How to Meditate Without Meditating

Two years ago, I started my meditation practice in earnest. Before then, I had dabbled in it, keeping up with it daily for several weeks at a time and then losing steam, never feeling like I was “doing it right.”

I had read a couple books on the topic and started to understand that it wasn’t about “clearing your mind” so much as it was about staying present. I thought that seemed much more doable, but even then, I never felt like I was making progress. The benefits of taking even 5 minutes out of the day to get grounded and centered are immeasurable, especially for a stress case like myself, but I really just found myself going over my mental to-do lists in that space of time, thinking about what I would do when the timer was completed.

At the beginning of 2018, my friend told me the app Headspace had a great deal for first-time users, so I signed up. I found myself able to stick with Headspace because of the way the app organizes themed “packs” that give you a way to progress through different types of meditation, be it visualization, breath work, or compassion meditation. I now find myself embarking on my third year with Headspace.

But! This isn’t a Headspace ad (though if you are reading, Headspace, I’ll happily take your money…or even just a free year). The thing is, even after two full years of almost daily meditation, it’s still hard. I don’t think it gets easier. I mean, maybe it does if you are a Buddhist monk, but I don’t think it gets easier for most of us Type A highstrung young pro Americans. Some days are better than others, but while the breath is a constant (and therefore a favorite focus for most styles of meditation), it is, well, boring.

However, over the last several months, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ultimate goal of meditation — to be present. A TED talk featuring Joseph Gordon Levitt (of all people) got me thinking about paying attention, REALLY paying attention, rather than doing something while scrolling through Instagram (and making myself feel worse overall).

So what else gets me there? What gets me to being present and paying attention perhaps more effectively than meditation? As it turns out…quite a few other things.

The key (I think) is to get into what psych people call “flow state,” a mental state in which you feel completely immersed in whatever it is you’re doing. It’s energizing, you enjoy it, and you’re thinking of nothing other than what it is you’re doing — in a word, you are present. You’re paying attention to it and only it.

I’ll leave it up to the experts to determine if you get the same benefits you get from meditation from any activity that gets you into a flow state (though I suspect you do). Instead I’ll tell you about what activities help get me into that state so you can try them too if meditation feels impossible. Chances are you probably already do one or more of these things.

Move it.

Move your body.

There’s a reason meditation is such a huge part of yoga. A long time ago, one of my beloved yoga instructors said one of the purposes of yoga was to strengthen the body’s muscles to facilitate sitting with strong posture to meditate for hours. But I have found after nearly a decade and a half of practicing yoga that it is in itself meditative. Yes, it probably took me a few years to stop worrying about what I looked like or if I could twist further than the person next to me, but after a while I let all that go, and now all I CAN think about in yoga is enduring whatever shape my body is in and getting it to the next one. All while breathing. And sweating. And trying not to fall over. I feel completely present in my body and immersed in what I am doing.

Occasionally, I have found running to be meditative, though in the thick of training and running a long distance, I’ve been known to get very in my own head, catastrophizing about “not making it” or crying because my armpits are on fire. So while running isn’t my go-to movement for flow, it does sometimes work and may work for you if you can forget your pits and focus more on each footstep.

Other exercise I’ve found bits of flow in are weight lifting and spin. If you’re into dancing, I bet you can find it there too. The point is really to find the thing that works for you. And if it feels good doing it and whatever it is keeps your mind focused on it, then it’s probably just as good as meditation.

Create something.

Growing up, I was an art kid. I drew and painted constantly. (I tried sculpture too for a bit but was a massive failure.) All throughout my childhood and into high school and even college, I took art classes and made art on my own. In fact, even though I didn’t have a term for it, I remember sitting in the art room that my parents made for me when they finished our basement, listening to classical music (I was always a nerd) and painting with oils, realizing that I had been painting for hours and hadn’t taken a break. I hadn’t wanted a break. I hadn’t thought about anything else beyond the painting right in front of me. I only had a Nokia back then so I wasn’t tempted by my phone, but I wasn’t tempted by AOL Instant Messenger either. It’s possible I was also high on turpentine fumes, but you get the point.

