care of Wonder Woman activities.
And while I didn’t share any details my tête-à-tête of thanksgiving with my fabulous lady parts this morning, believe me, we had a really good conversation…and they are ALL feeling the love.
Box Breathing: Used by our awesome military to manage the stress when in active combat.
Box Breathing
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