Take 5 Baby Steps

Take 5 Baby Steps to your Volcano

This may not be the best way to climb a mountain, but start with baby steps. Psychologists and coaches talk about the benefits of doing the hardest things first to free up the rest of your day. Do this 5-10 minute prompt for starting writing (or something else):

Take a new legal pad that’s a yummy color. Yellow is good for the eyes and concentration, pale lavender is a happy color for inspiration. Take 5 minutes to meditate and clear your mind. Breathe deeply a few times. Ask your Inner Writer “What is the story that I am sitting on top of?” This story is like a volcano that may only erupt every 100 years or so, but when it does, it’s loud and fantastic in its impact. Notice your other stories, quiet quakes of insistence, vying for top place and obscuring your volcano.

Jot down fast on your pad what comes up. Get to the volcano story you’ve been sitting on whose presence you’ve avoided even in the quiet of your own mind. Write a blurb, title, and/or opening line for this story and a modest plan for getting it started. Finish the little stories later.

 

 

Endurance from the Meditation Front

A funny thing happened as I wrote about endurance. The old post from 2013 endured. I couldn’t delete it. So, a few updates: Minnesota artist & writer AJ, visiting New York four  summers in a row, says that meditating on and cultivating endurance has been a boon to her creative work as well as her pool game (something to do with improving her shots). Endurance, or in Yoga language, Steadfastness, may not sound sexy, but it also isn’t drudgery. We endure pain as we strive to get beyond it to the highest, shiniest aspect of Self, the inner golden rock that never tarnishes. Meditating (or any activity) in a group increases our endurance as a group’s energy can carry us past our myopic self-scrutiny or lazy tendencies.

Take 5 or so minutes to cultivate the quality of endurance. Contemplate the sound, image, or weight of the word. Reflect on a fulfilling experience of endurance, like a graduation or completion of a long term project. Let go of the word and sit with the feel of it in your body.  Journal or doodle about it.  If you wish, share your insights on endurance here or at: sheilaklewis.wordpress.com. You can also email: sheilaklewis@gmail.com.

“meditatetake5” or meditake, is just that, 5 minute prompts to writing, creating, or recharging.

My summer plan includes writing more 5 minute boosts to sanity, positivity, writing, consciousness, and deep rest. If you happen to be browsing, let us know what you think. Did it work or annoy you, change your state, give you a break? I believe that if everyone meditated just 5 minutes a day, we could change the frenzied vibration of the planet. Maybe a little. Or maybe a lot. You pick time and place. Find me on line here and at sheilaklewis.wordpress.com. Or, I love low tech, email me: sheilaklewis@gmail.com. Thanks. Now breathe, recharge, take 5! Sheila

Endurance vs. Enduring, Notes from the Meditation Front