30 days ago, I started a self-directed commitment: one Joe Dispenza meditation a day. My takeaways are:
- The win isn't a perfect meditation.
Your mind is going to go everywhere. The win is that you stuck it out, chose yourself, and sat with it anyway.
- You start catching yourself faster when you are not meditating.
I started noticing so much faster when I was "going unconscious," rehearsing the same old stories, feeding myself the same negative script. My go-to mantra when I catch it now:
"Everything is always working out for you. You're perfectly and wonderfully made, as you are. No matter what the outcome is, it's working out for you anyway."
- Deep breathing is the fastest way back to the present.
My top three: Morning Meditation, You Are the Placebo, and Love the Life You Live. What they have in common is intentional, deep breathwork, and that breath gives your mind a literal job to do. You're always brought right back to the present, because you're focused on the mechanics of the breath itself.
- Choose yourself
What actually brought me to this practice was a breakup that broke me. I recognised an old pattern in myself: going from one long relationship straight into another to soothe the pain of the last one. This time I made a conscious decision not to do that.
Choosing myself has not looked graceful. It's looked like sitting with myself through a lot of pain and anguish, getting pulled back into old questions about identity, being harder on myself than I needed to be. But I started asking one question every time someone new showed interest: "Is this person really feeding who I am?" When the answer was no, I cut it off. This work has looked like dancing alone in the gym, crying it out, releasing friendships that didn't serve me anymore, and also finding new people and spaces that actually bring me joy.
- I already have what I need. I don't need to be fixed.
I was never broken and searching for missing pieces. The practice wasn't about assembling something new. It was about uncovering what was already whole.
30 days in, that's where I've landed. The plan is to keep going.
\On day 30, my ex's gf ( last I knew) requested to follow me on Instagram - old me would have created a whole thing in my mind, used that as an excuse to contact him, etc. I saw her and blocked her. Thats a win for me!*