Last week I woke up thinking about Donald J. Trump. That is not a good thing. So I decided to put into place a practice of Trumpless Tuesdays. I am going to take one day out of the week to not focus any energy on the circus that is the Donald J. Trump presidency. It went pretty well. Today is week two.
I am very engaged politically, maybe too much so. I spend hours every day debating politics, trying to inspire people, watching political coverage and thinking about politics. Sometimes It gets to be too much. Taking a day a week to at least not think about this particular politician and his cabinet is important for my mental health. It’s impossible to control all of my thoughts on this or to completely avoid coverage. But, the practice is to not engage in or initiate anything giving energy to this.
I did my mediation which was very restless today. I had to pay some bills which prompted me to look at the bank account, which these days sends me into “What can I do now?” mode. After I took my shower I decided instead of doing what I normally do which is rush to my desk and start making phone calls and working on putting things on the web, I was going to just sit. I normally do my meditation in the afternoon, after lunch after I’ve had my busy morning. But, I decided today that I was going to switch it up and sit. Meditating when you know you have a lot to get done is challenging. What I find interesting about my meditation time is I enjoy it, but I look forward to it being over when I can stop “just sitting” and get up and “do something”.
I’m doing a 365 day meditation challenge which has a guided meditation for every day. Guided meditations are easier for me because they give my mind something to do. I can follow the instructor’s voice. I concentrate on what the instructor says to concentrate on and I’m not wondering “Am I 5 minutes in? 10 minutes in? How much time is left?” Today’s meditation was a yoga nidra meditation that is supposed to help you sleep. Not exactly appropriate for 10 o’clock in the morning, but I tried it. Maybe it would help me relax. When I realized it wasn’t working, I decided to go back to just a timed meditation with ambient sounds in the background. 25 minutes of just me and my thoughts with no guidance, at a time when I feel like I really need to be doing something, now.
A few minutes in to the mediation, things started coming to me. “Call Joel and push him on getting the conversion done. Call Jessica and check to see where the progress is on the marketing. Call Drew. Check with Tomoson.” I wanted to stop the timer and get up right there and then and get these things done. But, I convinced myself nothing was so urgent it needed to be done in the next 25 minutes. So, I sat. And, I gently pushed these thoughts aside.
When I got downstairs, I noticed a few people had commented on my Facebook post about Trumpless Tuesday. A few people are trying it with me. Several commented about how hard it is when it feels like the world’s on fire. One person even said she was trying, but “We know there are some things that cannot wait.” I know it seems that way, which is why it’s important to sometimes when things feel that way. When you have to do something now, to follow the practice of deliberately doing “nothing” to break that cycle of monkey mind.
