If I were to describe the modern world in one word, I would choose motion. From the moment I wake, I start moving. Even in the hour before dawn, my home is in motion. As the sound of a metal bowl clanging on the counter reverberates through my kitchen, I hear the rapid puffs of my cat’s paws on the wood floor as he dashes over to have his breakfast. The coffee maker drones as it grinds beans, the sudden smell of fresh coffee overtaken by the steamy sound of it percolating into the carafe. One of my neighbors, incorrectly assuming that no one else is moving at this hour, drives up our dirt road at twice the speed limit, gravel pinging off the fenders of his pickup truck.
Later in the morning, my drive to work concludes as the wind pushes waves against the pier. On some mornings they are gentle, on others white water washes over the top to leave foamy puddles. The ocean never stops moving. My workday is a similar whir of people, sights and sounds. As leaders, we want to engage with people, but the pace is often uncomfortable. Listening, speaking, reading, writing – even if we’re stuck in our chair in front of a desk, our senses remain in constant motion.
When my workday ends and I return home, the motion only gains speed. My wife and I debrief our days at work while our two small children run laps of an obstacle course they’ve created through the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Dinner is a blur of washing and drying hands, rigging bibs and pouring milk, and negotiating with a child that wants jellybeans while we offer green beans. Our after dinner routine focuses on getting toys put away, teeth brushed, and the tub filled with bubbly water, then trying to find the pajama bottom that somehow wandered off from its matching top.
Once things finally start to slow down, I make my way to my favorite gray high back chair in the now quiet living room. My feet find their place on the floor, my arms resting on my lap. I find physical stillness. After a long moment, I take a few deep breaths, close my eyes, and focus on the feeling of the floor on the bottom of my feet. I recognize the sensation of the chair subtly pushing back, holding me up in space. I can hear the second hand of the clock two rooms away softly ticking its way around. Without changing the pace of my breathing, I simply pay attention to each in and out breath.
You don’t realize how interesting breathing can be until you really listen to it. Every breath starts and stops somewhere a little different. The pauses vary in length. Without worrying about what those differences mean, I simply sit and enjoy noticing them. Before too long, a strong sense of mental stillness replaces the motion. I still remember the feelings of excitement and worry from earlier in the day, but instead of having those feelings I now see them. I can place them off to the side. I can straighten the sheets on my mental bed, make them nice and crisp, and lay down in their calm warmth. Now I can do whatever I’d like without everything else in the way.
That is my experience of meditation.
Every meditator has their own story
Meditation is one of the more nebulous topics you can read about on a leadership blog. The word meditation probably prompts an image of a person sitting cross-legged on the floor. That is one approach to meditation, but there are others more accessible. I share my experience with meditation because it’s become part of my daily routine, something that I’m convinced is beneficial to me and those around me. I know everyone will have their own unique experience with something as inward focused as meditation. My goal in writing is not to convince you that meditation is the best thing ever, but to convince you to maybe someday give it a try.
I first came to meditation about five years ago. I don’t remember the exact inspiration, but I was traveling for work and had plenty of free evening time in my hotel. Some quick research revealed that like everything else, there is an app for meditation. In fact, there are several, but I’ve only used one so that’s the one I’ll discuss. I do not have any relationship with the company aside from me paying the annual subscription every year.
I downloaded an app called Headspace and signed up for the free trial. Headspace was founded by Andy Puddicombe, a British man about my age. He studied meditation in Asia as a Buddhist monk for nine years before returning to the United Kingdom to bring what he learned back to a larger audience. The Headspace app delivers an audio recording of Andy guiding you through each meditation.
Before I started the first meditation session, the app showed me a short animation describing a key concept Andy described as “blue sky.” Essentially, blue sky means that the sense of calm or stillness we seek is always there. We always have it, but it may be hidden behind all the zooming thoughts in our mind much as there is always blue sky hidden behind clouds. Meditation is not about eliminating the clouds, but merely seeing past them.
With the animation completed, I started the first 10-minute meditation. Guided by Andy’s directions, I sat in a chair with my feet flat on the ground and my hands resting in my lap. I took a few slow, deep breaths before closing my eyes and allowing my breathing to return to normal. Following Andy’s lead, I focused on the feeling of contact between my feet and the ground, and my legs and the chair. I focused on what I could hear. I then focused on the sensations in my own body – are my legs feeling tight, or my elbow a little sore? Finally, Andy guided me to focus on my breath. He suggested counting the breaths to maintain focus, just from one to ten before starting over again at one. I did that until the end of the 10 minutes.
I will always remember my astonishment at the moment I opened my eyes. I felt completely relaxed. I had never experienced such a physical calm before. It made me wonder if this was normal, if previously I had been in a constant state of physical tension. Either way, only ten minutes of mental focus had a significant physical impact on me.
I remember my second thought being surprise. This meditation stuff is real. I continued with the free trial, meditating for ten minutes a day for ten days. Without hesitation I then committed to an annual subscription.
I think it is valuable
There is no way to measure the impact of meditation. I can’t tell you that I’m 10% happier, or 10% more productive, or experience 10% less stress. But I have found meditation beneficial enough to commit to a daily habit. I’ve made it part of my routine because I feel meditating helps me find mental and physical calm, and those things help me be a better person, husband, father and leader.
I meditate every morning because I’ve found the stillness helps me prepare for the day ahead. As I finish my meditation and open my eyes, I use those first moments to think about what I want to accomplish for the rest of the day. Sometimes I think about work items I want to focus on, sometimes I think about something I want to do with my wife, daughter or son, and sometimes I think about a book I’ve been reading or article I’m working on. But I always come away from morning meditation ready to go. One of the paradoxes of my meditation experience is that making time for stillness helps energize me to get in motion.
I also find myself sometimes meditating in small moments during the day. I may come out of a series of meetings, sit in my chair at my desk, and focus my senses on my breathing for four or five breaths. I’ve found those little tactical meditations help me transition my attention from one activity to the next.
Lastly, if I have a particularly grueling day, I’ll deploy an evening meditation. It is more difficult to get to that place of calm and stillness when I start from a place of frazzled exhaustion. But Andy has clear guidance for this situation: be patient, approach the meditation the same as you always do, and when you catch your mind wandering to something else just gently bring it back to the breath. As the minutes pass, the mind will wander less frequently and eventually you’ll see the blue sky. A little blue sky at the end of a cloudy day is the best thing.
I think most of us would describe our lives as crazy, frenetic, stressful or chaotic. I think most of us would gladly pay for a magic gadget that could deliver a little calm. I don’t think there is such a gadget, but an investment of 10 or 15 minutes to meditate is as close as we can get. It may or may not be as helpful for you as it is for me, but I encourage you to give it a try.