So it's been nine months since I started meditating, six months since I posted last about it here. I continue to meditate for a few mins a day several times a day, usually 5-15 mins a session, sometimes 20 mins. A few thoughts:

Meditation works even when you feel that you're not very good at it.

My "monkey mind" still wanders when I meditate, though less frequently and I do catch myself more quickly. But, yeah, a-wandering my mind will go go go. Yet the benefits continue in so many ways. There's just no doubt about it, my attitude toward so many things is different and it continues to evolve for the better. It's very rare that I get really angry or upset about anything anymore. My anxiety is gone. My bouts with depression continue to improve - less frequency for shorter periods and never as deep as they used to be. I have a more positive attitude toward life in general. Problems that come up don't bother me nearly as much, I don't obsess or worry myself to death over things. Instead I focus on solutions and actively seek ways to improve whatever the issue or problem may be. This last is something that has come on gradually and of which I wasn't even aware until recently, when it occurred to me how differently I was approaching the everyday problems that one inevitably encounters as one goes through life. Instead of getting upset, I start working on how to work it out. It's really amazing.

A better attitude toward health in general.

I hit the big Six-OH! next year. For years I've realized I need to improve my diet, lose about 20lbs and that I should exercise more. And I do exercise, - 20 mins on my stationary bike 5 or 6 days a week (usually) along with 20 mins of stretching everyday (usually). But I've always had to force myself and it always felt like a chore. I'd put it off during the day (instead of exercising first thing in the morning) and if there was an excuse to skip it, oh yeah, I'd skip it. And a better diet was something I just could not stick with for more than a few weeks or, at best, a couple months. I'm not talking about just losing some weight, but eating more nutritiously in general.

In the last few months - and again, this just snuck up on me without really realizing it was happening - my entire attitude toward improving my overall health has been undergoing a profound evolution. I do know exactly when it started - As I was watching the news one day while on my bike, slogging through that boring 20 mins, there was news report about High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT - Google it if you're not familiar with it). I immediately thought, "Wait, I can get a 45 min workout in 10 mins?! Well, hell yeah, that's for me!". I've always enjoyed doing research on things that interest me (I now have 8 books on meditation) so I started looking into HIIT and from there discovered interval training and heart rate zone training, and how they work and how HIIT works. Got some books. In the last couple months I've learned about cadence and form, VO2, and resting and max heart rates and training zones. I've continued to get into it more and more. Fascinating stuff, the science of exercise. I'll be ordering a new stationary bike soon, one with a much better build quality, a better LED readout with more precise info and considerably more levels of resistance than my current bike. I ordered a heart rate monitor (Scosche Arm Band, one of the best-reviewed monitors on the market for accuracy, which is, of course, essential) and have been doing some of the interval workouts from one of my new books. Thing is, I now look forward to the time on my bike. I have an app on my WP which pairs with my Scosche with all kinds of HR readouts, plus you can set up intervals and it records everything and uploads the data to a website. Very friggin' cool. I find it fascinating going up and down through the various HR zones during the workouts. It's such a specific way to exercise. Right now I'm trying to establish a good aerobic base in the first two zones before moving to the more intense workouts. Eventually I'll get to HIIT. Right now, slow and steady wins the race. (Another thing meditation has positively affected, I'm much more patient and realistic now.)

I've also changed my diet for the better and I'm losing those pounds. I'm going to get a smoothie blender this week. (What a simple, convenient way to get vitamins and nutrients from fruit and veggies, I don't know why I didn't do this before! Who knew!) I'm eating more salads and laying off the sugar.

Oops, I've gone off on a tangent and started babbling. The point is, again, my attitude toward these health issues is different. I feel motivated, I'm interested; I see my various health endeavors as parts of a systematic whole, rather than haphazard bits and pieces. I love working out on my bike and look forward to it. Same for my stretching. I love feeling better. My health has become, well, a kind of project for me. My approach has become very specific as regards both process and goals. It's exciting.

Accepting emotional and physical pain.

