I should meditate

I should. As a "religious professional" (the term sounds very stuffy to me, but it's the phrase), I know it's important for me to actually have my own spiritual practice. The spiritual practice that I've been cultivating for the last couple years (ever since Religious Educators Leadership School convinced me of the importance of one) has been a personal yoga practice. I find yoga very healing for the issues I still have with my body - how it looks, what it can do, what it can't do. I know that as I age I'll continue to have issues with my body and how it changes, and I think yoga will continue to feel healing. Some say that yoga means "to yoke", as in to connect the body and the mind, or the body and the soul.

But a yoga practice is still a body practice. I'm doing something.

Where I run into a wall is when I can't do anything. I can't just sit. I multi task all the time. I have trouble going to sleep because my mind keeps going. I feel a low level of anxiety most of the time, and rarely manage to sink into that state of flow where I am truly just present to the moment at hand.

So I should meditate.

I've started working with a new chiropractor for my neck pain and headaches, and I'm trying some traction to adjust my posture and what not. Traction means you get strapped to a weight and bent into a kind of uncomfortable position and then you just have to sit there, staring at a little timer that shows how much longer you have to go for this session.

What a perfect time to practice meditation! That was the thought that went through my head for the whole six minutes I was in traction today (I know, six minutes, big whoop - why can't she just sit still and do nothing for six minutes?). I kept thinking "I should be meditating. I should be meditating. Oh look, there's only five minutes left. I probably should be meditating for those five minutes. Why can't I hold a book over my head right now and read? Stupid traction. I should really try to meditate. This is boring. This is uncomfortable. I know - I should try meditating. I can't do it. What will I do when they work me up to more time? They said they'd go up to twenty minutes. I can't spend twenty minutes doing nothing. Oh, I know - I should be meditating!"

Maybe I will. Either way, I know that this whole traction experience is going to "stretch me", in more ways than one!