stress + suitable meditative practices

Image courtesy of shrimpsaladcircus.com. 

The other day I posted on a Facebook group that I feel overwhelmed and somewhat stressed because I feel I’m not doing what everyone else is. You know, that active friend who has sprinted, juiced, body brushed and meditated all before 7am? Well, that ain’t me. I look at them and feel like I should have that ‘seize the day before 7′ attitude but I don’t. So why the hell am I stressed and what am I gonna do about it? I found it funny though when someone recommended that I read this blog post written by Mia Freedman basically about the same thing. It had me in hysterics. This is so me right now!!!

I’ve had 4 days off this weekend and got in a bit of a slump thinking that I have done nothing. I look on Facebook to see friends travelling, people at the beach, how many kilometres they’ve ran and everything else. I immediately get stressed I haven’t done the same. It’s almost like the day becomes a complete write-off if you haven’t done 15 things before 7am. The thing is, I feel guilty because I feel it’s what I should be doing. Though not what I want to be doing.

To be honest, I hate mornings. I usually tackle them on my days off by waking up at 10 and not seizing the day. Or meditating. More just waking, checking Facebook, doing my eyebrows and taking my supplements, trying not to step on the cat and remembering how loud the Vitamix is before I turn it on. I find meditating like pulling teeth. I really can’t stand it. I feel, although I am doing it, my head is somewhere else, like at work thinking of all the tasks I have to do. I know everyone says that’s the point of meditating, to practice drowning that out but frankly I leave feeling more stressed than I started with.

So I woke up late and went about my weekend basically not giving a shit about how many 10′s of kilometres everyone ran and I just did what I wanted. I painted a picture, tiled the kitchen at work and created two delicious dishes. And you know, it felt good. I find for me, a typical Virgo, perfectionist, highly strung individual, that I need tedious work to chill me out. Work so tedious that I get completely into the zone of focus. Possibly so focussed that it might give me wrinkles later in life from my concentrating frowny face and it’s never a short process, I usually stick with these tasks for a good 2-3 hours.

I figure I have so many of you reading my blog there are bound to be a handful of you that are the same as me. And you know I think it’s a good way to be. Sitting down, relaxing and focusing on your breath might work for you or even chilling out to music. But if ripping tiles off a wall, getting covered in wall cement and having your face 2 inches from the wall brings your head to a focussed happy place, that’s okay too!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this? If some days you log onto Facebook and give a mental swear to all those seize-the-dayers or how on earth you relax! I would love to know

But for now, here are my weekend meditative practices – Creating organic food, tiling, painting.