Meditation whyyyyy

Welcome to What’s Helping Today, a newsletter about the everyday work of staying alive on earth, written by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen.

Hi folks,

I sometimes write about meditation here, a topic that’s like … boring? Maybe?

Maybe??

I admit I’m a bad person to ask because for the twenty years I spent “not meditating” starting in my teens … not meditating but sometimes trying to … always “not succeeding” … I nonetheless often read about meditation, whether books by big-timers like Ram Dass or Pema Chödrön or ones like this or whatever else I got my paws on.

I’d grown up in a little community of mostly white people north of San Francisco adjacent to a Zen Center that had existed since longer than I’d been alive. I was raised by a lapsed Catholic who hated religion and so I’d been forbidden from actually like doing Buddhist things or anything else religious. What little I read or did that I’d now call “spiritual” I kept totally secret. Religion, faith, spirituality, whatever that all was — it did all intrigue me quite a bit, but regarding the Buddhists right down the road, for example, I could at most walk my dogs through their organic gardens, wonder what they were all about, meaning religious people as a whole.

I took a few religious studies classes back during undergrad at Brown (why I did so, I wasn’t sure) — classes on mysticism, on Eastern faiths. Sometimes during which (to my private horror) I might find a professor would force us to all to close our eyes and “meditate,” an experience I found, well, excruciating (given my mind). Same excruciating experience as I had during the end of every yoga class, which I started forcing myself to take, back then as well. (I’ve explained all this variously before, just setting up these contexts for anyone unfamiliar.)

I always felt like an imposter, trying to meditate in those days. Well into my adulthood, I’d contemplate about going to some retreat or even a Quaker meeting … but never did. I just wasn’t sure if any of this was “for me” — I suppose.

These days, I’ve changed a lot in many respects, including as regards meditation. I often return to speaking and writing about meditation here and there and everywhere … because it’s something I get asked about a lot. It’s indeed something I do like trying to communicate about.

I discuss this topic nowadays as both a psychiatric reporter of 15 years and also someone who’s serious about daily meditation — for many reasons, and has been for the last four years and change. The story of which I’ll tell in my next book on the future of mental health care.

So! I thought I’d re-float a few of my … thoughts, big picture, about meditation and why somebody like me is often yammering on about … that. The ole sitting with the eyes closed and such. Approaching that big internal … stillness? Noise? Depends on your head, I suppose.

A while back, I wrote about how I finally started my own meditation practice, after decades of sorta trying and always failing to do so. A big thing that unlocked actually doing meditation itself for me is … just practicing. Meditation is like going to the gym perhaps; you have to just do it.

Annoying to hear maybe but: Just practice. Just try 5 minutes. Maybe 10. You won’t be “good” at first, maybe not for a very long time; that’s totally fine. Do not worry about if you are “good” or whatever. The only “wrong” way to meditate is to not try it, in my opinion.

Ideally try it every day. Doesn’t matter how many minutes each day, so much as that daily frequency. This is because you’re retraining your nervous system, if you want to think of it that way. You’d house-train a puppy by putting it out every few hours and thus we train ourselves, little by slowly (to echo JournalSpeak creator Nicole Sachs).

I’ve written before about her practice, which was instrumental in getting me into meditation finally: JournalSpeak (or as I tend to call it “brain cleaning”), which I do nearly everyday, still. Not always but … as needed. JournalSpeak is something I personally really try to lean on more when the going gets harder. Figure these last months have been hard … So I’m often up early, sitting down to face that blank page with my sharp pencil. If I can manage it …

Repeating: Activities like JournalSpeak or meditation (like going to the gym): They’re gonna be much more do-able on a hard day if you’ve already got the habit built. On a hard day (‘if the pain’s above a 6’), it can feel all the more impossible to start a JournalSpeak or meditation practice — or to find a therapist for example.

So by having a practice already going, or by having some support already in place, you do your future self who’s having a tough(er) time a solid. Hence, the sooner you start practicing meditation, the better, kinda no matter what.

