Days 5 and 6

Six months ago, I went on a 10 day meditation retreat. Days four and five are the hardest days for most people. At home, my days 5 and 6 were the hardest thus far. The first few days take off the top layers of conditioning. There is still so much left to delve into. Both days I fell into the portal. I am still optimistic and am noticing a difference in my life. The new job is also taking a mental toll. 

I have noticed I am more aware of myself. I can tell when I am getting anxious and can kind of talk myself out of it. I am also sensing myself eating slower, thinking slower, sensing a stillness about the world. It's been nice. 

Today is day four of meditation. Since I didn't write the other days, I can give a brief recount of days two and three.

Day two happened to fall on my first day working in an intense warehouse for Amazon.com. Needless to say, I was exhausted. The shift is twelve hours of high powered labor. After eating a modest dinner, I sat down on the couch to tune in. I sat in normal lotus position. It was a nice medi-sit. Being so sleepy, my concentration tapered off near the end. Regardless, I felt the portal open. I fell in the subconscious portal, in other words I took a nap. :)

Day three of meditation was my second day working for Amazon. However, my boyfriend and best friend had given me a pill of life to get through the day. Vyvance is a nice prescription drug for ADHD that does wonders for concentration. Work was orgasmic. Meditation was, too. I sat for an hour. Mind breaths. slow drips of reality sinking in and out of perception. It lingered throughout the day. I remembered when awareness was all there was. It felt the same. When the mind did  not stray. Into day four I took a bike ride and rode with ease. Nothing was there but me. Everything was there but me. Duality is so strange.

 Somewhere in adolescence, Buddhism had seeped into my addled teenage brain. It lingered in a dormant, threatening to surface sort of phase until I turned 21. My relationship had ended. I had eaten acid and tripped alone for 6 hours. Tripping on acid alone is sort of like falling into a wormhole of the infinite. In an attempt to catch myself from falling too deep, I started watching youtube videos. I found Adyashanti. For the first time in a long while, I felt a strong undercurrent of faith rising from inside of me. His words were a stream of effortless truth. Everything I had never known and everything I had always realized was flowing from the computer screen. The man was blowing my already blown mind with universal wisdom. fuck. What have I been doing with my time? A lot of drugs, a little working, mostly living that American dream, the one that is actually here, to remain unconscious. If I wanted to excuse myself, I would say it was because 5 years prior to watching those videos, I had underwent sexual abuse for around 8 months. I had learned to disassociate from reality. The last thing I wanted was to open my eyes and be present in my body. The disassociation defense mechanism grew so strongly that I didn't know how to come back anymore. I started taking anti depressants and going to counseling again. It helped, but I knew I was no where close to feeling how I should feel or how I used to feel, alive. I was known for being in touch with my feelings, mind, and body, for being a highly understanding person that understood herself. Confident without an awareness that it there was something called confidence or that some people lacked it. After the abuse, I had forgotten how to trust myself. I felt like it was my fault that it happened. Subconsciously I guilted myself into feeling it was my ineptitude as a human being that led to me being abused. It took over my life. I started to feel like there was nothing I could do right. At my job in a retail outlet, I signed up more customers for credit cards than any other employee. Internally, I still felt like I didn't know how to do my job. Two years later, I was still deceiving myself into believing I did not know how to live right. I had also forgotten how to read my feelings or feel empathy for myself or others after the PTSD. My next job I was the top sellswoman for a lawn care company. My boss revealed I was in the top ten doorknockers in the nation. Again, I felt inferior, despite the numbers. I was afraid to believe in myself. The subconscious damage was untouched. I left myself in an egoic bubble fearing to try. If I tried, I would surely fail. Without making an earnest effort to try, how would I know? This is the mind. You think it, it becomes reality. Your reality is inside you. You have to untap it. Nothing has helped my PTSD like meditation. You cannot let your subconscious fear override your instinct to live. Everyone has fears, but fear is an illusion. It is created in your head. Living without thought is wholesome living. Your thoughts will lead you astray; your heart will not. Meditation will realign you with your heart, your intuition. The next 21 days I want to meditate every day for at least 30 minutes and see the results. Today was the first day.

I went to the battlefield. I meditated on a rock. I listened to the grasshoppers and bugs. I felt my body sitting on the rock. I felt my mind fading in and out of the moment. I made a conscious effort to feel my body sitting in the hot sun. I spent the night with Steven the night before. I felt love thinking about us together. It helps to be present when you feel love. I sat for a little over 30 minutes. When I got up to walk around, I felt each step with greater clarity. My decisions were coming from somewhere other than the endless stream of thoughts that clutters up my brain. Things seemed a little more natural. I feel hope. It feels right.