Saturday Search - Meditation

I can sit quietly, in awe of nature, any time you want me to. When we got a Wii game thing, the only one I was good at was the Zen mediation where I got expert level first go. I'm good at sitting still, lost in my own thoughts.

I thought that meant I was good at meditation...and maybe it does. I'm not quite sure where meditation and mindfulness overlap. Or if meditation has been commercialised to the point where you're not expected to find your own path.

Doubting I knew anything about mediation, I started to read more about meditation, also mindfulness. I began listening to meditations conducted by people. I downloaded some apps. I kind of lost my way a bit. Some meditations were just too fast for me. Some voices made me laugh at their exaggerated sounds - as if they were trying too hard to be deeply soulful or something. Some of the apps just had too much in it, or too many add-ons I didn't need, or cost too much. I resent commercialisation of things we intrinsically know.

Lately, I've gone back to my thing. Sitting silently in nature. But in the past, when thoughts of the day-to-day things filled my mind, I didn't find meditation all that restful or deep or whatever the books told me it should be. So now I've begun to use some of the techniques that I've read about - the ones that worked for me, or resonated within me.

I welcome whatever random thought flits through my mind, give it some love and send it on its way. After enough of these have past, I feel my mind give a big sigh, and it gets into deeper stuff. Sometimes I solve problems in my story (whatever one I'm writing, or some I've written in the past that are in the files but not finished. The one called Past Lives, which led me down this rabbit hole has been given a lot of thought and is bubbling waiting to be rewritten...soon!). Sometimes I can order my thoughts about the world, or whatever issue is bugging me. Sometimes I feel like a domino falls in my brain and I have this chain of thoughts that I follow like Alice down that rabbit hole. I've no clue where those thoughts are taking me, but I'm more than comfortable in my mind, so I'm happy to roam anywhere, discover anything.

Meditation, for me anyway, is about finding my calm place. The place where I can think, dream, problem solve, create. The place where the noise of life quietens and I can be me, be with me. I like it. I like taking myself on this journey into my mind.

Do you meditate? What is meditation for you?