Now, if you’re thinking like ‘meditation?! sounds nice in theory but who has the time/space?’ … I hear you.

For me, a lot of actually getting my own practice going in such a way I could sustain it really took … a lot of candor, self-to-self, in terms of my own tendencies and worst ones. Basically getting real (inside myself) about how to set myself up to succeed meditation-habit-wise, versus how to not …

So regarding myself, I try to be mindful of the order of operations. In general, these days I try to make sure I’m listening to my own needs and not just defaulting to tending to others’ first.

For chronic people pleasers or habitual do-gooders or perpetual nonstop doers especially (and I’m all of the above): It can be hard to step away from helping and/or doing. Hence I’m often repeating the cliché-but-important concept of putting on your own oxygen mask first, before you seek to “help” anyone else. You’re of no real help to anyone if you pass out from lack of oxygen, to extend the metaphor. If anything, you passing out is like, very counterproductive. If anything, that sucks for them too, if they were reliant on you being … conscious. In this metaphor the oxygen mask is: internal work like therapy or meditation, unlearning the hateful crap you’ve picked up just by living in our hateful society and learning better stuff, etc.

For many people, I think: It tends to seem challenging/unappealing to actually focus on ourselves and our own insides. To go therapy or whatever. To meditate. It can be hard to want to actually calm ourselves down, to put it that way. It can be hard to face our own selves — especially if we aren’t practiced at doing so. Especially if what’s really rattling around inside our minds may irritate or frighten or upset us, which I definitely am quite familiar with … going into that dark inside and encountering a hellish landscape one would much rather avoid (this was especially true back when I was still closeted).

My point is: You might have really have to carve out time for those 5 or 10 minutes of meditation, to get your own habit going. This might mean yes waking up 5 minutes earlier or whatever, or going into a locked bathroom with noise cancelling headphones for 5 minutes — just to meditate. Nobody else has to know.

I will oftentimes, especially when I’m busy and/or stressed out, ignore my own bodily needs — like drinking water, like peeing, like eating. Unless I labor to do otherwise; which, I do try. I sometimes even let most of the day fly by before I actually meditate, which for me is a rule I try to never intentionally break (the daily meditation).

During hard times, heightened times, painful times, endless-bad-news times — as I often say — I try to lean into my own self-care routines even more. This can feel counterintuitive and again quite challenging. Again, having your own safety-net type routines already established, for such harder times, is crucial.

My own busy life involves various plants, animals, and humans (however actually dependent), who require various care and attention, as well as my own self. There’s also the demands of my career, the other responsibilities of my life and home. There’s all the who-even-knows washing in everyday on my shore, so to speak, meaning the events of my life (personal, professional), the events of the world. Lots of strangers clamor for my attention these days given I’m a journalist who … invites this, I suppose. Sometimes whatever they’re handing me is extremely sad or irritating and so forth. I’m a sensitive guy and I feel all of it.

Sure, some people have even busier lives than mine. This isn’t about comparisons. It’s about figuring it out for yourself. For your own circumstances, for your own mind and life.

For myself, for various reasons, I try to really be militant about making time for just that baseline 5 or 10 minutes of meditation at the very least — every single day.

I meditate even when meditation feels totally impossible or annoying or unappealing to me. It’s often most necessary on such days, I tend to find.

I meditate even when I’m feeling so crappy in a bodily or psycho-spiritual-emotional sense, even so much so that I cannot rise out of bed … I meditate even when my back-pain is incapacitating. I meditate even when my panic attacks are threatening, my internal waters super choppy, my waves huge. I meditate when my other stress-related embodied “symptoms,” whatever that latest visitor might be, feels totally overwhelming.

I meditate even when I’m so depressed or upset etc. I can’t make myself produce a single thought that’s positive, even if I really try. I find sometimes on such days meditation feels ... comparatively … nice. A respite. (The longer I’ve meditated, unsurprisingly, the more this is generally true: Meditation just feels nice.)

