Still the mind
This morning I meditated for the first time in many months. It is a practice I have done on and off over the years, but I have never been consistent with it. Lately I have been busy with 3 or 4 different projects and have felt my tension and stress levels rising. So I decided to try to fit in a meditation session in the mornings, before checking any email or starting any work.
It is immediately obvious, as soon as you sit down and just breathe, that meditation helps relieve tension. Not just mental stress, but I could feel the connection between my mind and my body, and I could feel the tension slowly dissipating. There is still a lot left to go, but I feel that keeping a regular schedule of meditating will have lasting benefits, as long as I commit to doing it.
So why do I talk about meditation on an entrepreneurship blog? Because I aim to explore every facet of this journey, and stilling the mind, in whatever way works for you, is a key part of this. Like I mentioned before, I usually have multiple concurrent projects going on at the same time, and just being on top of all of them can be tough on the mind. Context switching takes a toll. This does reveal to me the fact that I should probably work on my scheduling of tasks—maybe I’ll address that in a future story—but step one is to quiet the mind.
There are many different varieties of meditation, and I am not an adherent to any particular school of it, but I think I have been most influenced by Vipassana, also known as mindfulness meditation. In this practice, you simply breathe in and out, aware of your thoughts, but letting them go. The object is to be in the moment. Thoughts will arise, and naturally your brain will want to latch onto them, but the object is to simply observe them as they come, and then let them move on, getting back to concentrating on your breathing as an anchor point. This allows one to notice their patterns of thinking, but also to start to break those patterns and achieve control of one’s thoughts over time.
Most people go through the world without any control of their thoughts. They are ruled by them. It is the rare person who can be present at all times and be deliberate in their thoughts and actions. A regular meditative practice can help you move closer to that goal.
I will try to continue this practice every weekday morning, before having my coffee, and before doing any work. This will be followed by writing a post for either this blog, or my other wine-focused blog—which I have been stalled on. This morning routine will help to center me and prepare me for the rest of the days work. The hope is that I will be able to attack the rest of the day more purposefully and avoid the loss of productivity that comes when I have too many things going on in my head at the same time.
For all people suffering from having too many things going on at once, I recommend you try the same thing. It may be just what you need to re-establish your focus.
