March Meditations

March 6 is the first day I started meditating officially as part of my monthly project (I’ve tried to meditate on and off for the past month). A little late yes, yet I figured now is still a great time to start after spending the actual first week in Iceland.

The First Week (trying out MeditateBot for a bit…)

• 3/6: 10 minutes on Breathing by Peter Morgan. A bit strange starting out the meditation with slightly ear clashing bells, and with no music. I’m much more used to the Calm app so this was definitely different. I had trouble concentrating but also liked the sensation of quietness. I wonder who I will get for this breathing exercise tomorrow.
• 3/7: 4 minutes on Body Scan. Originally, I wanted to do another breathing meditation, however when it took me back to yesterday’s, I decided to try out another one. I was surprised that the time duration was only available as two choices: 4 minutes and 20 minutes. It would’ve been nice if there was something in between, like a 10–15 minute one, following a similar format to the breathing meditation. I found myself relaxing more now, however, still not used to the voice and lack of calm music in the background. Hoping to try out the 20 minute one when I have more time / not running late to work.
• 3/8: 20 minutes on Body Scan. This longer version was narrated by someone at UC Berkeley. I like how detailed the scan was, and have started to think deeper about all the different ways I can be more present, from noticing the pressure between my body and the flat surface underneath me, to focusing solely on one side of my body in one specific area, i.e. toes for a certain amount of time. Interesting note: I notice that the vocabulary words like intention and presentness is reflective of the language of people I really enjoy sharing time with these days.
• 3/9: 10 minutes on Control. Oh Calm, how I’ve missed you. The warm voice, sounds of birds chirping, feeling of ease from flowing water sounds in the background. It was nice to come back to Calm again after trying MeditateBot and now knowing better what kind of meditations work best for me. Planning to download and try Buddhify tomorrow. Excited in anticipation ~.
• 3/10: Oops. I was in the middle of Calm meditations when remembered that I was supposed to try out Buddhify today. I didn’t realize it was $4.99 and didn’t have time to get my credit card before running off to work. Upon first glance on Buddhify, it looked pretty cool and thorough; the colors looked like Wheel of Life. Concept is slightly different: it accounts for the various situations you are in for the day and adjusts the meditation accordingly.
• 3/11: didn’t meditate :(
• 3/12: didn’t meditate :(
• 3/13: I didn’t realize how difficult meditating on the weekends would be. I still got up around the same time but I wasn’t as disciplined as during the week, choosing to focus on other activities like hiking, etc. 10 minutes seem like such a short amount of time, I realized that even times like that, I have to make time for it or it’ll just slip by. To make up for it, I did a lot more research this morning. Checked out a couple of popular YT channels (jbittersweet, heartfulness) and snippets of Buddhify audio to see how it would be, and found that either the voice was distracting, or they didn’t have music in the background or the guidance didn’t feel natural. With the past week experimenting, I’ve found what works for me and what doesn’t, and realize that I’ve really grown really fond of the Calm app.

The Second Week

• 3/14: In love with Calm. I did the resilience session today — such a great feeling of the sunshine filtering in, and the voice with birds chirping in the background. It’s a wonderful way to wake up (similar to sleeping to and waking up to the sound of waves). After almost daily reflections of meditating for the past week, I think it was a great form of accountability. Moving forward, I’ll include the screenshots of me meditating, and write weekly check-ins.

The Third Week

• 3/17: I realized that I can’t check messages or social media before meditating. Even though I was only online for 5 minutes, my mind went crazy when I tried to do the body scan meditation afterwards. I couldn’t focus at all — it kept on thinking about the Instagram picture of Iceland (one of many) that I wanted to post. I felt so powerless. Since I know the strength of my mind (or lack thereof), next time, I’ll eliminate the field of possible distractions by doing Calm first and everything else after that.

The Fourth Week

• 3/27: As the month nears to an end, I decided to try out the Calm Light meditation, a meditation with light guiding at the beginning and end, with mostly silence to myself. I was really surprised by when I peeked my eyes open due to distraction, and saw that the timing was 0:37! Before 10 minutes felt like an insurmountable hour, and now it has passed by effortlessly. Super happy that I’m able to train my brain muscles to this extent.
• 3/31: End of the month, although technically 6 more days until the 30 days is up. I feel that I’ve successfully incorporated meditation into my morning routine and enjoy this new habit a lot!

Here’s my overall stats:

*still working on the weekends part ;)