Meditation and Guitar Hero Part 3: The Final Chapter

If you are just just starting the story, you should begin here.

If I could draw a cartoon of myself, this is what it would look like. A gigundus head filled with words and phrases and images, of plans and lists, of retold conversations, of categorical meanderings. The head would be 2/3 of my total self. If you think I’m kidding, I actually had someone tell me that was exactly what my aura looked like. About 15 years ago I used to go to a chi kun massage therapist. An amazing woman who had studied with a master in China. She was the only entity on the planet that could do anything about my migraine headaches before vasodilators were invented. One day, while I waited for my appointment, the master that she had studied with in China and who was staying at her place, he started talking to me in broken English, but mostly Chinese and I couldn’t understand a word he said. The more I looked perplexed, the faster and louder he talked at me. Finally, my massage therapist came out to the waiting area and I looked pleadingly at her for help. She cocked her head to the side, spoke to him in Chinese, and then started laughing.

What’s so funny?

Master Wong says you look like an upside down pear.

At first I thought she got it backwards and this old healer was telling me to take some poundage off of my big fat ass.

She smiled.

No no. Nothing you don’t know already. He says you think too much. All of your chi, all of your energy is in your head. That is why you have headaches.

Well, duh.

My massage therapist moved to Maui ten years ago and my head has been blowing up like a balloon off and on ever since.

Back to last summer, my elephantized metaphorical head, and my inability to get the constant stream of chatter to shut the fuck up so I could find out where I’d put my happy place. I mean, I couldn’t go for two hours walks and exhaust myself every day. Well, I could. It WAS summer. But I was enamored of blogging and wanted a quicker fix for my conundrum.

Blogging equals writing equals a creative outlet.

Blogging came with fringe benefits: Internet friends and blog buds.

Sitting in front of the computer for too long at a time couldn’t be good for my long term health care.

Not meditating and not centering oneself is not conducive to being creative.

A freaking vicious cycle of events was presenting itself.

In June there was Father’s Day as well as Son’s B-Day. They collaborated and together they acquired an X-box and the infamous game – Guitar Hero. Except for Son, we are not a big video game family. Husband, Daughter and myself have never joined Son for long when he’s gone through video game fazes. But we weirdly bonded over Guitar Hero. It started with Son and Husband. Which was fine with me because they weren’t on the computer and I had the office and internet all to myself. Then Daughter got on board. One day they pushed, pressured and cajoled me into trying it out.

I WAS BLOODY FRICKIN AWFUL. Screech scratch. Booed off the stage.

Son gave me some pointers.

I barely made it through “easy” level on Pat Benetar’s Hit Me with Your Best Shot.
But I was transfixed by those descending color notes. I started getting up before everyone (not unusual here –I am the early riser in this family) to practice. A video game. Who’d have thunk?
Before I knew it, an hour or two would go by, where I would tell myself, just one more song.

Was I hooked on the feel of air guitar??? Not exactly. It actually aggravated my carpal tunnel crapola.

The thing that hooked me the most was that in order to follow those descending notes, in order to score the highest for a song (OK. Highest on the easy level. WHATEVER.), I COULD NOT THINK. Incessant conversations were banned from my brain. Needless prattling and list making and planning and all that mind fucking chatter was cleared.

After my Guitar Hero session I would do my 10 minutes of yoga stretches and 15 minutes of “meditating.”

Once school started I stopped my jam sessions. I stopped stretching. I stopped even trying to get back to attempting transcendence. I recently read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Now I’m convinced I need to go to an ashram in India and get professional help to find the silence and stillness while sitting cross-legged.

Until I can work that out, I’m heading for the X-box. Or a stretch and a silence. Whichever works.

Meditation and Guitar Hero Part 2

If you didn't read part one, you might want to start here.

Then, in March 2006 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was in for six months of treatments. A lumpectomy, followed a month later by surgery to insert a port. Then four months of chemotherapy and two months of radiation. I was both afraid and conflicted. Although I knew these treatments were needed to staff off the chance of the cancer metastasizing, I was also aware of the devastating effects the treatments would have on my healthy body. I needed some proactive tools of my own. I needed to DO SOMETHING. Help the doctors out while they shot poison into my body.

I read everything everybody gave me and stuff I found on my own. I read an article on Melissa Etheridge and another on Sheryl Crow; on how they had both dealt with their breast cancer treatments. Both of them said that mediation practices got them through cancer treatments. One of my closest and dearest friends sent me a book on healing and meditation. It was all about using meditative practices for helping the mind in healing the body. Huh. I could put my busy mind to work for a good cause. Except that it meant meditating.

