Meditation

Many ,many years ago when I first went to a energy healer she asked me to pick a number. I think I picked the number six. She told me that no matter what happens and if I were never to see her again that I should meditate six minutes everyday and it would be life changing. So I went home and tried to meditate my six minutes a day every day. 

I quickly found that I did not enjoy meditating. I would sit with my eyes closed peeking at the clock to see if the six minutes (which almost felt like six hours) were up. I could not quiet my mind and I was just about jumping out of my seat. It was supposed to be a peaceful experience, but it felt like torture to me. This practice did not fit my impulsive and instant gratification kind of  personality. I was never good at hanging in there with anything new and developing a practice that in the end would benefit me; instead I ditched it. 

Over the years I made some feeble attempts to meditate again, but par for the course it never seemed to stick. Thirty years later when I visited the very same energy healer after my first cancer diagnosis she encouraged me to use meditation as a tool to cope with the chemotherapy treatments and the stress of dealing with a life threatening illness. Now that I had hit rock bottom  healthwise, I was a somewhat motivated to give it another try. It did help me during those first months of treatment and I had some wonderful experiences, but true to form  my motivation level dropped again. 

Since I have been home recovering and trying to get my health and energy back I have been reading more and more about how important meditation is for the people recovering from cancer. Marianne Williamson considers it the absolute number one most important thing one can do to regain health as meditation connects us to spirit and self healing agents.  So with yet another big endorsement regarding meditation, I have been trying to incorporate it into my day on a regular basis. I still struggle with being antsy and still forget to make time for it, but I can say I am working hard at fitting it into my day to day activities. Mostly I put in the time and feel good that I can cross it off of my list for the day. Every so often I have a great meditation time. Today was one of those days.

Before I sat down to meditate today I had been looking for a yellow piece of paper that I had written an important appointment on. I looked in the two places I thought it could be, but it was not to be found. I was not worried about it per say because I was just planning on calling and getting the appointment confirmed. But it does bother me when I can't keep track of my things and since chemotherapy, it seems I am more distracted than ever! 

I  did a few more  household chores before I sat down to meditate not at all consciously thinking about my lost paper. During my meditation all of a sudden I had a vision of my paper hanging on the refrigerator and I heard my voice inside my head say; yes, it is on the refrigerator, just where I put it yesterday.

I realized in that very moment that I was deep in mediation and I started to pull myself out of that state and  open my eyes. As I came to (so to speak) I realized that I didn't really remember putting that paper on the refrigerator in my conscious mind and wondered if it was actually there. Maybe I dozed off and I was dreaming?  So I went right to the kitchen and there it was hanging on a magnet on the fridge.

I know this is not a big experience but I learned something big. The voice I heard was my inner voice, not an inner dialogue of chatter. It was the voice I need to be listening to, but I have not been able to distinguish between the two voices for so many years. 

Just the experience I needed to keep me going.