#inktober52, "Train"

I used to go to a meditation group once a week.  Our leader turned down the lights and in her soothing voice told us to imagine a beautiful field of wildflowers.  I internally griped, "Why is it always a meadow?", but I complied.  I imagined pretty flowers.  Eventually, we progressed out of the meadow and my grouchy thoughts of sunburn and I found a calm in myself.  I suppose my grouchiness and fears of sunburn were a metaphor for the crap I carried in my head most days.  I got a lot of positives from meditating and our group became good friends.

The place we met was right next to train tracks.  We all giggled the first time a train went by during our meditation and rattled the windows.  Our patient leader gently suggested we could put all our problems on the train and listen to those problems being carried away.  This happened many times.  I dutifully put my cares on the trains.  I can't see or hear a train anymore without smiling and feeling my blood pressure drop.

Meditation comes in many forms.  What I've described above is a guided meditation.  Sometimes I sit at the river and watch the water go by until I find inner peace.  Art and ditch digging can be meditations.  Sometimes I just pay attention to my breathing (which is probably healthy for everyone in Covid-19 days).  Some people focus on thinking of nothing (something I find absolutely impossible).  Some people do yoga or walk.  Whatever works.  I don't think there's one right way to go about it.

For myself, I start out by checking in with myself.  How stressed am I in the moment?  I give myself a numerical grade.  A good day is a 10 or less.  Often, my score is 5,000.  I start counting backwards, sometimes jumping down 100 points at a time until I can feel the stress leaving my body and my breath evening out.  I notice places where I'm sore or tight and concentrate on relaxing those areas.

I often think of meditation as an awake dream.  I get myself relaxed enough to see where my brain will go.  Like a night dream, answers to issues can be seen through a different light.  Sometimes the answers are so obvious I wonder why I didn't see them in the first place, but I doubt I'm the only one who tells myself what I'm feeling instead of actually feeling my feelings.

For example, I go about my day and think about the things I'm doing.  Everything's fine, so why do I feel so stressed?  After calming myself I can see that I'm worried about the state of the world and individuals I care about.  In my regular thoughts, I tell myself I can't do anything about those things so quit thinking about them.  In my meditative mind, I honor these feelings.  It isn't an issue of fixing situations, it's finding my place in them.  Maybe I can't help someone with health issues or a drug problem, but I can go to my food giveaway and feed other drug addicts and elderly people.  I feel good to do that.  Those are people who want the help.  I feel more peaceful which is better for everybody because being wound like a spring about problems I can't solve just makes me testy to be around.

Yes, I have shown you this train before, but having had to paint it twice for this painting it only seems fair to post it twice.  You can see the whole painting here.  I've done more Barbie paintings but haven't seen any appropriate words to show them off yet.

I can hear trains at my house.  They're carrying away my problems.  How do you meditate?