Non-meditation

Over the past few years, I've been pretty good about meditating every day. At one point, I had gone almost 3 years with only about 5 total missed days.

Lately though, things have been tough. Work is a nonstop challenge, and sometimes I can only carve out 5 minutes for meditation before I fall asleep from exhaustion. Sometimes this happens for a couple days in a row. It adds to my stress when I'm not meditating regularly, but it has also been quite a revealing experience.

During these periods of non-meditation, I notice quite a few changes to my mind and mindset:

• I have a lot of thoughts of self-doubt and self-loathing. I sometimes catch my mind telling me that I'm worthless/useless/stupid/etc. "What am I doing with my life?!"
• I have a lot of regrets. Even if they're trivial, these regrets play over and over in my mind for hours or days 
• I react sharply to things/people that annoy me. Sometimes this hurts my relationships
• I snack impulsively
• I have a general haze of sadness or dissatisfaction that lingers over all my experiences. My sense of purpose and drive are diminished. I'm less happy.
• I'm attracted to things and people I know I shouldn't be paying attention to. (Particularly destructive/annoying is being drawn to women/girls other than Julia)
• I waste a lot of time on facebook, and get jealous of various things that are happening in other people's lives
• I agonize over decisions, and tend to be indecisive
• I worry more
• (and many more like the above)

While all these things are indeed unpleasant, periods of non-meditation are incredibly useful for reminding me of the value of keeping up the habit. It's amazing to realize that all of these problems are a complete non-issue when I meditate. Spending 30 minutes a day to wipe out everything on this list? Definitely worth it.

While I'm probably preaching to the choir (knowing the audience of this blog), hopefully this is motivation for you to meditate as well. It's hard for me to believe that 1) this is what life is like all the time for people who don't meditate, and 2) that they put up with it even though there's such a simple and easy fix. Just sit there and focus on your breath!

(OK, time to get out of this funk and spend a few hours on my favorite hobby)