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.

Why I Should Write

Of course, writing is always good for the sake of writing itself. But everyone doesn't write just for no purpose else than writing itself. Every individual has their own reason for writing. I found mine too. I am not writing just because I feel like writing. I believe writing will bring changes in my life. I as someone who writes nothing and I as someone who will be consistently writing are two different persons in terms of how one looks like now and how the other will look like in a few years or maybe even in few months.
First thing first! Writing frequently or everyday if possible will definitely bring change in the way I write to express my ideas and thoughts. With time, it will look more fluent and mature. Secondly, It will of course help me recall so much of what I usually forget forever. I can just come back to a date and find out what I was like or what I had said. So, basically it will help me with my poor memory. Thoughts are inevitable for all of us. Every second we think of something that we mostly happen to forget in the next minute. So, this thing came into my mind that if I keep writing, I will grow the habit of writing tiny little ideas that pop up in my mind that may not re-appear. And writing them down can save lots of my ideas that may otherwise vanish with no sign of coming back. Who knows I may discover something I haven't discovered till now. The other reason would be appropriate for so many people yet not for everyone. If you are already very expressive, you might not feel any kind of difficulty in saying what you think and what you want. However, people like me and so many others who are somewhat hesitant and shy to express their thoughts can get a great platform to tell their untold stories through writing. And chances are I might share my stories through the written words more than I have ever spoken. Lastly, writing will make me feel a lot lighter and healthier. When you have so much to tell and express but there is no one to listen to you, then you might end up being frustrated and depressed. But if you make your notebook, blog or even a piece of paper your close friend whom you will share your feelings, you will have very less space occupied in your mind and you will definitely feel a lot lighter. So, I'm in this journey to set myself free from those unwanted weights of recurring thoughts and emotions. I'll write, and write. 

The Trap

You don't always get a chance to know a lot about something you want to do or somewhere you want to go before you make a decision to kick off. You just jump into it and happen to know about all those unexpected things one by one. And there is not much to do about it. You just realize that this is what happens when you don't do much 'research' before you start and that you must learn from your mistakes and guide others who want to be in the place but are in the same position where you were - unknown to all those 'traps'. As I said, sometimes you just can't do anything about it. You might want to know about it but maybe you are not able to find any source of information. And maybe this is, sometimes, the only way to learn - learning from mistakes.
When you are new to a person or you have to deal with a single person, your lack of research won't make a huge difference since there are still chances for you to change the circumstances. However, if you have just plunged into a system - a set of multiple number of people - then there is very less you can do about it. It's not that you cannot raise your voice at all but whether your voice will be ever heard is the question. So, a very simple and harmless thing you can do is sharing what you have experienced. It helps others to avoid the mistakes you had already done. It helps them not to be in the system that is not where they want to be. When no one is there to be in that system, the system changes itself. And the biggest thing for you is that you will feel good about yourself for having learned from your hard time and for having helped others with a selfless motive.