In ninth grade, my English teacher thought I was a decent writer and told me so on one of my papers, suggesting I consider her journalism class. So the following year I took journalism and began pursuing writing as another creative outlet. Writing doesn’t feel as easy to me as drawing or painting, but when I am in the zone, DAMN, I am in the zone. The words are just flowing from my brain and I am thinking of nothing else.

So whatever your preferred creative outlet is, the point is that it feels good to create because it gets you into your flow. Do you like crafting? Writing poetry? Cooking? Baking? I bet you can find a flow state in any of these outlets.

Get a job you like.

I know some of my friends are probably snorting reading this header because let’s be real, I’ve bitched constantly about every single job I’ve had. But I’m usually bitching about office politics or slacking coworkers. I love my work. It’s editing, in case you don’t know. In fact, I’m 1,000x better at editing than I am at writing, and when I am in the zone, I am SERIOUSLY in the zone. It’s possible my job in particular works for me because it is creative-adjacent; while I am not the creator, per se, of the manuscript I am editing, I am polishing it, sculpting it, carving out, and elevating it into something better than it was when I got it. And so it’s an added perk that by the time I look up from a chapter, it’s 5 p.m. and time to go home.

Of course not all jobs are like this and most workplaces come with a heavy dose of bullshit. But if you can find joy in the work itself, you might be able to find your flow state there too.

So what about you? Is meditating enough for you or do you struggle with it like I do? Do you find your flow in your workouts, creative outlets, or job? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram!

xo,
S

Rashes, Detox, + Pit Burn: The Natural Deodorant Chronicles

I briefly dated a guy who didn't wear deodorant. I was appalled.

He was worried about cancer, so I did a quick Google and discovered the link between aluminum-based antiperspirants and cancer is tenuous at best, but the strongest evidence is in relation to breast cancer, so I told him he was safe. 

"Meh, I'm still not going to go out and buy deodorant."

To me this made ZERO sense. You see, for many years, I've been *meticulous* about not having body odor and not having visible pit stains. Perhaps I even went a little overboard.

Probably sometime during my college years, I started thinking that I sweat more than other people. Looking back, I am pretty sure that was also the onset of my social anxiety that went undiagnosed until my mid-20s, but I never made that connection.

Instead, I invested in sticks and sticks of Secret "clinical" antiperspirant. And when that failed me, I asked my dermatologist. He told me to get Certain Dri, which had an even higher percentage of aluminum and also was so extreme that it irritated my skin if I used it every night. So instead I used it every other night and used Secret on alternate nights.

Additionally, I work out a lot, so I also put on deodorant in the mornings and then again after showering post-workout. Basically I LOADED up on my pits with metals and whatever other chemicals go into your standard antiperspirant.

I still believe it is pretty difficult to try to outrun carcinogens altogether in our society. But I also believe women are *particularly* fucked because everything in the products we buy and consume are filled with hormone disrupters (thanks for the insight, Alissa Vitta).

And so I've been methodically getting rid of my old bath, beauty, and household standbys in exchange for all-natural, organic products. The simpler the ingredient list, the better. The FDA does not look at these products, so ladies, you're on your own; get to know which chemicals confuse your body and avoid them.

This means my old armpit-clogging, heavy metal-dousing antiperspirant days were numbered.

I did a very unscientific crowdsourcing Instastory to get some recommendations for all-natural deodorants. I decided to try Primal Pit Paste first, mostly because I was in an organic grocery store and happened to see it.

I liked that, unlike many other natural deodorants, it comes in a stick rather than a jar or a powder. I got the orange creamsicle sent because yum.

For the first week or so, it was going great. While it didn't have quite the antiperspirant power that my old choices had, it was adequate and the scent held up throughout hot yoga. I was very impressed and used it as often as I was used to using deodorant -- which is to say more than once a day.

But after the first week or two, I started to notice what looked like tiny little pimples here and there on my armpits. And they HURT. I did some research and read about pit rash and pit detox. It looked like I had pit rash, but other websites said this was more like a heat rash that comes from sweating more than your body is used to. It was definitely always worse after a workout.

Then I noticed tender lumps in my armpits. I wasn't super concerned because I knew this was part of said pit detox -- for some people, the body goes through a period of "detox" in which it basically purges itself of the aluminum and parabens of the old antiperspirants. This can irritate the lymph nodes which are working harder than normal.

