Mental Discipline Journal / Essay

Meditation has not been something that has come naturally to me in my years. It is something I have struggled with since I was first introduced to it in 2001. I find my mind races all around and goes to some dark places if left to its own devices. This to me and I assume to many would be the hardest part of the Dedicant Program. Below is a small essay noting my struggles with Meditation and a wide variety of ways I tried to find what would work best for me.

I have been a member of ADF on and off for almost 20 years. Over that time I have started and never completed my Dedicant Program at least five or six times. No real reason honestly. I get very into the idea of completing it and then life somehow gets in the way and stops the work I started. I plan to take a variety of ways to complete this aspect of the path. Meditation has never been a strong point for me and I hope in time that changes. I planned to attend yoga sessions, take part in what is called a float, and variety of personal meditations.

My wife Karen found a short and simple yoga routine for me to use as part of this. I have always enjoyed the concept of Yoga but never felt in shape enough to do it. Obviously you need to do to see so that’s exactly what we did. It is a short and simple routine with just twelve poses. The idea behind the mantra was to improve sleep but I have been enjoying it personally as its a basic introduction to yoga. There is only one pose I can't seem to physically do. After some time I have been able to memorize the poses and almost treat it now like a Kata from martial arts and I am able to loose my self in the pattern.

My Dad passed away while working on the meditation aspect of my Dedicant. This was one of the reasons I got derailed from the dedicant study program this last time with my Mothers' death last year. Life occasionally throws curve balls your way and it becomes difficult to over come then. meditation at this stage has allowed me time to self reflect.

Karen and I sat down a few times to listen and attempt to meditate on The Two Power meditation presented by ADF. As I have said before Meditation is not a strong point for me. I enjoyed the idea of the meditation but I found the version we found to be too distracting. Karen recorded our own version that has been uploaded to our site. In a sense, my own form of meditation is solving issues.

As Samhain fast approached and it has been as long as I can remember my favorite time of the year. I feel more connected to anything at this time than any other time during the year. I have taken ta few days of just sitting and meditating on my thoughts and feelings of family, friends and my current spiritual path. Playing a few simple meditation play lists while just relaxing has been the best way for me to connect to anything at this point. It allows me to sit and empty my mind and just focus on the matter at hand.

Samhain is to me my personal Christmas. It is when I feel most connected and grounded to paganism in many ways. These last two years have been hard in the sense that I lost my mother and father (Feb 2018 and Sept 2019) so connecting and respecting the ancestors means even more to me now than it has ever before.

This attempt I have decided to focus and meditate more on my ancestors than I have in the past. I have been still doing the yoga poses while mediating which has been enjoyable and been using the Meditation Karen created was a huge success.

I have a friend who is an ambassador to a local business called The Flotation Center. A “Float” is an opportunity to float in a small amount of water treated with 1000lbs of Sea Salt. It allows floating on the water to be completed effortlessly. At the same time, the space is devoid of distractions and is to be a deprivation chamber in a sense. I personally despise silence. I had requested some music or some sort of meditation sound. Sadly I could not hear anything so I never felt I made a connection to anything as I was personally too distracted by the silence. It was an excellent experience overall and I am sure it would be highly enjoyable for others but for my self it just wasn’t right.

Doing Yoga poses every other night and following the two power mediation Karen had created. Moved into following a few other mediations I have found online. I still struggle a little trying to focus on one thing and keeping it to the one thing but it’s much better than it was before. I wont lie I am a little proud of my self.

So the pandemic has hit and well I have an incredible amount of free time now. I am doing yoga poses daily and Meditating on the two powers weekly. A month ago I had the opportunity to attend a in personal meditation class at the local Buddist temple and it was incredibly enjoyable. Very calming. I took away from it there there is a lot of things that can help. One of my main issues has been silence. I despise silence. I have been using music and sound much more lately which has helped. I feel this was a major issue with my “Float” from before. The silence bothered me too much and prevented me from focusing on the moment. I may give it another try after all of this and see if it helps.