I am having a horrible day at work. I am tired and my neck is sore, and my students are resistant, and my computer won’t work right. I am feeling anxious, which for me means nausea and light-headedness. I am nervous. I need to reset myself. I need to find my happy place. So, on this day, I take my 30 minute lunch out on a large boulder in the soccer field. It is a gorgeous day; sunny and warm. I bring my earbuds with me, and play some of my favorite meditation music. The stone is smooth and warm under me, the trees are swaying with the breeze, light and fluffy clouds are moving slowly across the bright blue sky, and the sun pleasantly heats my face and arms. I slip off my shoes and place my bare soles on the gravel, grounding myself as I lift my face to the sun, closing my eyes and taking a long, slow breath.
I am aware that there is a road right behind me, and that traffic is passing. I smell the paint and chemicals from the maintenance workers who are working in the parking lot. There are students out on the football field laughing and talking, and a mere twenty feet away, there is a large brick building where I will have to return to work for the rest of my afternoon. But right now, I let all of those sounds, smells, and thoughts fall away behind me. They do not disappear, but I do not wrestle with them. This is not a shoving down of thoughts and feelings. It is simply a letting go. I choose to shift my main focus to my breathing, to the music in my ears, to the feeling of the warm sun on my skin.
When my mind wanders, or my ears hear a sudden noise, or my awareness shifts in a direction I do not wish to go, I gently say “no” to myself, and I once again lay those distractions aside for later. Right now I am breathing. Imagine the sounds and thoughts and feelings that distract you as you would a kitten scratching at your legs, trying to get your attention. You would not kick the kitten or scream at the kitten. You might gently nudge it aside with your foot and say “not right now, darling. I’m busy, but I’ll pick you back up in a little while.” And you return to your breath. Being distracted during meditation is not a failure; it is a natural reaction for your mind and body to pay attention to the things happening around it. If you continue to practice gentle redirection, however, you will eventually become more skilled at laying aside distracting thoughts and feelings, and slipping into your quiet place will feel more natural. You will come by your happiness easier, and be able to stay there longer.
Right now you may be thinking that there aren’t any warm rocks, or fields, or swaying trees nearby. You work in a skyscraper and it’s snowing outside. Your lunch hour isn’t long enough, you work third shift in a noisy factory, you are never alone… the list of reasons why you can’t is a thousand miles long. But have you made a commitment to find happiness? Don’t let yourself down. Find a corner. Find a minute. Find a way to hide in plain view – put a large, potted plant on your desk and gaze at it while you practice your meditation for five minutes each morning when you arrive at work.
Another great strategy is REMEMBERING. I was at a staff meeting one afternoon recently, and I was feeling very anxious. My staff meetings are often contentious, with colleagues arguing different positions, and these meeting also often result in changes and responsibilities passed down from administration, which is always stressful. These meetings take place in a conference room at the end of a long work day, in the middle of the week. Over the years, I have identified these meetings as triggers for me, and I do my best to remain calm both during and after them, but I am not always successful. At this particular meeting, my neck was very sore, and I was worried that I was having a muscle spasm or was out of alignment (this is not a new things for me). I was distracted by the pain, and annoyed at coworkers who were taking up the meeting time with personal and individual problems rather than sticking to the agenda (this is also not new). But I had a memory.
A few nights before, my husband and daughter and I had gone down to the lake near our house after dinner. I did yoga on a blanket in the grass while I watched my family fish. There was a spectacular sunset that night, and we had timed it just right. The sky was a blaze of orange and hot pink, fading into deep blue and purple, and reflected on the secluded water, which was like glass nestled in to the massive pine trees along the shoreline. We were the only ones there, with just the sounds of the swallows zipping around in the twilight, huge dragonflies making lazy circles over the water, and the night creatures coming awake in the shadows of the forest behind us. My daughter clambered around on the hill, wearing a furry, one-piece Pikachu costume, the floppy ears standing out in silhouette against the quickly fading light. Suddenly, she stopped short on a dirt track that led down the hill, peered down at her feet and yelled, “baby turtles!”
Upon inspection, we discovered that the hillside next to the water was crawling with quarter-sized baby snapping turtles. They were hatching out of their underground nests, and then completing their awkward, flapping crawl down the hill into the water, following the reflection of the moonlight on the water to guide their way. There were dozens of them, maybe a hundred. We found the nest, and were able to shine a light in and see the hatchlings emerging from the eggs and crawling all over one another in their quest to leave the ground. Some of them got confused and tried to head in the wrong direction, which put them on the tar road, so we carefully picked them up and set them gently on the right path to the water, where they joined their brothers and sisters. We spent the next hour laughing and sighing in awe at them, scrambling our way up and down the hillside, protecting them and guiding them in the moonlight, and then we stumbled home late to our beds, where we slept in a cocoon created by the night time magic we had wrapped ourselves in that evening.
I use this memory often when I need to access happiness. Sometimes during stressful meetings, I even doodle a little turtle on my notes, a visual reminder to return to that place in my mind when I need to. There are times in our lives when we are required to be around unhappy people, in unhappy places, and under unhappy circumstances. We don’t always have the option of removing ourselves from negativity. It exists and it is also a part of this world. But if you must go into battle, then at least bring a weapon with you, right? Find a memory that brings you joy. Think about a place or a time that was pure magic, when the stars aligned just right and you were filled with light; even if only for a brief time. Write it down, in detail, to help bring it to life. Cement it in your brain. And then, when you are in a bad place, you can easily pull up that memory and relive it in your imagination. Just close your eyes for a moment (or, in my case, let them glaze over while you pretend to be paying attention), and picture that joy.
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