It was painful, so I cut back on my deodorant use. If I wasn't going out that day or seeing anyone, I would go deodorant-free. And when I did smell bad, it wasn't normal BO. Also a symptom of pit detox is particularly bad-smelling body odor. In my case, it smelled almost plasticky, or musty, which is...kind of an unsettling smell coming from your body. 

Primal recommended sweating more (get it all out), not putting deodorant on after shaving, or trying different formulas. For some people, the baking soda in natural deodorant can be irritating. For others, the essential oils that give the deodorant its fragrance are the culprit. 

So I ordered the pit detox kit which came with a jar of the charcoal deodorant. The charcoal paste didn't have baking soda and would help draw out the bad stuff. It also had a jar of unscented "level 2," which had baking soda and I could "graduate" to after using the charcoal, and an oil-based soothing serum to put on when my pits felt bad or put on before applying the other deodorant.

For a couple weeks of using the soothing serum and the charcoal deodorant, the irritation just got worse. After one hot 7-mile run, I ended up with a puffy, blotchy rash that was extremely painful. Finally, I decided maybe it wasn't the baking soda after all, but the oils. I gave up the soothing serum and the charcoal paste and tried the unscented. My armpits finally started to heal, but my skin was still not holding up during long runs.

So I gaveup on the Primal. Next, I tried Native. A number of trusted friends going through this journey SWORE by Native. I opted for the sensitive skin vanilla coconut scent. The formula includes neither baking soda nor essential oils.

Native comes in a stick, and the vanilla coconut smells like a goddamn cake. Like I genuinely enjoy it when I get a whiff of my armpits. And lo and behold -- after a couple of weeks, my armpits have healed. 

It is possible that since the sensitive formula does not include baking powder, it doesn't do as good a job at absorbing sweat, but the scent has held up through every hot yoga class, every long run, every workout, and it's been delightful to not walk around my apartment holding my armpits wondering if I should sit with ice packs on them. I am still limiting myself to only using it once a day (like a sane person), though with two-a-day workouts, I do have to be strategic about that.

This is not to say that Native is good and P3 is bad. I wanted to share my story because when I started talking about it to friends and on Instagram, alllllll these people came out of the woodwork with their own armpit horror stories, and so many people said they just gave up and went back to the old toxic stuff.

I want you to know that the pit detox/rash struggles are real. Not everyone is out there gchatting their friends on a Monday morning and says "My armpits are killing me," so I'm happy to take one for the team and give you some more real body #realtalk.

The other important thing to remember is that every body is different. I have friends who love P3. I have friends who switched to natural deodorant with no problems at all. In fact, my one friend had LESS irritation with natural deodorant than she did with traditional. So figure out what works for you want what doesn't. Different brands offer multiple formulas, but there's a lot out there to see what is compatible for you and your body. 

Just don't give up! Get your hormones right (and your pits too)!

xo,
S

My Favorite Fitness + Wellness Apps

I know we all bemoan the fact that we're too attached to our phones, and in a lot of ways, it is truly awful. A few years ago, I dropped my iPhone in the toilet and the old bag-of-rice trick got me nowhere.

I felt completely cut off from the world for 12-15 hours, and not in the good vacation-y way. I had to call my parents that night and let them know I'd be somewhat out of touch. Since I had a Mac, I could use Facetime, though teaching them how to use it without being able to talk them through it was a challenge. I was anxious about going to acupuncture for the first time the next day without the aid of GPS. 

And I'm ashamed to say it, but...I couldn't meditate without my phone. 

I realize that seems counterintuitive but meditation apps are what got me sticking to meditation in the first place. All this is a roundabout way of telling you that your phone can be an awesome tool for staying fit, healthy, and well.

Here are my favorite apps to keep me running at full capacity (literally and metaphorically).

Fitness: MapMyRun

When I first started running, I used Runkeeper. I outgrew it when I started running races because I found that the training plans were stagnant. They remained the same no matter what I did (or didn't do) each week. To me, the benefit of MapMyRun is that the training plans are adaptive; if you miss a run or if you start to get faster, the plan accounts for that and adapts the next week's workouts. 

