why I don't meditate still
I can say I have neglected my meditation intention. There's just so little around me to trigger it, and I see that. I'm watching a guy do the daily chores on his gravel garden. He explained that it's a form of meditation in which you focus only on the moment used in cleaning the garden. I get that, and that's something I could do with the dishes perhaps.
Actually, that's exactly my problem. The mundane moments of the day just don't require my mind that much and it hates to idle. I get the idea that idling it is what I'm supposed to do but the very idea leaves me feeling anxious.
Why does the idea of being without thought frighten me? I think it's impossible. I find when I am without something specivid to think about, my brain starts triggering. I mean, like, I'll wash a dish, and it will remind me of something from the past which then reminds me of a past hurt. See, I just pictured washing a spoon and it took me back to something hurtful and I'm almost in tears! I mean, it's that bad. I guess it's a case of PTSD from a lifetime of being bullied.
I don't think these zen guys got bullied like me. I sometimes think there isn't a single memory in my head not tainted by humans being hateful to me. Either because I was alone and wished I could share the moment, or because the moment was spoiled by someone.
The spoon?
So petty and still infuriating. I'd taken this course on food safety and among other things, was taught never to let spoons dry with the bowl facing up holding water. Every night when I came to work, alone of course, I'd find someone had left spoons this way and I had to rewash them. Dishes weren't my responsibility unless the staff had shirked theirs, then I was the one to catch up. As the years went by, the amount of dishes left for me gradually increased. Naturally.
Well anyway, to the spoon. I made a simple info graphic of a spoon inverted and laying upright, showing that one is good, one is bad, that the one holds water and bacteria and dries dirty. it was pretty simple, simpler than explaining. It got ripped down and left crumpled on the counter.
I knew it was probably Ralph. He was a person who'd been doing nasty things to me for 20 years whenever I had the ill fortune to be in a group with him. At the bar, or in a hippy art thing, wherever, he was cold, dismissive, and would reach out to do random nasty things to me. Example: I'd spent a half hour cutting out some cranes with a tiny pocket knife scissor from a smoke pack at the bar. I was showing my creations proudly to the group and he snatched them and chewed them up and spit them into the ash tray.
He worked where I cleaned. I assumed it was just more of that crap, recreated the graphic (and kept an original to copy) and put it back up.
Well anyway, that stupid graphic became a six week war with him scribbling BS on it and ripping it and spilling on it and so on, me replacing it again at night. Gradually I won, but I cannot wash a spoon without remembering how nasty that man was to me until my final year of work. He tried to make up for years of cruelty with a couple of presents but by then my base policy was to treat him like an "unseen person" whenever I shared a space with him. If he tried to talk to me, I told him (quoting him, in fact) never to speak to me. I think I said along the lines of "You told me never to speak to you again and I quite like it this way so go away."
I mean, what on earth would make someone who otherwise seems to have more social life than I could hope for, treat me that way? Certainly not the fact that the first year I knew him I was crushing on him, way back in the early years. He fixed that fast enough.
So this is why I need meditation, and can't quite get there. My brain is on fire right now, just over telling this tale. Can I stop thinking about it now it's written here?
Well no. If I think about how these things are written here, it sends me into another sort of brain fire over how nobody will ever read it, it may as well remain locked in my head. The whole point of writing things down is the idea that you've shared it and it's been addressed. This is just a catalog of unaddressed hurts piled up on me with no closure, no redress, not even some shared outrage!
I can't go talk about it with anyone because it puts people off, they hate hearing about it. But my brain seems to think that it can't let go of something unfinished, unfixed.
Leaving saskatoon should help. I think leaving behind so many emotional triggers will do me good. Leaving this house too, with all those neighbors I never made friends with, the broken counter I never got fixed. I'm in a terrible neighborhood that discourages wandering. I am so far away from anything that I need a car or bicycle or other set of wheels to get somewhere, turning it into a big deal to go out. I mean, it's not like I can grab my purse and shoes and dog and head out to window shop or enjoy the park. I guess I could enjoy the park across the street but my back yard has more amenities and a better view. It's really just a baseball diamond on one corner and a wading pool with building on the other, grass and a few trees between. Simple, spare, not one flower planted. More of a public yard for those without back yards, really.
