Just a little anxious

I’ve been trying to meditate a bit more.

I am a little anxious, and meditation calms me. It helps me not to fly off in six directions at once. “What have you forgotten to do?!” anxiety is always screaming at me, and since I’ve obviously forgotten it, I never have a good answer. Except meditation. Meditation is a good answer.

Meditation says, “Oh! Look at that. It’s an anxious thought.” Anxiety does not appreciate this, being relegated to a mere emotion, transitory and (let’s face it) not terribly important. It can’t really work itself into a full-blown panic with that kind of attitude.

So anxiety sulks off and –more often than not – joy takes root in its place.

That is the short answer as to why I’ve been marching off every week to the Episcopal church to sit in their chapel for an hour, looking at candles and stained-glass windows and the inside of my brain.

I tried another meditation group that meets on another night. This one involved some chanting of religious text and a bit of meditation and then something that I’m sure has another name but I call “very slow walking.”

I honestly cannot think of anything less relaxing than walking much, much too slowly in a circle with other people who are also walking much too slowly, trying not to step on the heels of the person in front of me. It’s kind of tortuous.

These folks were all good at it, however, except for one older man, who apparently thought we were moving too slowly even for very slow walking, and passed each of us (on the right) as we went around the circle. Having this human equivalent of a red convertible screaming up behind me, passing and then zooming on to pass the next person was even more nerve-wracking than just slow walking. I was waiting for a collision to occur at the next turn.

Afterward, we all chatted about what was on our minds, and I discovered these people were all very kind and terribly serious. I don’t think I’ve ever been so serious in all my life. I felt rather shallow. They asked what was on my mind, and all I could think to say was that the room we were meeting in looked like a speakeasy, and they all laughed, and I realized that was the first time anyone had laughed in an hour and a half – which is a very long time to go without a laugh for me.

So I probably do not belong in the slow-walking group, as nice as they are. But I will keep going to the silent meditation. The door to the sanctuary is left open a little, and I love the cool air wafting into the chapel. It smells like every old church I’ve ever been in, and I could not possibly tell you what that smell is – but it is calming.

I know that I could do this in my own home, and I am determined to try. At home, I listen to guided meditations, but after a while, those start to make me anxious as well. I start to wonder who the person who made the recording was, and who they had in mind when they made it. I worry, because it sounds as if they think whoever is listening really does not have their act together. I feel the need to reassure them. I want to say, “Hey! I’m not doing that badly!”

Because I’m not, most of the time. I’m just a little anxious.

Till next time,

Carrie