If you have a wearable fitness tracker (I have a Garmin watch), it seamlessly syncs with your tracker to monitor your workouts, and it doesn't just include running. But even without a wearable, you can use the GPS on your phone when running to track your runs (but beware phone GPSs are notoriously off when it comes to pace and you are probably slower than your phone says...which is a real bummer). And if you're competitive (like I am), you can sign up for challenges and be entered to win Under Armour gear and other prizes for completing certain numbers of workouts per week, running a certain number of kilometers, etc.

Cost: The basic version is free and includes a LOT of the regular features. The MVP version, which includes the training plans I mentioned, is $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year. Look out for occasional deals as well.

Fitness: Sweat

For eight years I worked my ass off at the bougie gym across the street. EIGHT years of Les Mills classes, my friends. I still miss Body Combat and (non-Les Mills) spin and boot camp, but I have to admit, many of the other classes got old (I'm looking at you, Body Pump). There are only so many ways you can choreograph bicep curls.

So when I moved to a building with its own small gym, I figured I'd cut costs and cut my gym membership. But I had to find a new routine. Enter: Kayla Itsines's Sweat. I somehow came across Kayla and Sweat on Instagram looking at some amazing fitness transformations. But they weren't typical "fat to skinny" infomercial-type makeovers; these women all looked STRONG. So I did a seven-day trial and was sold.

The Sweat app includes two sets of workouts by Kayla, one which relies mostly on body weight exercises and one which incorporates weights. Both are each made up of workouts that have two circuits of four exercises each, totaling a 28-minute workout for a high-impact but quick burst of exercise. The app also includes two programs by Kelsey Wells, another fitness Insta-star. One is a post-pregnancy program, and one is called PWR and incorporates more of the gym equipment and pyramids, supersets, and burnout intervals. There is also a yoga program which, along with the pregnancy program, I haven't tried. 

I am currently on Week 15 of PWR and LOVING IT. I've also done both of Kayla's programs and felt great doing both. This is also an ideal app if you are someone who travels a lot and want some good workouts you can do in your hotel or hotel gym. I don't use them much, but it also has a number of healthy recipes by Kayla (who also is an endo sister!).

Cost: The app is $19.99 per month or $54.99 for three months -- significantly less than a gym membership or a personal trainer.

Wellness: Headspace

I've already written a bit about my meditation journey, so if you want to hear about why I think meditation is great, click here! I took the plunge at the beginning of the year and sprung for Headspace because of their New Year's deal and it has been worth every penny.

Headspace categorizes guided meditation tracks based on what you want or need. There are single tracks, but what I find most useful are the "packs," which include sets of meditations on certain topics that help you build different skills and strategies. So far I've completed the basic foundational packs as well as packs on managing anxiety, stress, sleep, pain management, prioritization, and productivity. With my boyfriend having just moved in and a new job about to begin, I am currently working my way through the "change" pack.

Since I've started this year, I've meditated for 37 hours (!!!) and have completed 198 sessions.

Cost: Headspace is $95.88 for the year ($7.99/month) or $12.99 monthly. If you wait for the beginning of the year, I believe I paid somewhere around $55 for the whole year with the new year deal.

Wellness: Insight Timer

If the Headspace price is too steep for you, and you're not sure you're into consistently sticking with meditation (yet), Insight Timer is a great free app to start with. I used this guy for a long time before I switched to Headspace and I still keep it on my phone. 

In addition to a timer for silent meditations, Insight also comes with a zillion guided tracks, which you can also search by topic (not to mention a healthy selection of soundtracks for falling asleep). The only downside to this app is that it isn't progressive and the tracks are hit-or-miss. So eventually I had found a few I liked for starting off the day and realized that I basically had them memorized after a while and wasn't listening or focusing at all. If you're going to use this one, I recommend looking for new tracks regularly so you don't get stuck in a rut like I did.

Cost: Free! There is an upgraded version for $4.99/month or $35.99/year.

Wellness: Think Dirty

I recently wrote about making the arduous switch from the beauty and bath products I grew up with to all-natural ones, and someone commented on Instagram to check out the Think Dirty app. THANK YOU, INSTAFRIEND.

This app is so helpful. You can enter the name of a brand or product or simply scan the barcode. If the product is in the Think Dirty system, it rates it based on potentially harmful ingredients and breaks down what the problem is with each ingredient. Green products (0-3) are clean and safe, yellow products (4-7) have moderately negative long-term effects, and red products (8-10) have potentially serious problematic health effects. Byeeeeee, sulfates.

