Micro Meditations: You Don't Need A Yoga Mat or Incense.

The best solution is sometimes to step away. And then step back.

Thanks for bearing with me in the early days of this blog. We can call it a blog, right? I’m still figuring out my relationship with this platform and appreciate the company in doing so. For several years in the early days of the internet I wrote “The Lawson Review: The Unofficial Blog of the CIA.” It was news oriented parody which I wrote because of my (at the time) keen interest and in-depth focus on geopolitics. Additionally I found that writing a blog post served as an effective warm up for both my hands and mind for my fiction writing. That site got condemned by Google around 2005, likely over its increasing viewership (I actually had large following) combined with its blatant misrepresentation as a sort underground of branch of the CIA. (I had applied to work for the CIA, so I thought they might actually like it.) Lesson learned. I got cancelled before getting cancelled was even a thing.

But here I am still trying to figure out exactly what I’m doing. I wake up every day and write before I let any other media or outside influence, other than coffee and the company of my dog and wife, into my mind. Today’s post is one such journal entry. It’s candid, unedited, probably dyslexic, and a little scattered, but I hope you enjoy. I’ve included a few photographs that I think fit the theme. Some of you are probably here for the photos more than the words, and that is totally fair.

Cheers to a good start to 2024. If you like this post, I’d certainly appreciate you sharing it with friends. Let’s see if we can rebuild this before I convert it to the second unofficial blog of a three letter agency…

- Best, Lawson.

It’s the early days of January, 2024. 7:00 am. It’s still dark outside. I open my eyes for a minute but decide to close them again. My body is tired and I’ve only just woken up. But I’m probably done sleeping, so I just give myself a few more minutes to lay and think about whatever my mind sends through itself. For a brief moment it goes to work, and the coffee roasting machines that need my attention at some point today, but there is nothing I’m going to do about it right now, so I push those thoughts aside. I think about the story I’m working on and was supposed to have finished by now, but unless I’m actually going to allow myself to dive in fully, there is no reason to tease myself with thoughts about that right now. So I move on.

Our minds are funny things this way. Why do we have the thoughts we have? And how do we control them? I know over time I’ve gotten better at focusing my attention where I want, but how? How do we direct thoughts? How do interruptive thoughts sneak their way in?

I don’t have an answer necessarily, but I know it begins by removing the thing you don’t want to think about and then filling it with something you do want to think about. You can’t just leave a void and not expect it to fill.

Perhaps this is one of the lessons of meditation. Mediation is a funny thing. I’m convinced that most everyone has a slightly different interpretation of what it means to mediate. But in general we are told it will “clear our minds” but without telling us what will fill the void. Nothing? Well, from what I gather that is the goal of at least some mediation practices, but not easily accomplished. So when I do meditative things I focus first and foremost on breathing and then, once I’ve cleared the chatter and rightfully stepped into a solid breathing rhythm I focus on the things immediately around me. The creek. A tree, even a houseplant. But something specific, and increasingly so. Start wide, the creek is flowing past me. Focus in, as it flows over that rock. The sound. A bead of white frosted snow falls in front of me. It changes. Everything always subtly changing. Including what’s inside my head.

But what does this do?

I had read years ago that difficult challenges are sometimes best walked away from for a time before trying again to solve them. As I wrote my masters thesis I certainly found this to be the case. Even writing my first novel there was a challenging section I simply couldn’t find a way around until I took a week off and came back to it. We reach a point working on things when we lose our efficiency and it’s important to recognize this point and step away. It works similarly to how sleep affects our mind and body. Our mind and body have had enough and want a reset. That is what sleep is for. Our body and mind need to slow down and find a homeostasis after a day of external inputs and stimuli. Fix things. Sort things. Balance out chemicals. Rest and reset. It is why sleep, specifically good deep sleep, is so important. (We can discuss this another day too.)

Mediation as I’ve discovered acts as a minor form of this, like a “mini-sleep” during the day. But it need not be thought of as sitting cross legged on a yoga mat humming to yourself with a burning incense. For some people that’s what they love, but mediation can occur in a multitude of arenas. For me running is highly meditative. A good quiet writing session is mediation. Sitting in the cold creek. A quiet walk. There are so many ways to find it, the reset button, the quiet that allows the body to calm and reset, that helps you step away from the problems that need solving so you can approach them again with a fresh and clear mind. It’s not avoiding your problems, but rather walking away so you can approach them renewed. By stepping away we clear the slate of our mind and spend just a little time on just focusing on what is immediately around us. A good thing. Ever so small in detail is more than enough. And those moments, which can get longer as we get better at it, serve to clear up the clutter in our minds and reset us. It’s honestly a magical sort of thing when you realize it is working and you see the results of what the human body and mind can do. We can with practice redirect not only our thoughts, but the pathways of thought. How and when and what we think about, it’s weird. Amazing.

The twist of this plot is that there are specific entities at work against this theory and they have spent literal millions of dollars to tell us we are weak and need their help. The pharmaceutical industry is to blame here. I personally think we have far more agency  in our own minds than we are told. It is rare few that do not possess this ability to clear and reset their mind with a little practice, but we are rarely told we have the ability, let alone how, and are often in environments that are not conducive to finding balance between brain and body. My first thought goes to the modern school system, which could be a discussion on it’s own another day. As kids are developing they are still wild and developing and discovering, experiencing many situations and emotions for the very first time. They need anti-structure and room to play and move, but we have created an environment that is the opposite. But more on that another day.

My coffee is cooling and I’m ready to focus on it for a few more minutes before I have to start my day. I’ve been awake only a few minutes. For me putting some words on a page is a great way to organize the mind after sleep. Micro-mediaitons. That is the theme of my day. Intermixed throughout the tasks that need to be completed. Coffee. A walk with the dog. Hopefully a run this evening. A sit in the creek. Playing a few minutes of music before bed. These are all little micro-resets that act as mediation throughout the day, that help resume focus, that help me accomplish tasks and challenges and also simply make the day more fun

.