MUST FIND HAPPY PLACE. MUST FIND WAY TO STAY IN HAPPY PLACE.

So, I read the book and it was very helpful and inspirational. I sat cross-legged everyday and “meditated.” I used the mantras, which also were in English, but very practical and geared towards healing from a devastating or terminal illness. Some of the mantras were too long and I figured it did not help my meditation attempts to stop and read from the book every time I took a breath. I settled on one that I could manage.

Deep Breath. White light in. Visualize the light of heaven streaming towards you and entering with your breath. Focus on this light moving through your body. Let it reach each and every cell. Picture it surrounding any cancer cells.

Exhale. Black smoke out. Visualize the diseased cells being carried by your exhaled breath, through your bloodstream and out through your lungs, being expelled from your body.

I was able to stay in this mode for fifteen minutes, sometimes twenty. I still never got to what I imagined was “transcendence,” but I did manage to keep out other thoughts.

Then I got well. OK. I realize I need to make it to the 5 year mark to truly say that, but once you are fully back in the swing of things at work, once you can physically do everything you did pre-chemo etc, and once your hair is grown back… It’s difficult to remember you are officially still in recovery. I let things slip a little. I stopped meditating. I went back to having a cup of coffee and reading news and whatever on the internet in the early morning instead of meditating. Each day I’d say TOMORROW. I MUST STRETCH AND BE SILENT BEFORE I START MY DAY.

This is about where I was at the beginning of last summer. After a very busy year at work and my new personal project (yep, if you are here you are reading it), my mind was busier than ever. Now, while I tried to meditate, blog ideas clogged my brain, developed in my brain, transformed and morphed and got better or funnier or more poignant until, before I realized what I was doing, I not only did not attempt to shut my mind the fuck up, the next thing I knew I was at the computer. And I’m not even talking about other mindful pursuits. Lesson plans. Research. Assessment. There are a lot of ideas that can float one’s cognitive boat.

What?!? Still no guitar Hero! Shame on me. Tommorrow will be the final chapter.

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Meditation and Guitar Hero Part 1

A blog I like to read, Unmitigated, introduced me to the concept of mulit-part postings. I enjoyed it on her blog. So, since this post ended up quite long, I'm posting it in parts.

I have had a long term relationship with the voice in my head. I used to think it was me, but after extensive reading I have learned that is not necessarily true. According to many reads, including my latest read, it is “ego.” I’m not sure how Freudian this latest author intended to be. But there it is.

Juxtapose this with my sincere desire to meditate myself into a state of nirvana. Since my late teen years, which means 30+ years ago, I have been fascinated as well as envious of those who can “transcend.”

However, this is what goes on inside my head while I meditate:

Happy place. Check. Deep breath. Check. Happy place. Deep breath. Happy place. Deep breath.

I should type up and copy one of the better student essays on an overhead and have the whole class discuss and point out what is working.

YES! Maybe a list of common errors for their binders.

Suzie’s was great. Maybe Dana’s. Yeah. Hers was not only good, it was quite unique.

Oh shit. There are thoughts in my head.

Happy place. Check. Deep breath. Check. Happy place. Deep breath. Happy place. Deep breath.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. I have been blessed cursed with a busy mind. I’m a planner when I’m sitting still. Task orientation takes over. The list of things that I think about while meditating is both endless and exhausting. And that is on a good day. When someone has pissed me off or something is not going right, I ruminate, I relive conversations, I have witty and sarcastic comebacks.

The only way to get away is to GET AWAY. So, instead of meditating, I take long walks. I boogie board. I snorkel. These activities release the preeminence of mind and channel my energy into physicality or nature contemplation. It may not be meditation, but it’s the closest I can get.

Twelve years ago, a friend asked me to go to a meditation workshop with her. It was very cool, very vegan, and the instructor informed us that it is not absolutely necessary to sit cross-legged to meditate. One can lie down. Ahh. We were also given meditation mantras. English versions. I’m not allowed to give them away, but according to this group of meditative instructors, these are actual phrases that have been passed down since the time of Jesus. Someone, somewhere, sometime, tore these meditative practices from the bible for some unscrupulous reason. That’s what they said and I figure it’s plausible if not probable.

So, I lie down, and take the deep breaths and let the phrases attach themselves to my breath. And voila! Not exactly meditation, but, BEST NAP EVER! The instructor told me that was fine. If I fell asleep, that was what my body needed. So, for ten years I practiced meditation by lying down and going to sleep with these invaluable tools.

What?! No Guitar Hero even mentioned? Stay tuned tomorrow for part 2.
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