Meditation Bubbles

A resolution of sorts, this year I am going to try to incorporate regular meditation into my daily routine. Finding the time is a challenge. I know I know, what's 10 minutes? Hell, what's 1 minute?  According to Oprah, if you can't find 60 seconds a day to meditate you just aren't on a spiritual path. To me, that sounded like a challenge and I accept. 

For the last few months my daily moment to myself has been taking an extra few minutes in the shower after the bathing portion is complete. I would sit and just take in the experience of being warmed by the water. It is my few moments of solitude and I enjoy it, but it didn't feel, well meditative.  

And once my day is going, I hardly find the inclination to sit still and meditate so really the only logical time for me is first thing when I wake up or last thing before I fall asleep and that's usually what happens...I fall asleep. I do find meditation helpful for that.

So this morning after Evan had showered and left the room, I lay in bed and meditated. I have the same trouble as anyone else new to meditation. My mind wanders off on all the things I should be thinking about and then I have to pull myself back.  I've had people say focus on your breath, count, pretend the thoughts are passing clouds and let them float on by but none of that clicked for me. This morning I came up with something that finally helped me manage the pesky mental chatter keeping me from the state of zen, so here is what I did.

I lay in bed and decided I was going to meditate for 60 breaths.  Breathing in and out I counted each one in my head. I imagined the number inside a bubble...like the bubbles you blow with the little plastic sticks.  On the inhale the bubble with a number 1 inside floated up and on the exhale it floated down and out. Then 2.... and so on.  This worked for me because my next goal was just "see" the number in the bubble with my mind's eye but not "say" it in my mind.   Everytime another thought appeared, and in my multitasking brain it was just in another bubble floating near my number bubble,  I simply popped it.  GONE.  It was the one form of imagery that finally worked for me.  I have heard that after some practice the need to count is no longer necessary to keep a quiet mind but for now I think its just what I need to center myself and do some meditation everyday.