Meditation
A couple days ago, I was having a bout. Not a final bout, but a battle within my very soul. It was something that’s needed to happen for far too long: a change in routine.
It was a Tuesday, and I woke up feeling bleak.
Just another day to look outside and wonder: Will I create something good today? So, by thinking that, I ended up doing the proverbially “tossing and turning”. I accomplished nothing, aside from going to Home Depot to buy a utility knife that I didn’t need and picking up some groceries at Whole Foods (re-upping on food is always a win).
I watched Into The Abyss (2011), a Werner Herzog documentary on capital punishment but shown through a less biased, compassionate lens. While I had my qualms with its focusing on white inmates as opposed to the millions of POC inmates wrongfully incarcerated (aka AmeriKKKa and The New Jim Crow), the film did absolutely zero to help me with what I was going through emotionally. Its austere, yet heartfelt, look at prisoners serving life sentences or on death row left a feeling of pain and emptiness. So, then, I tried to meditate because it was all I could do.
It didn’t really work.
Which is fine.
I still needed some convincing.
I willfully skirted through another 4 days of monotony and unhappiness. I kept telling myself I was depressed, that I was a slave to my anxiety, so I became those things. A 27-year-old man wearing nothing but a sack of sorrows and drinking from a half-empty forty ounce. The screens kept me distracted, and I let them keep me that way. Wasting time on Mario+Rabbids was alright, because I continued telling myself things were how they were. Not that they could be changed.I need the room to myself to create. I need silence to read. I have to be alone to record vocals. Therefore, I avoided the things that provided me with energy because I wasn’t changing anything. Yet.
Enter next week, a fateful Monday. A time typically full of “bleh” and too much coffee. My partner needed to drop a package to the Amazon Books store. I decided to go along because that store is pretty fucking cool. It’s Amazon but like not online.
My partner works for an unreliable gig-job which means she has about a 30 minute window to take an order before losing out on those sweet, sweet monies. After dropping the package to the Amazon clerk, I asked for just one minute to take a look at something. The book You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero peaked out to me, as if a lifeless object was attempting eye contact.
“You need this,” the book whispered.
Shut up, capitalism!
“Seriously, you do,” it barely uttered.
I nodded and picked it up. Something about Badass called me (other than that weird voice I heard in the back of my head). I checked out (no cash, no card, all through an APP) and left, no questions.
Smiling, clutching my new book, we walked to the car. Part of me was still thinking this self-help bullshit was just that: bullshit. However, later that day, I devoured half of the book. It was chock full of excellent advice for a desperate, restless creative like myself.
No longer would I be a victim to my “depression” and my life-framing. The past left behind, a better past found whilst being present.
Two days after reading 50 more pages, I’m three quarters of the way done. My openness is increasing and my fear easier to grapple. The universe is becoming louder, its calls widening my waterfall of creativity. Less resistance, more responsibility.
Falling prey to circumstances is easy.
You can change, even if it seems impossible.
Think the way you want your life to be.
The meditation helps loosen those gears and oil the wheel. With those tools, you still have to continue turning and do what you do. Resisting what you love happens far too often. Embrace the difficulty. If it’s hard that means you love doing it more than anything else.
Write.
Paint.
Take photos.
Record an awesome conversation. Put it on iTunes.
Make a new screen. Print a shirt.
Call your grandma.
Listen to yourself.
Often, answers are buried under shame, guilt and fear.
Abolish those things. Live freely.
Meditate on that. Rinse and repeat.
In considering all things, the crucial point to take away from this is changing your narrative. In spending critical thought on how to change my life, it was instrumental that I change how I spend my time and what I spend it on. From meditating on that, literally, and taking the physical steps to change it, the universe has helped to provide what I truly want. Finishing an amazing new song demo, writing a new blog post, and a wealth of creativity that’s always been there, but that I’ve just never let myself be readily available to. All this, over the course of two days. Imagine what two years looks like.
Change your narrative and life gracefully unfolds in front of you.
-J
Jake Curtis publishes more exclusive content on his website and personal blog, friendsallday.com. Be sure to check the link in his bio for more information, personal insight and creativity-oriented content.
