Drowning Out the Noise
This past Monday, Feb. 26, I was browsing through my mom's collection of meditation audio files and drawn to two recorded exactly a decade earlier, on Feb. 26, 2014.
If you've listened to any of my mom's recordings, you know the audio quality is not perfect. (Someday I hope to hire a sound editor.) But one of the 10-year-old files has the worst audio quality of all! As my mother is trying to quiet her own mind and guide her students to do the same, she is contending with background conversations, laughter, doors closing, etc. Sometimes those background noises fade to quiet, only to return with a vengeance, then fade once more.
At first I thought, no way could I share this meditation with you, my valued newsletter subscribers. But then I realized that the background noise is the perfect illustration of what so often happens in our own minds when we try to meditate: Voices in our heads interfere to distract us. They grow louder. We remember to tune them out, we forget, and we remember again. And so I have included the file in the Right Side Up library, retitled MEDITATION Drowning Out the Noise. (For free access, subscribe here.) Clearly, it is not a calming daily practice. But perhaps it is worth the 8-minute listen just to observe the experience when the noise is external -- making you greater able to witness the noise when it's coming from within you. And the techniques my mother teaches are gems: noticing the temperature of the breath, finding an even rhythm to the inhale and exhale, and repeating the mantra so hum, representing the breath's pulsation and the connection of individual and universal.
Of course, I also wanted to give you a meditation file you can use more regularly, so I have also uploaded the second of the recordings from Feb. 26, 2014, calling it MEDITATION Slow Light Descending. This is an expanded variation on the practice you already have that involves visualizing a light slowly descending the spine. I especially love this one because of its emphasis on light traveling from the third eye, or center of intuition, to the solar plexus, our center of personal power. There is a bit of background noise, but not nearly as much. It is 30 minutes, one of the longest meditations in the collection, but you have access to many shorter practices here as well. As always, I'd love to hear what resonates for you.
Happy almost spring!
How I'm (sort of, kind of, not really) breaking up with my phone
Speaking of unrelenting mental distractions... Catherine Price, author of the wonderful book "How to Break Up With Your Phone," ran a phone breakup challenge in February, during which time I cut my number of phone pickups roughly in half. Years after first reading Catherine's book, I was horrified to see how many times I still picked upmy phone... and sometimes still do.
Looking at phone pickups and notifications is for me a better gauge of distractions than total screen time, as I often have an audiobook or podcast playing in the background. I am interrupted most often not by social media, but by text messages, even with all my notification sounds turned off. Yet when my father was in the emergency room last weekend (he is fine, thankfully), I wanted those notifications immediately. I needed to be reachable when my son got sick in school. I can't simply cut the phone out of my life, but healthier boundaries are in order.
Prompted by Catherine, this is the semi-breakup letter I wrote.
Dear Phone,
First, let me say, there are many wonderful things about you. It’s hard to remember what my life was like before you, like when I needed to keep actual maps in the car and print out driving directions to a new locale.
Thank you for making it possible for me to listen to audiobooks, exchange voice memos with my sister and play Wordle with my son so easily. Thank you for all the reminders of where I need to be when, for allowing me to stalk my husband when he’s biking home from work late and I want to make sure he’s safe, for tracking the AirTag on my dog.
Thank you for my meditation apps, my exercise apps, my sleep tracking app, for news and podcasts, for keeping me connected to the world. Despite the many downfalls of social media, I genuinely enjoy connecting with people there. And I LOVE taking handstand classes over Zoom.
For all these reasons and more, my dear one, I am not breaking up with you entirely. I simply am asking for more space in our relationship.
You see, right now I pick you up on average 118 times a day. That’s a lot! Or, at least, that’s how often you are picked up. Mostly by me but also by my kids, pressing play to the Harry Potter audiobook, checking Google Classroom for tonight’s math homework, Googling a random curiosity, taking photos of the dog.
Oh, I forgot to mention the photos. Thanks to you my children’s childhood and my dog’s entire life are being exceptionally well documented.
But here’s the thing. My sons see me on the phone all the time. Sometimes I’m afraid I send the message that you are more important than they are. I am writing a book, and that means I need time to focus. Also, I have struggled with insomnia for oh so long. It is better now, but I sleep much sounder when you and I go our separate ways after 8 p.m.
Please don’t take this personally. It’s me, not you. I'll still see you in the mornings (just not too soon after waking up) and afternoons (just not more than three times an hour), and maybe for meditations, audiobooks and podcasts at night, too. I realize I send you mixed signals when I forget about these boundaries or deliberately disregard them, like when I "need" to catch up on messages late. Adjusting and integrating this change will take repetition over time, especially because you'll still be here tempting me. Cue the Chicago song: Being without you takes a lot of getting used to...
You are a hard habit to break, Phone, but I'm working on it.
Yours,
Sara