Observing My Thoughts: A 30-day Meditation Challenge

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Starting Date: 6th March 2018

I recently completed my 30-day meditation challenge. I am familiar with more than 5 ways of practicing meditation. And as far as possible, in this 1 month long practice, I used one particular method i.e. observing my thoughts as they come to my mind. The objective of this type of meditation is to become consciously aware of one's thoughts. So, I also practiced this meditation with the same intention. Now let me share how my 1 month long meditation practice went:

Day 1: 10 minutes

As I set the timer, closed my eyes and began observing my thoughts, the first thoughts were about my body posture. So, I consciously adjusted my posture, trying to have my spine straight. Then the random thoughts began popping up. Images of few people came up in front of my closed eyes. Behind my eyelids, I looked up towards my forehead so that I would be able to focus on my thoughts instead of my body parts or my soundings. Besides the people I know, I could see some places I visited and things I did recently. I could hear a song or two playing in the background (in my thoughts - not in reality). As some of the thoughts stayed a bit longer, I would say to my mind, "What next?". Then a new thought would come up. However, I felt quite positive and surprised about the fact that I had very few thoughts during this session of 10-minute duration than I had thought I would come across. The Timer beeped which gave me a little jerk.

Day 2: 10 minutes

So, it's the 2nd day. I set the timer, closed my eyes and sat up straight. Like the first day, at the beginning of the 10-minute session, my mind was being occupied by some recent incidents and people I recently met. Then came other people and events one after another. For some reason, my mind was occupied by more thoughts compared to yesterday. I realized then that I was instructing myself to observe those thoughts without being carried away. While observing the thoughts from a distance, I happened to think of a television where my thoughts were being displayed. A moment later, the TV showed some programmes and some scenes from movies that I had no any idea about. I noticed very few of my bodily sensations. Then I was having some self-talk. I was observing my thoughts neutrally but some of them brought a bit of emotions for few seconds. Though it was not a very deep meditation, I was below the surface - into my thoughts. So, the beep after 10 minutes was still twitching.

Day 3: 10 minutes

It's third day of 30-day meditation. I set the timer and began observing my thoughts. With spine straight and spontaneous breath, I observed all the random thoughts. The first thoughts were about the people I met recently and the events that happened recently. While observing my own thoughts, I was frequently being concerned about the fact that I had to write about my experience after observing all those thoughts. So, quite a few times, I was thinking "what was the previous thought?". Getting back to observing my thoughts, I came across thoughts of random places and people. Again, thoughts of people and events from recent days came up. Compared to day 1 and 2, it was noisier today. However, the density of thoughts was lower than day 2. I noticed a moment or two of bodily sensations. In the middle of the session, the noise from the street gave a little jolt. While for whatever reason I was trying to notice what was going on my left and right sides of my brain alternatively, the timer beeped and it still gave me jerk.

What 1-month Drawing Challenge Taught Me | [ My Inktober 2017 Experience ]

I finally did the Inktober challenge this year. And I'm obviously really glad that I did it. For those who are not familiar with this term, I would like to give a short introduction about this challenge. Since 2009, an artist named Jake Parker started a challenge called 'Inktober'. It's quite noticeable that the name is derived from 'ink' + 'October'. So, the concept in this challenge is that you should draw 31 drawings, one drawing each day, for the whole month of October, using ink. The way you use ink may be different. You can use ink pen or brush with ink bottle. Anyways, Jake Parker started this and now this challenge is huge. If you search for the keyword 'inktober' anywhere from google and youtube to instagram and facebook, you can find millions of related posts, articles, pictures and videos. Well, this year I attempted the challenge and I finally completed it. Overall, it was an exciting and intense experience for me. And obviously it brought some positive changes within me. The biggest thing is that I learned and achieved what I might not have if I hadn't attempted the challenge. Some of them which I remember are:

Improvement: It's very obvious that if you practice something regularly, you'll surely see improvement in it, whether it's a skill, language or habit. And drawing every single day for a month brought a great improvement in my drawing skill, especially in terms of drawing with an ink pen without pencil sketch.

Better Habit: As a child I always said I wanted to be an artist but it's been quite a long time since I did a proper drawing or painting last time. And this challenge brought the passion and excitement back. I'm now not hesitant to draw everyday.

No Procrastination: Since I had to draw every single day, I stuck to the resolution and did my drawing challenge every single day. However, I had to skip day 24 and 25 because of very urgent work but I covered them in 1st and 2nd of November. This helped me a lot in overcoming my habit of procrastinating.

Confidence: I wasn't sure if I could complete this challenge or not while I started. With time, I grew more and more confident day by day. By the end of the day 31, I emerged out as a confident guy, ready to draw anything.

Endurance: The challenge was so intense for me. Because of limited equipment I was limited to drawing for about 30 t0 40 minutes. I was determined to upload a video every single day. So, shooting the drawing video, editing it and uploading it by the end of the day was quite a work of pressure. Twice or more I had to re-edit everything and upload the next day. So, I had a tough time getting things on time. However, I didn't give up. I maintained my self-discipline and completed the 1-month long challenge. This gave me strength to work under intense pressure and still stay steady.

Delayed Gratification: This is something many of us fail in. We look for immediate result and give up before achieving success. Had I thought "It's too intense and full of pressure. I should stop it", I wouldn't have this great experience today. So, I think I was able to delay gratification and stick to my goal.

Connection with Fellow Artists: Inktober is a challenge done by artists almost all over the world. And I came through many artists who were doing this challenge. Some of them appreciated my effort and I was able to connect to them through social media. It is obviously a great feeling to be acquainted to the people having same interests and passion as yours. Well, more remarkably, I was able to receive response from the artist Jake Parker himself. Since I skipped day 24 and day 25, I sent a direct message to his Instagram account, asking for his suggestion, and to my pleasant surprise, he reached back to me and said "No problem. Just make up the days in november. It's ok to post inktober drawings in November".

To sum up, the challenge obviously did good to me. And when I hold those 31 sheets of drawings, there certainly is a sense of achievement. Though it's not a huge achievement compared to so many other things I could achieve in my life, the beauty of life is in aiming for big goals, yet enjoying the little achievements. 

Click HERE to have a look at my inktober drawings.

Watch the video where I shared my Inktober experience, with the showcase of all of my 31 drawings: