Little Boat
I would consider myself a novice meditator. Every single day, over the past four months, I have meditated. This normally happens twice a day, after morning coffee to start my day intentionally and before bed to calm my racing mind. At work, I have noticed two specific times when my new skills of detaching from my thoughts have been an incredible help to my mental health.
In the past, when a frustration would occur, I would spend hours and sometimes days repeating the scenario in my mind. As a communication major, I have a tendency to replay the scene while varying what I said versus what I could have said. The variables are endless so the frustration of trying to figure out what should have or could have been the result continuously runs the mental hamster wheel.
Meditation helps calm the mind. While focusing on breathing, it is natural for thoughts to pop up. The habit meditation tries to break is the mental attachment to the thought. See and recognize the thought, then let it go. The image I use is a wooden fishing boat, coasting along a waterfront. Don’t let the boat make a port in your mind.
Another skill meditation teaches is to notice the interruption, but not to get upset that the interruption happened. Oh, this is easier said than done. People who start the practice of meditation expect to have a completely clear mind. No permeating thoughts, ever. So when a thought pops up, practitioners might feel upset at the distraction because they think they are failing at meditation. There is no failing at meditation. See and recognize the thought, then let it go. Goodbye, little boat, safe travels.
I put my work nemesis in the boat. Yes, I have a work nemesis. They treat people like they are inferior. This individual is passive aggressive. Anything that is done incorrectly is followed by an excuse or blame. They don’t lead by example even when they know better. This person makes my blood boil. My coworker texted me on my day off saying my nemesis has been promoted and they would be our next manager. My first reaction was fear, followed by ugh. Instead of dwelling on this new information for the rest of my day, I accepted the fearful thought and let it go. This was shocking to me. Previously, this person has pissed me off so badly due to their unprofessional behavior toward me that I didn’t sleep for three days. I took the bad news and dismissed it almost immediately. This progress is unimaginable and I’m proud of my progress.
Another time, I saw a high seniority employee use a forklift for height by personally climbing on the forks and having himself lifted. This is obviously a safety issue. They should have used a ladder. They knew better and chose unsafe behavior anyway. When this was brought up to a manager, it was shrugged off and was about to be answered with an excuse. I cut them off, saying there is no excuse for blatant disregard of safety protocol, and approached the highest ranking manager in the building (who thankfully addressed the situation). Being talked down to about my concern, by the first manager, would have upset me for the rest of my workday. How dare they? Don’t they care? They should do their job better. And so on. But did I spend my day unraveling the situation? Not this time. After I talked it through with the second manager, I set the situation in a little boat and pushed it into the abyss.
I could not have imagined shrugging off this kind of information at the beginning of my meditation journey. How twenty minutes of my day training my thoughts to drift in and out with non attachment can lead to hours of being anxiety and anger free. I started meditating as a way to help detach from secondary effects of chronic pain. I wasn’t expecting the other benefits, which I gladly welcome in my mental health tool kit.