Aside from potential cancer, I am looking to remove any products that may disrupt or aggravate any hormonal imbalances I have in order to better manage my endometriosis. Because I know from WomanCode which chemicals do what to my body, I can easily check each product on Think Dirty and find out if it has the chemicals I want to avoid. And then Think Dirty allows me to store and bookmark products I like.

Cost: FREE!

Health: Clue

If you ever looked into downloading a period tracking app, then I'm sure you've heard of Clue. It's the most popular one out there, probably because it is the first one developed by a woman. Go figure.

With great little logos and options to fill out anything you want to track about your period, whether it is symptoms or fertility, this app is so nifty for learning about your body and identifying patterns. It gets smarter each time you fill out information and lets you know when PMS is on the horizon. LOL, as if I didn't already know.

Bonus! The website is FULL of information about reproductive health and is a great resource. They even have info on endo!

Cost: FREE!

Health: Phendo

This one is specifically for my endo sisters out there. Phendo is part of Columbia University's Citizen Endo research project. As you know, there is not a lot of research out there on endometriosis, so this app is less for me and more for the greater good.

Phendo is specifically geared toward identifying symptoms, issues, and management methods involved in the lived experience of endo. You can track moments (i.e., left ovary, cramping, severe) and each day. Each day is rated and you're asked what was hard to do, what helped, what exercise affected you, what foods affected you, what treatment modalities helped, etc. 

Not only is it a great way to track your symptoms for your doctors, it makes me feel really good knowing that my data is going toward researchers who may someday make real changes in our experiences of endo. Sometimes I wonder if they read the notes section and if they laughed at the times I wrote things like, "cried a lot today, not sure if it was hormones or Donald Trump."

Cost: FREE!

Health: MyFlo

Last but not least! The app companion to my latest obsession, Alisa Vitti and FLOLiving. The MyFlo app stands apart from Clue and Phendo in that it tracks your cycle in a much more granular way -- down to each of the four phases -- menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal.

It also adapts as you input data and tells you where you are each day. Depending on which phase you're in, it gives you evidence-based information on what symptoms you can expect, what they mean, and how you can manage them with food and lifestyle choices.

It also helps you figure out where you're head is at! Have you ever gotten plenty of sleep, plenty of food, and felt fine but you just couldn't focus or get motivated to get work done? Bitch, you were probably in your luteal phase! This app tells you where to focus your mental energy. It's brilliant and I love it.

Cost: $1.99 and WORTH EVERY. DAMN. PENNY. AND THEN SOME.

What are your favorite health and wellness apps?

Blog Spotlight: Lee from America

If you know me personally, you know I can't keep my obsessions to myself. And if you've hung around this blog (or Hashtag Jetlag) at all, then you know a major theme of my writing is making recommendations to you, dear readers!

I want to share the things I love with the people I love, and the latest gem I love is Lee from America.

Matcha berry, inspired by Lee!

Watching my -- um -- *adventures* in antiinflammatory cooking on the CSB Instagram, one of my friends with PCOS recommended I check out Lee's Instagram.

I have been HOOKED for weeks now, and have been binge-reading old blog posts of hers over lunch. Overall, the blog is a lifestyle blog, touching on everything from favorite bras (today's latest post) to Lee's relationship with alcohol. But what I'm absolutely LOVING is the information I am getting about food and the way it affects your hormones.

Like my friend, Lee has PCOS. In an effort to manage it, she completely changed her turbo-speed, highly caffeinated, partying New York lifestyle to a slower, holistic California pace. Through healthy eating, relentless stress management, and learning what works for her body, Lee healed her adrenal fatigue and a slew of other low-level health problems that plague many of us with the help of Alisa Vitti's WomanCode, which taught her how to balance her hormones (and which was also recommended to me multiple times by my good friend Jami -- hi Jami!).

