Okay, okay, I get the
message!!
Here’s the nutshell.
Meditation is said to be good, right? I mean, we’ve all read/heard it a million
times. And if you’re anything like me, you might be all, “Yeah, oh, I wish I
could do it, but well, I have all these other things to do!” or, “I’ve tried it
a couple of times, and well, I, you know, SUCK at keeping my mind quiet and
focused!” I don’t need to go into further detail on the meditation thing,
right? We’re same-paging it, I’m sure.
Which brings me to the Michael Phelps article (click on the link to read the article). Turns out that—aside from the genetically perfect
swimmer’s DNA from which he’s made—he has a dedicated training program that
focuses on, well, focus! He meditates on his swims, going over them in minute
detail in his head, rehearsing them from the moment he arrives at the aquatic
centre to what he’ll be listening to on his ipod to how he’ll hit the water to
how his strokes will feel to the final reaching touch of the wall, over and
over, until he can literally do them with his eyes shut (turns out he needed
that skill—his goggles were leaking during one of his races: he closed his eyes,
he swam like he’d rehearsed it, he won—not only the gold medal, but a World
Record!) What really intrigued me about this article was the idea that in each
of these thousands of imagined races, he, of course, won every one. So his days
were filled with what they call “small wins”. These small wins have all the
same positive effects on his psyche that come with an actual gold medal win,
and these effects in turn feed his ability. It’s small-win/big-win—and it’s all
thanks to uninterrupted focus.
And then last night, there
was my drive-home convo with the teacher. Focus came up once again! I don’t
remember how we actually got into it, but let’s assume we were trying to
address my vague grasp on the stuff he’s teaching. Anyway, he pointed out that
our minds want to take us in a million different directions ALL THE TIME and
that this is not only exhausting but counter-productive. And that this
mind-habit of ours is so engrained and “normal” that we don’t even realize we
do it. He brought up an athletic comparison, as well. In his case it was the
golfer: what’s the difference between an Average Joe golfer and a powerhouse
star? Well, the powerhouse doesn’t let his mind waver for even a millisecond
from the moment he raises his club through to contact with the ball through to the
after-swing. The rest of us? Waver waver waver. Our brains divert for tiny
little fractions of a second, not once but many times—and so we lose our focus
and the shot is compromised.
And what’s more? All this
mind-wandering, all this lack of focus, is exhausting!!!
We become depleted and drained
by the meaningless world travels of our mind. (One other real-life reminder of
this for me: my inability to write last week, remember?) Okay, in all of our
defenses, of course not every mind-ramble is “meaningless”, many will lead to
interesting thoughts or ideas, but it’s amazing how often they are
counter-productive.
And maybe if we train
ourselves to focus, a little bit at a time, we might be able to tap into that
extraordinary energy we otherwise dissipate as we contemplate the mundane, the
same-old, the inner-critic, the internal-bosses-of-us.
How? Well, back to square one
on the meditation thing. Meditation has got to be a training ground for focus,
right? But how about practicing focus when you’re doing something as simple as
(to my teacher’s example) washing the dishes. Try applying all your focus to
the task. Don’t let your mind wander. Or when you’re driving the car. Just look
at everything you see and focus completely on that. Or when you’re getting
ready for your day in the morning. Don’t think about the day ahead, just on how
it feels (and looks) to lather that soap and comb that hair and brush those
teeth.
If we can put ourselves in a
“state of focus” for even just small snippets of time, maybe, just maybe, we
will build up our focus muscles. And maybe, just maybe, our daily lives will be
filled with much-deserved and darling “small wins” about which we can feel really
truly pumped and which can take us to a whole other athletic level!
Deb: (trying hard not to blognap) I love this topic. It’s like you
were a fly on the wall in a family discussion we had last night about focus and
its many natural enemies. I adore the ideas you put forth here, Barb. And I am
going to start simple. Brush the teeth, focus on the teeth, etc etc.
I have been a meditator since I was in my early twenties. T.M. to
be exact. Shalaka and I actually had an online discussion about it. I loved meditation
and, although I know this is an overused phrase, it saved my life. It turned
things around for me at a tough and challenging time. The best part is, it was
gift of love from my cousin Scott, the cousin I mentioned in an earlier post who helped out my Mom and Dad through this last period of time.
I kept it up for years, loving it and then ... it slipped away. It
made a guest appearance during menopause and saved me again. I am getting the
messages loud and clear that I need to resume. I keep using excuses like, “I
don’t have two 20-minute periods a day to meditate.” Wrong. I do. I must find
the time.
