My most favourite commitment

I usually find my head abuzz with thoughts. I think that this is an experience common to a lot of people, not just me. One of the tools I was introduced to during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was meditation. Of course, I was aware of meditation before, but I did not feel the need to ever try it out.

As COVID-19 began and I started to study remotely and eventually spend weeks working remotely like the rest of us, I realised how important it was take care of my mental health. I tried out a couple of apps like Headspace, Balance and Calm, but the app that I have found myself using most with time is Insight Timer. The platform has the largest library of meditations available, which you can filter as per parameters like the length of time you wish to dedicate per session, the kind of meditation you want to do and even the time of the day.

When I first started out, I used to sit through different meditations on different days. Now, however, I find it better to stick to the ones that deeply resonate with me, like “Taking Your Power Back” by Lalah Delia, “Loving Kindness Meditation” by Scott Snibbe on the Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment or "There Is No Need To Rush" by Lucy Love.

In "Taking Your Power Back", Lalah Delia talks about how you need to love yourself on the days you feel worn out. A calm mind is a powerful mind: without it you would tend to feel overwhelmed by all of life’s challenges. There may be distractions along the path, where you feel tugged at by all the different things, but you need to somehow find a way to stay true to your essence, to come home to yourself.

The "Loving Kindness Meditation" is starkly different. While it also touches upon the power of love, it is more focused on how your life depends on the kindness of millions of others who do back breaking work so that you can enjoy the gifts of your TV, mobile phones and cars, as well as food on your table amongst other things. The first part of the meditation discusses the analytical techniques of Buddhist meditation, where you see how your mind is, in a sense, a kind of a virtual reality simulator, which gives an illusory sense of perception to naturally occurring phenomenon like light and sound. By physical description, light and sound are actually just electromagnetic waves and mechanical waves formed by vibrating air molecules respectively, but our mind interprets them in different ways.

"There is No Need To Rush", as the name suggests, is about learning to take things slow from time to time, such as eating slowly, walking slowly and talking slowly, instead of being in a rush to get things done each day. As Lucy says, life may pass by fast and you would feel like you have missed the ride. You can achieve great things in your own way, even when you do some things slow. Rush is usually based upon the fear that there is a lack of time. While it may be the case in a couple of situations, living in this state perpetually is not fruitful.

Meditations help me get over the negative thoughts that plague me sometimes. I haven’t been able to do it every single day, but I do it whenever I can. I also try an unguided one from time to time, but I find myself coming back to the guided ones. I have come to realise that most of the times it’s the inner mental demons getting in my way when I try to achieve my potential. It’s important to keep reinforcing the muscles and rewiring your thinking so that you can focus more on the positives. Celebrate the small wins when you can. Life is about making progress. Progress can be quite slow at times, and things go up and down, but optimism is essential for getting through the difficult times. That’s the only way.

In the long run, things generally get better.