Here are the things I love most about Lee from America and think you will love too:

• Her instastories. They are SO positive and upbeat, it's infectious. And her home and lifestyle look so cozy, but not in a fakestagram way. She discusses it when she isn't feeling well and how she's taking care of herself.
• The way she honors her body. She has really inspired me to listen to my body more diligently. As you know, listening to and even just figuring out what my body needs has been a REAL journey for me. As you also know, I love working out, and I love working out HARD. Lee was like that too, and reading about how she has incorporated more balance into her routine has made letting go of the extreme workouts a little less scary for me.
• THE RECIPES. As you can see, this post is decorated with smoothies I've made inspired by her recipes. If you're like me, you can sometimes get into a smoothie rut and make the same thing over and over. Adapting her recipes has helped me add new and nutritious, antiinflammatory, hormone-balancing foods into my diet.
• She's not a know-it-all. A lot of wellness bloggers present their choices and opinions as facts. Lee regularly points out that every body is different and you need to find out what works for you.

A coffee-less cacao coffee smoothie, also inspired by Lee!

If this sounds like you would enjoy, again, I highly recommend her Instagram, especially if you're hooked on the 'gram like me. And here are some of my favorite posts of hers to start with:

• Cycle Syncing: After two surgeries and one stint with menopause to manage my endometriosis, I am looking for ways to manage it holistically so that it never becomes surgery-worthy again. This post is SO informative about what's happening throughout your entire cycle, not just during your period, and everything Lee recommends is very in-line with what my acupuncturist has been saying to me for years.
• All of these smoothie posts: BECAUSE SMOOTHIES!
• Adrenal Fatigue: My Story: After reading through this post, I am pretty certain I've gone through bouts of adrenal fatigue myself, and it's no surprise, given that I am a pretty high-strung, type A overachiever. I know stress is bad for my body; everyone knows that. But this post taught me more about what prolonged stress is physically doing to you and how to heal that.
• All About Adaptogens: Y'all, I am officially on the adaptogen bandwagon, doge help my wallet.
• Lee from America's Grocery List + Tips: If you're making a big lifestyle change in how you eat, something like this is SO SO SO friggin' helpful, and this post inspired me to get my ass out of bed on Sundays and get to the farmer's market under the JFX.

So thank you, Lee, for helping me through what has been a sometimes overwhelming lifestyle change. Watching Lee on Insta and throughout her blog has made me feel like I am taking my lemon body on an exciting adventure.

Who are your favorite wellness bloggers?

xo,
S

Meditation for Monkey Minds

For one reason or another, there is a high concentration of type A control freaks among my friends (myself included). When I've talked with various individual friends about meditation, the responses are all generally the same.

"I'm not good at it."

"I can't clear my thoughts."

"I can't do it; it's just not for me."

After saying and thinking similar things myself, I've come to the conclusion that pretty much everyone feels this way. Meditation is HARD, not just for people who are high-strung. What I've come to understand though is that meditation isn't about turning your brain off; it's about practicing focusing it.

When I first started seeing a therapist several years ago, she recommended meditation. She taught me visualization exercises, but I didn't really feel like it was working for me. I got more out of cognitive behavioral thought logs than I did out of meditation, which felt passive to me, not active. I needed to be DOING something. 

A few years ago, however, I read Dan Harris's 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works -- A True Story. 

Aside from the extremely promising title, I already knew I enjoyed Dan Harris. Because one of my college friends works for "Good Morning America," I made a habit of tuning in while I got ready for work in the mornings. Harris was on it, and I always enjoyed his quippy-ness AND his segments on his cats.

So I decided to give it a read and found myself sold on meditation. Aside from the fact that the book itself was just a pleasurable, easy read, Harris presented scientific evidence about the benefits of meditation. His writing helped me understand that meditation *is* active. Rather than trying to clear one's thoughts, it's about practicing not following your thoughts and instead returning to a point of focus, whether it's your breath, the sounds around you, or how you feel sitting in your chair. I recently heard him on a podcast saying every time you return to your point of focus, it's a bicep curl for your brain.

Although I'm not *quite* a JewBu like many of the scholars Harris cites in his book, on his recommendation, I started reading more about some of the tenets of Buddhism and began to practice experiencing the world around me without attaching emotions to it or labeling events as "good" or "bad."

Also on Harris's recommendation, I downloaded Insight Timer and started trying to meditate every morning. For a while, I was consistent, bookmarking some of my favorite guided meditations for getting up in the morning.

