Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris

Author:Dan Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-12-26T05:00:00+00:00

This is the most over-the-top self-indulgent meditation I can think of. It’s about reveling in rest and taking care of yourself. Own it! You’re allowed to do this, by the way. Call it self-care, call it basic maintenance, call it escaping from Dan’s meditative gulag. Take fifteen minutes to do nothing on a porch, or go for a walk, or lie on the grass. You probably already have go-tos of your own here. This meditation is about being a bit more clear and intentional about it all.

Whatever you do, do not get into the trap of comparing yourself to some martyr partner/friend/relative. Everyone has a version of the badass Italian grandmother who raised twelve kids and eighteen grandkids, cleaned every home in the neighborhood, and made phenomenal pasta e fagioli, all while apparently never taking a break. These people make us look bad and are actually demons.

The point is, everyone has different capacities, and everyone has different capacities at different times. The more rested and healthy and supported you are, the more you have to give. This obviously goes up and down depending on many internal and external variables. One of the trickier aspects of being human is balancing the amount you need to give others with the amount you can afford to give yourself. Your body can help you make these decisions if you listen. But give yourself a break too—there are times when it’s going to be unbalanced. That’s just life. But we can be smart and make up for it where we can.

For those who imagine this is somehow a lesser practice, I know excellent meditation teachers who only teach rest. They teach you to find it while you sit, while you lie down—even while you walk. We think we know what rest is, but many of us have no idea. Rest is on a continuum. You think you’re resting, but then you realize you’re actually holding your breath, holding your body tense and quivering at the edge of your meditation cushion like you have a giant pickle up your ass. And so you sigh and let go, and your whole body drops. We learn in meditation that it’s possible to do this again and again and again. Each time we let go, our body seems to shed another layer of tension and gripping. They come peeling off us like ghosts, an exorcism for our secular age.

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