I like this guy.
I first heard him speak at LOSCON last November and I couldn’t take notes fast enough. He may not be saying anything new, in any way that is extra special. It may just be I was ready to hear it. In any case, he has some great, solid charisma that spoke to both me as a person and me as a writer. Of course it helps his niche is motivating writers!
So I checked out his website LifeWrite and saw that he had a blog. I love reading a good blog so I went there, liked the first one, immediately had to give my 2 cents, adding a long-winded comment (hey its ME here.. when have I NOT added to the conversation!).
Then, because I like to read things as they developed I went to his first blog and read that. Hee hee.. It was on meditation. And it could have been written exactly for me. I don’t like meditation. It’s always felt like a useless waste of time. I either fall asleep or get WAY too in-tuned to that inner nag. And the funny thing was that’s EXACTLY what Stephen said would happen when you’ve got a lot of emotional heart work to do. And he said you got to keep at it for 20 minutes of calmly trying to hear your heart beat before you might get past all that and hear it.
So. Since I respect this man I thought about trying it. My first thought was WHEN. When will I have 20 minutes to meditate on my heart beat? Hmmmm… I could get up 20 minutes early in the morning and try it then. But since that would be 4:50 am the chance I’d end up asleep was pretty high! On the other hand the chance of ending up in a trance was also high and maybe I could get to the heart beat hearing faster. The economical me likes that idea.
But I realized I was putting it off for tomorrow and that’s what he says the inner 6 year old does when she doesn’t want to do something. Hmmm… so I decided to do it right then. But wait, WHERE should I do it? Where can I go for 20 minutes of uninterrupted time, at home on a Sunday?
It was at that point I began to giggle. The Closet? It was the only place I could think of where I’d be away from as much noise as possible and it would take the kids at least 20 minutes to find me! But the closet? What the hell, why not. I spend so much time announcing my differences to the world it would be quite a change to GO into the closet instead of out of it!
Update
Okay.. I’m proud I did what I said I would. And it wasn’t as hard as I imagined. The little nagging pains were easily ignored once I stopped moving to try and relieve the pain. And the random thoughts of distraction were more amusing than really distracting. Once I quieted my breathing and ignored the muffled outside noise I think I did pretty well in hearing my heart beat.
Because I did eventually hear it. I heard it in the rhythmic white noise hum in my ears. And I felt it in the gentle reverberations in my chest. (Probably because I cheated and leaned against a box in the closet!)
And just as I was trying to deepen my perceptions I heard the front door slam closed. Then the fast pounding of kid stomps up the stairs and someone trying the locked knob of my bedroom door. Followed quickly by, “Mom, you in there!?”
Wow.. less than 10 minutes. A new kid record of interruption. I swear they’re psychic!
Maybe I’ll try again Monday. (Can you put your inner 6 year old in a time-out?)