Category Archives: meditation

Since my second baby was born I have had little time to myself and even less to meditate. I decided to take a class on meditation for mothers (which was really great by the way and I loved the space/place it was held at www.bloomretreat.com). It got me to notice the mind chatter that has been going non-stop, unchecked. Silly things, important things, all jumbled together in this non-stop dialogue. I sat with it for a few days and I realized I wasn’t really going to get more time to myself anytime soon so while five, ten, twenty minutes of quiet meditation time may or may not find it’s way into my day I had to come up with something simple and easy that I could do to open up some space in the chatter. There’s a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know? (www.whatthebleep.com) that I saw awhile back and in it there is a part about the connections in the mind that left me with this really neat visual of why I repeatedly have the same thoughts over and over again. I’ve literally wired my brain that way, an example of it is when you hear a song and it makes you think of a time in your life when you heard that song a lot, like Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy will always make me think of the summer before I got married. It’s just wired into my brain that way. Well, let’s just say the paths I’ve been wandering down lately were really getting old and boring and weren’t particularly serving me so I came up with this quick trick. Whenever, I notice that I’m having a thought that doesn’t serve me, makes me feel bad, sad, mad or puts me in a funk, I check it by silently saying to myself, “redirect”. It seems silly but it really works. It’s not that I’m turned off to those things but I don’t allow myself so much time on that path and by practicing this technique of redirecting my thinking, I am in a generally better, brighter, and more productive mood. This is what I used to get from meditation that I’ve been missing so much. It’s a more active meditation. I know I am not my thoughts, but having a way to check them, and consciously choose new ones, by hitting the “redirect” button, is giving me a boost. I shared this with my girlfriend, and she texted me all week that “redirect” was working for her too. Try it and see what you think!