Got My Groove Back

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung

How could I possibly resist a Jung quote?!

After the debacle that was my last meditation class I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about going tonight.  In fact, hubby has been working a lot of overtime lately and I told him if he needed to work late tonight, it was no big deal for me to miss class.  My sister decided not to go.  I was tired.  I had a lot to do here at home.  I had a pretty crazy day at work.  I had all sorts of excuses not to go.  I went anyway.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s good for me.  I was hoping last week was an anomaly.  I was right.

I’m not sure what reaching Nirvana feels like or even how you’re “supposed” to feel when you are meditating.  All I really know is that the idea is to completely empty your mind and attain a feeling of relaxation.  I’ve taken this to mean that in meditation, you are to just….be.

With the last class being the one exception, I have always left class feeling relaxed.  Tonight, though, was an entirely different level of relaxation than I have ever experienced before.

I won’t go through the entire routine of this class again.  If you’re so inclined, you can read about that here.

During the seated portion of class, the part that most people usually think of when they hear about meditation, we are sitting in the lotus position on padded wooden benches.  Our backs are straight.  We cannot lean against the wall.  This is not the most comfortable position to be in.  When I think of comfortable, I think of lying on my soft warm couch.  Losing feeling in my entire right leg, which happens every time, is not so comfortable either.

Despite all of this, I managed to get to a place I’d never been before.  I don’t remember counting breaths.  I don’t remember feeling that old familiar tingling sensation in my right leg right before it goes completely dead.  I’ve never timed it but I believe this portion of the class lasts about a half hour.  Tonight, it felt like a few seconds.

In this uncomfortable position, I actually nodded off several times.  I know this only because I remember my head snapping up, you know what I mean, when you start to fall asleep in a seated position but wake up when your head starts to drop.  The weird thing is that this waking up didn’t snap me out of my relaxed state.  I never opened my eyes or even felt inclined to do so.  I thought of nothing at all the entire time (so unlike me!).  I didn’t feel my right leg fall asleep and I’m still not sure if it did.

I left class both relaxed and invigorated.  A memory popped into my head on my way home that is related to a previous post but that did not come to mind when I was writing that post.  It was a minor revelation of sorts.  It was always there but hidden.  Now it’s in my conscious and connects some dots for me.

Maybe I was so relaxed and had a moment of clarity because I basically took a half hour nap.  Or maybe it’s because I finally got it right.

Thanks for stopping by!