Notes on Lifting Heavy Objects

#25 Drip, Drip, Drip the Bucket Fills

Yesterday I tucked my hand under the top part of my sewing machine and picked that whole big thing up with one hand. I am so chuffed! 

I can’t wait to tell Douglas, my trainer. He never has me lift that much weight. But doing all those bicep curls with 10 pounds in each hand is obviously working. The results are in!

Actually, when I first started to reach my hand over to pick up my sewing machine, I hesitated. I almost shifted to doing it with two hands. But then I thought, “Nope.”  I called up the muscle memory of how to fire up my biceps, I picked that thing up one handed and carried it right across the room. I feel like a total badass!

I don’t particularly feel like a badass during a typical workout. I get tired. I get sweaty. I have been known to whine. Yet I do the work every.single.time. Three times a week. Because I know it’s not about how I look or feel in the gym. It’s how I live my life.

This is my pep talk for everybody who avoids what we call “formal meditation,” which refers to an organized meditation session.  

The Buddhist technique of mindfulness meditation is an exercise, a repetitive drill composed of specific ingredients. Each one contributes to the process of getting familiar with the quality and location of your attention during any activity.

Formal meditation involves taking your seat, deciding on a specific length of time for your practice, and then going through this process:

* Organize your posture from the ground up: feet, legs, hand position, tall spine, soft front, strong back, relaxed jaw, eyes open and downcast.

* Place your attention on the feeling of your breath at the edge of your nostrils.

* The very moment that you notice your mind has drifted off is when the thought has ended. Notice this feeling of being present.

* Then, gently but firmly, return your attention to the feeling of the breath.

The point of formal meditation is not to be a badass on the cushion.  

The point of formal meditation is to train your mind to be strong, clear and stable by engaging with the “form” or technique listed above. 

The MAIN point of formal meditation is to use what you have learned from your formal meditation practice to help you navigate your life off the cushion with more confidence and ease.

But this only works if you do formal meditation regularly. This is how you imprint each element of the practice and the ways they work together. The habit you create from this practice will be what shows up off the cushion, on the spot.

The qualities of concentration, body awareness, integration of mind and body, ability to cut your drama story lines and return to the present—these will all support you in any situation. Including lifting up sewing machines.

In other words, through all of life we can be alive to what we are doing, how we are doing it, where we are doing it and with whom we are doing it.

Over the next little while I am going to be offering short guided meditations for situations off the cushion, or just ways to practice off the cushion. There are many ways to be alive to your life while you are sitting, standing, walking and even lying down.

We can and should use all of us—our senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste—in ways that help us re-integrate, wake up and be available. 

Today’s meditation is good for those times when you are working on your computer for a long time, or you are deep in a spinning thought that is going nowhere. Or if you are somehow feeling lost or ungrounded or heavy. 

You can do it anywhere, anytime. You can even do this waiting in line at the grocery store. No one will notice and you will feel refreshed.