Meditation: Are you ready for your close-up?
As I was reviewing the photos I’ve selected for my blog over the last 6 months, one common quality surfaced: they’re mostly close-ups. A heart-shaped rock, water in a pool, a flower in a bubble.
It got me thinking about the difficulties that come with close-ups. We worry about our flaws, blemishes and imperfections. Meditation is a kind of close-up and it can help us see all those things about ourselves we don’t like. Which begs the choice - do we look at those things to improve them or let them overwhelm us?
Photo by flickr user Kaibara87
Sometimes our own blemishes are the hardest to deal with. We’ve either had them a long time or they are “in our face” and we don’t know how to change them. Meditation can help us see the surface nature of those flaws and understand how judgment only embeds them further.
One trick I’ve used is to offer my imperfections to the meditation. As I inhale, the flaw comes to mind, as I exhale I release it to the ether, or to a higher understanding. Repeat this with the same issue over and over or use the technique with different ones. This is a great exercise to realize that we are not our issues! Since I believe we usually are doing the best we can, given our experiences, view of the world and conscious information (about ourselves), sometimes all we can do is let go.
Letting go of judgment is a first step in experiencing our best self.
As a mental health professional, an owner of a fitness studio, a writer and a wife, mother and grandmother, I have found meditation to be helpful in every aspect of my life. Let's talk... My novel, "A Barroom View of Love," is in an online contest. To read a chapter and vote go to nexttopauthor.com/?aid=580 You can also contact me at susanmmorales@yahoo.com or check out my websites: susanscottmorales.com and bodiesinbalancefitness.com
Comments
Susan Scott Morales, MSW
Tue, Jun 29, 2010 : 12:37 p.m.
Lovely, Linda. Thanks. It would be nice if we could train our minds to never have negative thoughts, wouldn't it? Until we know how to do that, at least we can manage the thoughts and not let them manage us.
Linda Chapman
Tue, Jun 29, 2010 : 12:22 p.m.
It is true that "naming" something can give it power. It's also true that the practice of looking at something, whether perceived as positive or negative, allows us a detachment and relief. My busy mind brings up these judgements because that's what it's wired to do. I like the idea of moving it from a close up perspective to an out of focus long shot.... then out of the frame altogether!
Susan Scott Morales, MSW
Mon, Jun 28, 2010 : 8:37 a.m.
Thanks, Josh, for your thoughtful comments. I love the idea of focusing on the opposite of our flaws. In another technique I suggest focusing on the feeling that we are free from desire, we have everything we need, we are everything we need. By meditating on that feeling we are creating that possibility.
Josh
Sun, Jun 27, 2010 : 10:07 p.m.
Wouldn't it seem that visualizing this flaw and "letting" it go just reinforces the idea that theres is a flaw to begin with? I dont think our consciousness itself is very selective in interpretation(kind of like a mirror), so whatever it "sees" becomes a part of our reality. What about focusing instead on the exact opposite of our flaws, wholesomeness in general? Wouldnt that, in the long run, benefit us the most because we fill ourselves with positivity? Maybe Im just nitpicking :P