On Reflection...

Yet again, feels like such a long time since i last posted!

I love coming back here and reading past blogs. Its interesting to see the different places that I have been in my head!

I never did write down how the second vipassana meditation went. It was so completely different than the other one......

The days were very long, and the isolation really got to me this time. The first time I did it, everything was so new. The silence was so refreshing and easy, and the meditation was so fascinating. But the second time, it was just so different. I went away from it knowing that it was a good experience, but not knowing exactly why it was a good experience. I didn't feel any better really, in myself. And for a while afterwards I was quite disappointed.

It wasn't until I was having dinner with a good friend of mine and we were speaking about the experience, that she said something that made me realise how important the second course was to me... Quite simply, that I have changed so much since the first course.

Now I know you are probably rolling your eyes at me.... Yes Mel, I have heard this before... I have even written about this in the blog. I have spoken about it, I knew it. But... I never FELT it. I was fully aware that I was clinging to a part of myself that doesn't exist anymore, that hippy, spiritual, meditating, airy, searching part of me that was created after a couple of failed relationships and life events that made me realise that I had no idea who I was, and I had no idea what life was really about.

But I am NOT THAT SAME person. None of us are that same person... We are constantly changing, every minute of every day our cells are dying, replacing, dying replacing... We are almost literally made of different stuff than we were back a month ago, let alone 6 months, or a year or more. And not just that. Our thoughts. Our thoughts change with every new experience we have. New nerve pathways are being made, new thought structures are taking place. How can any of us be the same as we were in the past. We are not. So why do we cling to it? Why do we cling to who we used to be, or what we used to believe in... Its all used.

Having a physical experience of something that was once almost magical to me, and it being almost agonising the second time, has made me FEEL, not just on an intellectual level, how much I have changed.

So, although I am sure this is not the end of my struggle with who I used to be, its at least one step closer to embracing who I have become, and that has made all the difference in my life.

I leave you with a quote from one of my psychology text books... I wanted to put this in because it blew my mind when I read it, and i just feel its appropriate for this post. It may surprise you that it is not a hippy quote or anything like that, its not how you should live your life, its not about changing your life or improving things... Its just awesome. I love astronomy and thinking about the vastness of the universe. I love that point where your mind cannot comprehend the size, or magnitude of what is out there. And when I read this, well.... Hopefully you will get it too...

Mel xo

- "So what is so special about the human brain? Part of the answer is its great complexity. The brain is composed of highly specialised cells, the most important being neurons whose function is to communicate with each other using a mechanism that is not dissimilar to an on-off switch. It has been estimated that our brain contains in the region of 1 Billion neurons (1,000,000,000,000), a figure so great that if you took a second to count every one it would take over 30,000 years. However what makes the brain really complex is the way its neurons are arranged and connected. Neurons rarely form connections with each other on a one-to-one basis, but rather a single brain nerve cell may project to between 5,000 and 10,000 other ones. This means that for 1 billion neurons, there are literally TRILLIONS of connections (synapses) in the human brain, and this is where the main information processing of the brain takes place. This figure is truly astronomical - In fact it has been said that the number of possible synaptic connections among neurons in the human brain is greater than the number of single atomic particles that constitute the ENTIRE UNIVERSE"

- Andrew Wickens, Introduction to Biopsychology 3rd Ed, Pearson ed.

Down the rabbit hole... again...

Hi Everyone!

Thanks to those of you who have read my blog, especially the last one, and contacted me with your kind words!

So, today I am going to blab on a little bit as per usual, and give you my thoughts about Wednesday!!
Wednesday I head back to Vipassana for another 10 day silent meditation course.

I am hearing two things a lot at the moment. Firstly, when i tell people that i am doing a 10 day Buddhist silent meditation course, they say "I COULD NEVER DO THAT!!!"... Let me assure you, that if I can do it, YOU can do it... I talk more than most people put together I am sure...

The second thing that I hear is "Why would you want to do that again??" So here is my answer...

Over the past year, no over a year now, I have been feeling a little disconnected with my spiritual side. Two years ago, I was in a very different place spiritually. I felt connected and happy, and i know that over time, i have let my habitual thoughts take shape again, and push me into a bit of a tedious existence. Not that anything is wrong with my life, on the contrary, things are great... But I feel that when things were worse, i was looking more at the positives, and finding the good things in all the crap... Now that I have gotten rid of the crap, I keep looking for it. Its like i want to bathe in the bad things. So even the wonderful things in my life i am looking negatively at!

One thing i am aware of though, is my awareness of these negative habitual thought patterns. I am aware that i am not quite right, i am aware that I need to fix things... But i keep looking backwards. Why cant things be like they used to be?? Why can't I be connected like i used to be??
The answer?? Because we can never relive our past. Nothing will ever be exactly the same again as it was at any time in the past. Everything changes and evolves. We change and evolve. At a time in my past where I used to have such instability in my life, I found stability in looking at the spiritual side. And now that I have a lot of stability, I am still looking for it elsewhere.
I am fully aware that I will never be "completely content", until I realise, not just in my analytical thoughts, but ACTUALLY FEEL deep down there somewhere, that I am already content, and just get out of these negative thought patterns.
But, its much easier said than done... When i have glimpses of relief, when I realise that there is nothing ever really wrong in the moment that we are in, it is wonderful... But then something will happen. Something stupidly small, and i will find myself lost again.

The last time that I did vipassana, I began to learn how to let go of the thoughts in my head. I started to BELIEVE and FEEL deep in my being, that there is no such thing as unhappiness outside of our thoughts... That "happiness" and "unhappiness" are just words to express where our thoughts are at. And that if we let go of our thoughts, there is just nothing... which ironically, is more beautiful than all the happiness you could imagine.

So, bring on the sore legs, the back aches, muscle cramps and physical pain of hours upon hours of meditating... Bring on the silence and not having to bitch, and whinge and chat chat chat chat!!! Gosh! I am so excited!!! I cant wait to take a holiday from my head!!!

Love to all! Catch ya in 10 days or so!!

Mel xoxo