Meditation is becoming a job. And I don’t mean that in the “I’m so good at this, it could be my job” kind of way. Unfortunately, I mean it in the negative sense –it’s becoming a job that I don’t want to do. Meditating has become a “to-do” that I always want to put off (a lot like the gym), and I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually have put it off a few days here and there in the past week. I signed a pledge that said I would meditate for 28 days, and I feel really guilty that I’ve slacked. However, I’ve decided not to berate myself for it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it’s not to judge myself for having a certain feeling or emotion. 

That’s the theme of this week’s chapter in Real Happiness: meditating on emotions. When I first read about this I thought, “this is going to be easy”. That’s because I grew up with psychoanalytical parents who would say things like “it’s okay to have your feelings” on a weekly basis. (I know, pretty deep.) So I’ve gone through life being pretty in touch with anger, sadness, jealousy, etc. I was curious to see how this week’s meditation would go. Would it be a bore to me? Do I “know it” already?

So far I’ve tried meditating on my emotions twice, and both times have gone well. Whenever a thought interrupts the silence of my breath, I see what emotion it’s attached to, and then I name it. Naming it really helps, because it stops my brain from running on the tangent its bound to take off on. I’m a bit annoyed that most of the naming sounds like this: frustrated, frustrated, frustrated…bored, bored, bored…impatient, impatient, impatient…but wait, I just caught myself, I better name it…annoyed annoyed annoyed. I should probably just be with that emotion for a little while…