Meditation Monday

Cool, so it's Friday. But Meditation Friday doesn't sound right. I brought you daily mantras last month and this month I'm expanding our hippie lifestyle to include meditation. 

I've always been a skeptic of meditation. I can't sit still longer than 5 minutes without seeing a shiny object and abandoning the stillness for more exciting adventures. 

Recently, I discovered an app called Headspace. It's free for the basic sessions and then you can subscribe to more advanced levels as you progress in your practice. 

Headspace is the first and only experience I've ever had with meditation. This is not an ad, I downloaded the app at the recommendation of a Psychologist that is heavily respected in his field. 

You start out meditating for 3 minutes. And as easy as that sounds, I've got ADHD and anxiety - getting me to focus on nothing for 3 minutes and just feeling my body in its current space - that's damn near impossible. But I challenged myself to commit to 5 days of the introductory course and I did it!

It certainly wasn't easy, but it's definitely been beneficial to me and calming my anxious thoughts before bed. For me, bedtime is where I struggle. It takes me ages to fall asleep and I don't remember the last time I've slept through the night. Taking a few minutes to clear my head before I go to sleep has helped me to have more success in my snoozing habits.

Now I have to be honest, I did fall off the Headspace meditation game for a few weeks while I was abroad. But the cool thing is, it's so easy to catch back up with whenever you are able to make the time. 

I'm a big fan of the specific categories they offer within the app as well. There's sleep, flying, school, work, EVERYTHING that keeps us stressing in the world. 

The best part - it's not a bunch of hippie nonsense that weirds me out. It's simple, straightforward, and just asks you to get in tune with yourself. 

If you're looking for some natural help with anxiety, stress, or fears, download Headpsace and give meditation a try for 5 days. If it doesn't work for you, you've really only wasted a good 15 minutes of your life, and we all know you waste way more time than that tagging friends in memes. 

Irrational: Fears and Bravery

I'm generally scared of everything. Flying, spiders, mascots, large crowds, band aids, truly, everything. 

And then I'll swim with sharks. I'll get tattoos. I'll eat bugs. I'll move across the country to a state where I don't know anyone. 

Realistically, we all have these insane fears that truly amount to nothing and then we are incredibly brave in situations we should absolutely be terrified in.

I've got a friend who is terrified of needles, and has about five tattoos. 

I am terrified of flying, and get on a plane multiple times a month.

We are all a bunch of freaks who have these irrational fears and even more irrational bravery. 

What's the point? 

The point is - the next time you're afraid of something, and paralyzed by that something, put it in perspective.  Re-associate your fears with something positive, better yet, remind yourself of the absolutely insanely brave things you have done. Remind yourself of all the times you were really scared, but you did the scary thing anyways.

Find ways to laugh at your fears. 

When you acknowledge your fears, spend time thinking about them, you're fueling the fear.  If you shift your focus or assign a new feeling to those fears, you change their power.  You cut off the source of the fear. Fear cannot thrive if you take away its energy.

And most often, if you are able to manage the fear when it first becomes a fear, you keep it from becoming a crippling life altering presence in your world. 

I used to have painfully intense fears of flying. I would build up my anxiety a week before even flying and I would spend countless hours thinking about my fear and future flight. I would reach out to friends to talk about the fear. I fed the shit out of those fears. By the time I got on a plane, I was sweating, shaking, neon red about to pass out afraid of the experience.

Now - I still have anxiety around flying. But I've created tools to combat the fear. I set myself up for success by bringing books, music, journals - literally all the distractions on my flight. I dress comfortably. I make sure I have water and snacks. I bring a neck pillow. I am so prepared that I spend flights actually enjoying my time more than I do in paralyzing fear. And when I catch my mind drifting to the fear, I force myself to turn it around. Does it work all the time? Certainly not. I have moments I'm absolutely crazy about it all. But I fly so much now, I had to find a way to level the playing field.

Trick yourself. Distract yourself. Take away the oxygen that keeps your fears alive. And don't avoid the fears. Face them head on. Say you know what, this is stupid. You don't own me. And then keep on keeping on.

Fears are normal. Even the crazy ones. What's not normal is allowing the fear to control you and prevent you from living your best life. I don't care if it's a realistic fear, if it controls you, it owns you. And life is too damn short to be living a life of fear.

A New Kind of Fear

I tend to think I'm invincible.  I generally don't get scared of any real threat.  Sure, I'm ridiculously afraid of spiders and mascots but in terms of real safety concerns I generally assume I'll be fine. 

It seems every day we hear about campus shootings.  We watch the news and see the faces of the people experiencing the tragedy and we cannot fathom how that would feel. 

On June 1st at 9:49am I learned exactly how it feels.  A campus alert went out notifying us that an active shooter was on campus and we needed to lock down our building.  Students and staff were asked to stay off campus and seek shelter if they were already on site.  At that time we didn't receive much information.  Many of us honestly thought it was a drill or some kind of misunderstanding. 

As news reports and social media started to flood our phones, we learned this was very real.  There were reports that two people were dead, that there were upwards of 5 shooters, that they had enough supplies to do serious damage, and the stories continued to grow.  As we sat in our office reading information and watching the news - we knew no more than you did - but we were living what you were watching.

I'm inherently a problem solver.  I want to formulate plans and create solutions.  Very early on I became aware that my department had no plan.  It went so far as my supervisor expected me to continue sitting at my desk working - and was irritated when I was visibly upset by this request.  We were called into the boss' office (inside a room covered with windows mind you) where we were told not to post on social media and to lean on each other during this time.  Again - there was no plan should the shooter(s) come to our building next.

As I sat in a chair, watching the new, receiving texts and social media updates asking if I was safe - the real fear began to sink in.  We had no information, no plan of action, and no concept of what the next steps could be.  In my head - I made a plan.  If you know me - you know at any given time I'm aware of my surroundings and I've got a strategic plan for almost any situation.  I grew up in an extremely safe suburban setting and for some reason I'm still the one you want on your side in an emergency. 

Thankfully - we were never in any harm after that initial alert came across.  There was in fact only one shooter and one person killed.  It was a targeted attack and ended very quickly.  The hours after the attack were spent searching and securing the area.  This was Los Angeles after all.  Within minutes the campus police, Los Angeles police, sheriffs, FBI, and other federal entities were all on campus.  That was the only thing that gave me some sense of safety, knowing how responsive and prepared these officers were.  Truly - Los Angeles sees it all - these officers were organized, efficient, and I'm incredibly thankful for everything they did that day.

Even though I was really not in any danger at any point - I didn't know that.  It was hours of fearing the unknown, of having no plan, and frankly of having leadership not show much serious care for the situation.  For the first time in a really long time - I felt real fear.  The kind of fear that makes you freeze because you truly never thought that you'd be in such an unusual situation.  And every time I see a school shooting on the news - my stomach falls, I get goosebumps.  Because I have semblance of how those people feel. 

I don't know how to solve the worlds problems - but I do know when people start shooting up our schools - we have to take that seriously.  We need to think less of who is doing it and look at why.  Why do they feel its the only option?  How do they get to this point?  What are the signs?  It's happening far too often.  And it needs to be addressed.  It's not just about guns.  It's not about a certain ethnic group.  It's about a centralized problem - mental health.  A mentally healthy person does not do this.  We need to start with understanding mental health before we can begin to effect change. 

I never want to feel that kind of fear again.  And I never want to see another news story about it happening to other people.  It's a new kind of fear - the fear that its happening where we work, where we learn - while we are going about our everyday lives.  It's a new kind of fear that doesn't discriminate based on race, class, or social structure.  It truly can happen to you.