You probably won't get through many books on meditation without running into the concept of acceptance vs resistance. When we're in pain, be it emotional or physical, we resist it. This is only natural, we don't want to be in pain. Who the hell does? So, we resist. As one book described it, we "push" against the pain. Unfortunately, this inherent response to pain only serves to make it worse. From a simple, logical perspective, what good does it do to worry about it, obsess about it, deny it, wish it would just go away, be angry about it????? Obviously, it does no good at all and in fact perpetuates it. Feeds it. We can deny reality but that won't change the truth of that reality. Instead, if one acknowledges the actuality of the pain, it will get better. If you're unfamiliar with the concept it may sound like some kind of new age bs. But do this - the next time you're in emotional or physical pain and you have a few moments to yourself, just relax and focus on the pain. Feel it. You'll experience yourself pushing against it. You can actually feel the energy you're expending, pushing pushing pushing. It's subtle at first, but if you really sit or lie for a few quiet moments and focus on the pain, oh yeah, you'll experience that resistance. It's both an emotional and a physical force. Then, once you've felt that push, simply stop pushing. Acknowledge the pain. Accept the reality of it.

I know this probably sounds like touchy-feeling bs; believe me, I'm very aware of that. So I'll relate my personal experience, which was one of the most profound experiences of my life, and then I'll let it go: I have a health condition (which I will not get into, but which I will say is getting better due to my new health efforts) which causes me periodic painful "flare-ups" that usually persist for several days. During these periods I'm simply cannot sleep. The pain is at its worst when lying down. During the day I can function fine as the pain is much less when I'm moving about and because I can focus on what I'm doing and ignore it. But I cannot sleep. I usually have 3 or 4 episodes a year for about 3 years now. During these times I literally go for several days at a time with only a few hours of sleep total, and that sleep is shallow and restless. Work is hell. I don't know how I function, I'm high from exhaustion.

A few months ago I had a particularly nasty flareup and I pretty much went w/o sleep for almost four days. The pain would wake me after only a few minutes so, of course, after a while you get frustrated with trying to sleep, much as with insomnia, and actually dread trying to go to sleep. So that Fri night, after literally only a few hours of sleep in four days, the pain had still not eased and I was thinking I was going to have to go to the emergency room so they could give me something to knock me out because I felt like I was going to go BSC if I didn't get some sleep. As a last ditch effort, I'd been thinking about the whole "acceptance vs resistance" thing for a couple days, so I decided to try it. I resolved to make an attempt to stop wasting precious energy on resistance.

So that's what I did. I lay down and I acknowledged the pain. I accepted that I would be in pain while I slept. I stopped pushing. And I fell asleep instantly. I mean, really, it was like somebody flipped the Z's switch. The pain was all through my dreams but I stayed asleep. For four hours! When I woke I was amazed at what I'd been able to do. I got up, did some light stretches, lay back down and went back to sleep. Right to sleep again. I slept about 12 more hours, waking only to use the bathroom. After about 16 hours of sleep when I woke my pain was gone, the flareup was over.

I've had some minor flare-ups since (as I say, I'm getting better) and have been able to sleep. Sleep always makes them better. End of story. Acceptance makes sense. It works.

Unexpected benefits

Since my very early 50's, I've been going out drinking about one night a month. (Over time I found it just hasn't had the same appeal as when I was younger.) Since I started meditating nine months ago, I've been drunk once, over seven months ago. I have not made a conscious effort not to drink, since I'm fine with it once a month, I simply haven't had the desire. I've barely even thought about it. Even when I'm with friends who are drinking, I fine without. Interesting.

I'm more decisive. There are those decisions that we put off because we're confused, we're lazy, we're procrastinators, we deny the reality of the circumstances, we fear the consequences of a definite course of action, we don't believe in the vitality and veracity of our own commitment... Check. Check. Check. But lately - lately - I'm getting things done. Some difficult, some remarkably easy. Things that require resolution need to be resolved, one way or t'other. Yet something else that just crept up on me when I caught myself doing it.

Greater compassion

Reading about meditation one of the subjects you'll keep running across is compassion. There is a particular meditation called "Loving-Kindness" that has some variation in every single meditation book I've read. Yeah, it sounds so cheesy. But in fact the deeper one gets into meditation - and it goes very, very deep, to the point of utterly altering your perception of the nature of reality, called "insight" and "awakening" - it seems both the ultimate goal and the ultimate benefit is compassion, even beyond experiencing the true nature of reality. Consider this not from a banal everyday touchy-feely, Oprah perspective but rather from a purely practical, even mechanical one. A car engine, any engine, works at its best when all the parts work together and support each other. The world is an organic engine. From a meditative pov this is not a political concept, it is a humanistic one. One might go so far as to say, with some irony, that it's a secular spiritual perspective. The thousands-year-old practice of meditation comes down to compassion not because of some political, ideological, religious, or psychological construct, but rather because of the reality and truth of circumstances, which is that every damn thing works best when it works together as part of the whole. In our particular reality, that can only start with compassion.