Day 1 - 100 Day Meditation Challenge

Happy new year!

As part of my self-improvement for 2013 I decided to try meditating, and what better way to do so then to challenge myself to a 100 day stretch with some strangers over the internet. I’m joined up with some other meditators via Google Groups 100 Day Meditation Challenge.

I’ve had a few false start meditation plans before that generally resulted in twice a week attempts for a week or two in a row but it always falls off. I think that with this regiment and taking it slow I can really finally escape the rut.

Without further ado:

Day 1

Length: 10 minutes (timed)
Start: 8:50am
Experience:

I wake up and before I’m really completely together I grab a pillow and place it in front of a window in my girlfriend’s apartment. I’d prefer to meditate here because it’s quieter but I don’t live here so I want to make the most of a nice start. My mind is turbulent. Small sounds distract me. I try to remember the things I learned from reading about Vipassana meditation in Mindfulness in Plain English.

I hear my girlfriend moving inside and wonder if she’ll come out, how I’ll handle it if she wants to talk, and recognize fleetingly that I should be trying to understand why I’m preparing for a thing that hasn’t happened. I think about writing this, and wonder if anyone will be interested, then try to forget it again. I don’t remember having this much of an issue when attempting meditation in the past, but now I’m wondering if I was just ignoring the stream of thoughts that I’m tapped into now.

It’s never ending, thoughts of selfishness, pride, curiosity, worry, it’s all connected in this web. I return repeatedly to the feeling of my breath coming in and going out of my nose. It feels like a crescent on my left nostril, and helps me picture a moon. That keeps me occupied and is one of the few moments throughout the experience that I’m not busy concerning myself with things I don’t need to be thinking about.

Closing thoughts: The morning is a good time to aim for because it gives me ‘make up time’ if I miss it. I’m not really as peaceful as I thought. At least I can see it all and become more aware of it.