Yeah, meditating, that's a tough nut to crack with my emotional scars.
Actually, that's exactly my problem. The mundane moments of the day just don't require my mind that much and it hates to idle. I get the idea that idling it is what I'm supposed to do but the very idea leaves me feeling anxious.
Why does the idea of being without thought frighten me? I think it's impossible. I find when I am without something specivid to think about, my brain starts triggering. I mean, like, I'll wash a dish, and it will remind me of something from the past which then reminds me of a past hurt. See, I just pictured washing a spoon and it took me back to something hurtful and I'm almost in tears! I mean, it's that bad. I guess it's a case of PTSD from a lifetime of being bullied.
I don't think these zen guys got bullied like me. I sometimes think there isn't a single memory in my head not tainted by humans being hateful to me. Either because I was alone and wished I could share the moment, or because the moment was spoiled by someone.
The spoon?
So petty and still infuriating. I'd taken this course on food safety and among other things, was taught never to let spoons dry with the bowl facing up holding water. Every night when I came to work, alone of course, I'd find someone had left spoons this way and I had to rewash them. Dishes weren't my responsibility unless the staff had shirked theirs, then I was the one to catch up. As the years went by, the amount of dishes left for me gradually increased. Naturally.
Well anyway, to the spoon. I made a simple info graphic of a spoon inverted and laying upright, showing that one is good, one is bad, that the one holds water and bacteria and dries dirty. it was pretty simple, simpler than explaining. It got ripped down and left crumpled on the counter.
I knew it was probably Ralph. He was a person who'd been doing nasty things to me for 20 years whenever I had the ill fortune to be in a group with him. At the bar, or in a hippy art thing, wherever, he was cold, dismissive, and would reach out to do random nasty things to me. Example: I'd spent a half hour cutting out some cranes with a tiny pocket knife scissor from a smoke pack at the bar. I was showing my creations proudly to the group and he snatched them and chewed them up and spit them into the ash tray.
He worked where I cleaned. I assumed it was just more of that crap, recreated the graphic (and kept an original to copy) and put it back up.
Well anyway, that stupid graphic became a six week war with him scribbling BS on it and ripping it and spilling on it and so on, me replacing it again at night. Gradually I won, but I cannot wash a spoon without remembering how nasty that man was to me until my final year of work. He tried to make up for years of cruelty with a couple of presents but by then my base policy was to treat him like an "unseen person" whenever I shared a space with him. If he tried to talk to me, I told him (quoting him, in fact) never to speak to me. I think I said along the lines of "You told me never to speak to you again and I quite like it this way so go away."
I mean, what on earth would make someone who otherwise seems to have more social life than I could hope for, treat me that way? Certainly not the fact that the first year I knew him I was crushing on him, way back in the early years. He fixed that fast enough.
So this is why I need meditation, and can't quite get there. My brain is on fire right now, just over telling this tale. Can I stop thinking about it now it's written here?
Well no. If I think about how these things are written here, it sends me into another sort of brain fire over how nobody will ever read it, it may as well remain locked in my head. The whole point of writing things down is the idea that you've shared it and it's been addressed. This is just a catalog of unaddressed hurts piled up on me with no closure, no redress, not even some shared outrage!
I can't go talk about it with anyone because it puts people off, they hate hearing about it. But my brain seems to think that it can't let go of something unfinished, unfixed.
Leaving saskatoon should help. I think leaving behind so many emotional triggers will do me good. Leaving this house too, with all those neighbors I never made friends with, the broken counter I never got fixed. I'm in a terrible neighborhood that discourages wandering. I am so far away from anything that I need a car or bicycle or other set of wheels to get somewhere, turning it into a big deal to go out. I mean, it's not like I can grab my purse and shoes and dog and head out to window shop or enjoy the park. I guess I could enjoy the park across the street but my back yard has more amenities and a better view. It's really just a baseball diamond on one corner and a wading pool with building on the other, grass and a few trees between. Simple, spare, not one flower planted. More of a public yard for those without back yards, really.
Yeah, meditating, that's a tough nut to crack with my emotional scars.