I'd practice meditation sitting up in bed (not ideal). "Why is this not ideal?" you might ask. Isn't meditation ultimately about fostering a sense of calm? What could be more calming than bed?

Uh, exactly. 

Soon, I was practicing propped up in bed. Then, I was practicing flat on my back. Eventually, as you might have guessed, I was not practicing at all. I was instead sleeping through the guided tracks, which by this point, I knew by heart and was barely paying attention to.

This is why bed is not ideal.

Eventually, I more or less gave up on meditation. There was no moment at which I made a conscious decision to not do it or anything like that. It just stopped happening regularly without me really noticing.

---

Last summer I had my second surgery for endometriosis with a specialist in New York City who taught me more than I ever knew about the disease. She also recommended I take six weeks off from working out after the surgery. She said I could walk as much as I wanted, but that was it.

"How about four weeks?" I asked, as if I was haggling with one of the street vendors a few blocks over who sells knockoff designer purses.

She wasn't playing along.

When I told her I felt like exercise really had a positive, NECESSARY impact on my mental wellbeing, she suggested meditation, specifically the Headspace app. I brushed it off.

But after my workout routine was interrupted again in December, this time to have half of my thyroid removed, I finally recognized that I needed to find a way to get zen without exercise, which was not always going to be available to me because that's just the way life is. Sometimes you can work out, and sometimes you can't, and adaptability is just as important in stress reduction as physical wellbeing.

Before my thyroid surgery, I didn't know if I had cancer or not. Two biopsies came back inconclusive. The idea of going through surgery again was repellant to me on many levels. I felt like I couldn't face the anxiety surrounding anesthesia again, the postop drugs again, the recovery pain again. I had a lot of fear and a LOT of stress.

I had a particularly painful period during that cycle. Fresh waves of anxiety washed over me when I thought about how maybe the second endo surgery didn't work, and I'd need another...and another...just to have a few months of relief at a time. I went to acupuncture and cried. I went to physical therapy and cried. I went to therapy and cried.

I called my surgeon and told her what was going on. She felt strongly that this particular cycle had been affected by the extreme stress I was feeling and recommended meditation again. For people with chronic pain, the central nervous system is always lit up, leading to a kind of internal fatigue. Meditation, she said, can help soothe the nervous system, which in turn eases the pain. According to Harris, science shows that meditation actually changes your brain.

So when my best friend alerted me to the fact that Headspace was having a sale for the new year, I didn't even bother trying the free version. I just snapped up the whole shebang, and I have to tell you guys, I'm really glad I did.

For me, Headspace has been easier to stick to than Insight Timer, because while Insight Timer had some great meditation, Headspace offers meditation "packs" that progress, helping you build the skill of meditating. 

I started with the basics, a set of three packs with 10 sessions each. I think I will return to them at some point and redo them. I felt great while I was doing them. I noticed myself being more present. When I was visiting my boyfriend in Florida, I had multiple moments of simply appreciating being with him and thinking about how much I love him rather than thinking about all kinds of other shit, like what I'd have to do when I got home, what was going on at work, or what we were going to eat that night. 

Adorable!

Since then, I've completed the packs on pain management, sleep, and prioritization. I'm currently working my way through the stress pack. Perhaps managing anxiety is next?

I've also made use of the singles -- burned out, feeling overwhelmed, losing your temper, in pain, falling back to sleep. Many of these are only three minutes, but the reset has been so helpful.

Also, the illustrations that help depict meditation principles are freaking delightful. The explanations of concepts have refreshed me on what I originally learned in 10% Happier, and the suggestions on applications throughout the day have made me feel like it is more of the "active" process that I need to stay motivated.

The other thing that has helped me stick to meditating at least once a day this year has been tracking it as a habit in my bullet journal (more on that in another post to come).

I can't say I always feel "successful" when I do it. Sometimes a whole 10 minutes has passed and I realize I didn't think about my breath once, just about the day's to-do list ahead of me. But forgiving myself for not being perfect is also something I'm working on, so that makes meditation great for me on two levels -- 1) as a way to train my brain to be present, and 2) as a way to train the inner voice in my head to stop being such a bitch to me.

Do you meditate? Have you used Headspace or Insight Timer? Come tell me about it!

xo,
S