I meditate even when my mind’s racing in fearful, worried loops, however paranoid, however absurd seemingly, ones I can’t snap out of. I meditate even when I’m on some important-seeming, fast-approaching deadline. I meditate when somebody’s urging me to move more quickly — especially then, I try to instead, if I can, not just obey their orders — but instead slow down and get in touch with how I actually feel.

I meditate when I have some exciting-but-high-stakes interview or meeting or call or other opportunity. I meditate even when I have houseguests or a big brunch or party or other (potentially fun, if stressful) distraction. I meditate when I can’t spare a second, too busy with everything else I’ve got going on. I find all these sorts of occasions tend to go better when I’ve prioritized first … meditating.

I meditate even when I feel “fine.”

I meditate when I just don’t feel like meditating.

I meditate even when I’m on the road or my routines are otherwise disrupted.

I’ve meditated for the last 1400+ days, so says my InsightTimer app. I know my streak’s a bit longer in actuality, those stats aside, and I know I’ve totally forgotten one if not a few days, here or there.

Especially lately, the sun has set and I’ve found myself still not having meditated (in which case, if I can remember to, I’ll put on some sort of night-time meditation, though chances are I’ll just pass out immediately).

Speaking of: Some people meditate best in the mornings, like me. I’m sharpest first thing, in every sense. Others prefer evenings, or afternoons. Whatever you prefer is super. Sitting meditation, lying down, walking meditation, using some app, listening to a guide of whatever persuasion — however “science”-based, however woo-woo. Maybe you want to just try listening to your own silence, app-free. There is no right way. As regards “self-care” it’s all about finding your own best way, as I’m often trying to say.

To me, meditation nowadays feels like how I stay somewhat more in charge of my own self. Like it’s how I keep a hand on my own steering wheel. Me back when, before I cemented this daily practice? I would spin out, crash nearly all the time, it now looks to me in hindsight. These days, it seems absolutely … unbelievable … to me I lived as I did before, in many respects, that out of control before.

Unless literally incapacitated/unconscious: I will meditate daily for the rest of my life — that’s my intention anyway. I know I’ll probably mess up sometimes, if I’m just that spacey or super busy or life happens, what have you.

As Nicole Sachs often says, part of committing to this work is having ‘patience and kindness for ourselves’. Which is tough for a super self-critical perfectionist, like me, as those who find her work helpful often are …

So the other day, when I realized I had seemingly forgotten to meditate (I think??) the day prior, I used this occasion to practice instead of burning myself down with shame … that. Forgiving myself. For my own … imperfection. Turns out I am: Human. LOL.

Some exciting news! I’ve got a new opinion essay out today from Assigned Media. I wrote about psychiatric diagnoses in general as a trans, mental health-focused reporter — and in light of the Skrmetti ruling resting entirely on “gender dysphoria.” Thrilled for this opportunity. Hope you’ll check the piece out and share it, if you’re so inclined.

Again PLEASE listen to (or watch) my Cancel Me, Daddy interview (if you’ve not already) and if you liked it, perhaps share it! Especially if you work in media. In case you missed it and it’s of interest, here was my long accompanying analysis, mostly for fellow media professionals and others very invested in these conversations about how we scrub eugenics from our press and our society. Here was: Part One. Part Two. (Start here, though, if you’re new-new to all this I’m going on about.)

Last thing: I’ve recently made these “Starter Packs” of my works, according to various topics/themes, for anyone interested, especially for newcomers.

Candidly: I’m having one of those sorts of days, myself.

As Nicole Sachs also often says: right foot, left foot, breathe.

Meaning, just do the next right considered action. Keep it small, if need be. The worst will pass. It’s true; I know.

So.

Right foot, left foot, breathe,
Sandy

p.s. Once again: I’m now available to consult for media companies re: their mental health coverage and to mental health professionals (of all sorts), as I’ve lately announced. I’m also available to speak. At the bottom of this page, find tons of testimonials from professionals (in media and mental health), as well as patients and our families, amongst many others.

p.p.p.s. I’m appreciative of anyone who forwards any of these announcements along to anyone you know who may be interested … for example professionals in media and / or mental health care.

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