Meditation

I know meditation is supposed to to be good for a person. And over the years I've tried. I've failed.

When I am suppose to be relaxing my muscles, they got tighter and tighter and tingly but not in a good way.

I tried to quiet my mind and the more I tried to clear it, the more things I thought about that I needed to do, wanted to do, tumbled through my head until I felt as if I would explode if I didn't stop and start doing at least one of them. As soon as I stopped, I feel my entire body relax, my breathing returned to normal.

There was a period when I said I was going to try meditation every day for a whole month. I even reviewed what was necessary by reading a book and watching a CD-Rom. In the morning, I set up a spot and made sure all was ready when I came home from work, the time I chose to meditate each day so I wouldn't be under any preparation pressure.

The first week, the reaction I described above happened. By the second week, I was searching for reasons not to go home to meditate. I even debated going shopping, and anyone who knows me, knows that I put shopping right up there with going to the dentist for fillings without Novocaine. 

Yes, I can relax. A walk where I can observe little details can totally absorb me. I can examine the veins in a flower petal and feel total happiness. But to sit down and formerly meditate, I will chock that up to something I will never be able to do along with swimming and reading James Joyce's Ulysses.

I can live with the failure.