Meditation

It all started when I was looking for an easy class.

An easy class, something not too difficult and that would require zero skillz. Something that wouldn't exhaust me. Something, perhaps, even... fun.

With these requirements in mind I ruled out class after class until finally, I settled on a class on meditation. I figured it would be easy. I figured it would require zero skillz. I figured that meditating would probably be a lot like sleeping, and if sleeping isn't fun, I don't know what is.

News flash. Meditation isn't like sleeping. Meditation is hard.

The meditation teacher would be like, "Listen to yourself breathing. Can you feel your lungs?"

And I would be like, "Yes. Can we sleep now?" Except only in my head. Because meditation time isn't talking time. It's quiet time. Even I know that.

And the teacher would be like, "Focus on your breathing! Feel the air enter and exit through your nostrils. Feel it fill you! Feel it leave!"

And I would be like, "I feel it, man, I feel it." And I would be pretty pleased with myself for about thirty seconds until the teacher said that the breath was all we could think about for twenty minutes. No distractions. No thinking about what we were going to eat for lunch or our recent friendship entanglements. No thinking about our favorite television shows. No nothing.

"If you do think about something else," the teacher said, "the breath will bring you back. You will remember the breath and then you will let the distraction go. It will float away like a ship on a passing sea."

"Passing sea," I said to myself. "Got it." I settled in to meditate.

I breathed in. I breathed out. I felt my lungs expanding and contracting and felt my breath in my nostrils. Pretty soon, though, I was thinking about missionaries coming home and cooking dinner and the book I'd read the night before and alligators and Phineas and Ferb. Theoretically the breath would have been able to bring me back and then I could have sent all my distractions shipping down that sea. The problem was, in order for the breath bring me back, I had to remember I was supposed to be thinking about the breath. Unfortunately, I was way too far gone for that. If remembering breathing was a place in North America, my thoughts were somewhere off the coast of Australia, frolicking with some marsupials.

Thus I learned the truth. Meditation isn't easy. Meditation does require skillz. Meditation is perhaps not as fun as sleeping.

It is, however, very useful.

After the meditation session the teacher went on to bring out all these slides about brain activity. Over the course of the class, we learned about how meditation can affect the brain.

The top way meditation affects the brain? It helps you become an adult.

Allow me to explain in laymen's terms. When something upsetting happens to you, be it a bear attack or a suspicion that your crush likes someone else, it wires a response in a place in the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala sends all these signals to your hormonal centers, telling you to freak out. So you freak out, and you initially freak out just as much as about the crush thing as you would about a bear attack.

There are, of course, other parts of the brain that realize that your crush not liking you is not as big of a deal as the bear attack. These are the inhibitory parts of the brain. Their job is basically to keep you from being a fool. When they realize that you're freaking out over something that doesn't put you in actual danger, they help you to stop freaking out. However, the connections to those parts of the brain aren't as strong, especially in generally anxious people. Or people who are young. Or people who are young and anxious aka teenagers and college students.

When a person meditates, the inhibitory parts of the brain activate. They get exercised, and they become easier to use. This helps meditators to consciously shut down overactive emotional responses, if not react more moderately in the first place.

As soon as the teacher told us this, I could almost feel my ears twitching. Having emotional responses that don't overwhelm=maturity=being a real adult and not someone who has the age requirements of an adult but is otherwise a fraud.

Okay, okay, I'm not exactly a fraud. It's not like I'm totally irresponsible or anything. It's just that sometimes I experience strong emotions. As I've gotten older and older, I've become better at dealing with them in adult ways. In some instances, though, they seem too strong for me. And then a tsunami of feelings sweeps over me. And sometimes I do things I regret or act in a way that does not befit my true self. Which is not pleasant, but which becomes a bigger problem when people I care about get dragged into that tsunami.

If meditation could help, then I would meditate my face off.

Every day. Twenty minutes of sitting still and 'being mindful." I was supposed to only think about the now.

"Note the now," the teacher would say. "Breath in, breath out. Feel the breath. Feel the carpet beneath your feet."

One breath, two breath. It feels scratchy. Three breath...

"Feel your heartbeat."

What color is this carpet? Isn't it... ah, no! Breathing. That's all. Six breath. Seven breath. Just the now.

"What do you hear?"

I hear -ten breath. Eleven- a dog barking.

"Hear the sound. Don't think about where it's coming from. Just hear it."

 I mean... I hear barking. Well, if I'm just hearing it maybe I shouldn't put a name to it...

"Feel the breath."

So... I hear a noise... and it sounds like... that.

"Don't name sounds. Just follow them.

...what does that even mean?

"What are the distractions that come into your mind?"

Do I listen to what she's saying, or just follow it? If I'm focusing on what she's saying, can I really be mindful?

"What distractions are coming into your mind?"

Does interpreting her words take away from the now?

"Just let them go by."

...the now... after this I can get lunch.

"Let them float away."

Tacos. Homework, baklava, workplace policies.

"They are not part of you. They just are."

That one time senior year when the band went to Disneyland and we got to go in the back of Toon Town and everyone had a Disney crown and mine had Tinker Bell on it... ahhhh. NO. Why aren't we being mindful, brain?! We're supposed to be maturing!

"If you can't focus, don't judge yourself," said the teacher. "Just love yourself. Go back to the breath. It will bring you back to mindfulness."

Yes. Yes. The breath will bring me back. Let's count the breaths. One, two, three... hmmm, Pinterest recipes....

And so it went. Every time I meditated, at the end of the session I always found myself spaced out for the last five minutes or so. Instead of exercising the inhibitory parts of my mind and learning to de-tsunami-ize my emotions, I was thinking about Christmas or examining my biceps or singing a Beatles song in my head.

...I'm never going to become a real adult, am I?