Tracking Your Meditation Practice

womanRunning2Hello Fellow Meditators,

In order to benefit from meditation we have to practice. Just like exercise, we have to do it to get more fit!

The key to your meditation practice is to remember why you want to meditate.
Take a moment to remember what you want to gain… is it calm? A better way to deal with stress? To be less anxious? Relief from physical pain? Inner peace? Self knowledge?

Whatever it is, take a moment to remember that now.

Your reason for meditating is very important because that is your motivation to practice.
Without it you will not practice. It is that crucial. It is the key to keeping your practice going on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. Keep your reason close to your heart, write it down and look at it periodically or review it in your mind every so often. It may change over time as your practice grows, which is wonderful. Whatever it is, keep it close.

Another helpful thing to do is to measure your progress.
It helps to measure whether you are you moving towards your goal or not.

How can we measure our progress?

We can do the very simple procedure of tracking our practice.

It works like this: get a notebook or a piece of paper and write down every day a few key items…

1. How often you practiced today (Example: Today’s Date: 0 or 20,000 times)

2. Any insights you had or questions that came up. (Example: I realized today that lack of sleep has a big impact on my ability to focus!)

3. Anything that changed today (Examples: Today it was easier to focus. or Today it was harder to be present.)

 

Start with these and see how it goes. I recommend doing this for at least a full week to see if it helps you or not. Over the course of your week, you may realize that you want to track different things than these. For instance, you may want to track how much sleep you’ve had or how easy it was to focus or how long it took you to get through your meditation.

Whatever you choose to track, I do recommend that you always track how many times a day you practice because it will encourage you to practice if you know that  you are writing it down. And it is wonderfully encouraging to look back after several weeks or months and see how much you have practiced!

Finally, you can track on paper, on your phone, on your computer… whatever is easiest for you.

I like paper for meditation because I like to journal about any questions that keep coming up. For running I use an app on my phone or a calendar on the wall if I’m doing specific training for a race.

Some people like to track on a spread sheet at their desk, or use their phone’s note app or a tracking app. You could send daily emails to yourself using the same or similar subject lines or use task management software if you wanted to get really fancy (esp if you already use it for work or other projects in your life). If you’ve tracked anything in the past, think about how it worked for you and whether you can use it for meditation practice now.

There are many, many ways to track, the most important way is the one that works for you. Choose the one that seems easiest at first, and experiment until you’re satisfied that you’ve found something that’s easy.

In case you like the app idea, here is a meditation app that says that it allows you to track your practice via iPhone: Equanimity, ‘easily log meditations not timed using your iPhone (at a class or retreat etc)’. And here’s a whole list of them, which may suit your needs. I haven’t tried any of them, so if you do, please let me know how it goes!

And feel free to put what works for you for tracking, including other apps below!

Enjoy,
Elena

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The Five Hinderances to Meditation Practice

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee, master meditator.

This week the Five Hindrances to meditation practice keep coming into my consciousness. This is a Buddhist idea about the five most common kinds of thoughts and emotions that distract us during meditation practice.

Why share a Buddhist idea about meditation?
In my opinion, Buddhism offers a tremendous amount of academic knowledge about meditation. Even from a purely academic stand point, I feel that we can learn a lot from their 2,000 years of study of meditation practice! The amount of knowledge that they’ve collected and shared is a tremendous gift to meditation.
So, what are the Five Hinderances to meditation? What are the five most common mental-emotional distractions during meditation practice?
1. Desire (thinking about things that we want)
2. Rejection (thinking about things that we don’t want)
3. Tiredness (sleepiness, fatigue)
4. Anxiousness (frustration, anger, fear, etc.)
5. Doubt
Do you recognize any of these as distractions in your practice?
Whether you do or not, it can be fun to label your distractions as a way of letting them go… as a way of putting them down… as a way of practicing mindfulness by putting a bit of distance between yourself and any distracting thoughts and feelings.
In any case, if you find this helpful, please use it and if not don’t let it distract you!
Knowledge is power – and you know best about you.
Happy to help with any questions about this to the best of my abilities.
Happy Practicing,
Elena
From Wikipedia:

The five hindrances are:[1][2][3][web 1][web 2]

  1. Sensory desire (kāmacchanda): the particular type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and physical feeling.
  2. Ill-will (vyāpāda; also spelled byāpāda): all kinds of thought related to wanting to reject, feelings of hostility, resentment, hatred and bitterness.
  3. Sloth-torpor (thīna–middha): heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.
  4. Restlessness-worry (uddhacca–kukkucca): the inability to calm the mind from these emotions.
  5. Doubt (vicikicchā): lack of conviction or trust.

Acceptance: How can you accept things you don’t like?

Acceptance“I think that if you do spiritual practice correctly, it reflects and undoes your habits of closure so that when you stop doing those habits you are left in your natural state, which is wide open, loving, radiant, happy, sane.“ -David Deida

At some point I stumbled onto the realization that neither running away from my problems (suppression, denial, distraction, etc, etc) nor the opposite extreme of wallowing in the drama of them was terribly useful for making them any better.

What did and does help is first noticing that something is happening and then being in that objective part of me that can notice how I am in it – while I am also fully feeling it. The exact results of this are variable, from the thought/feeling passing quickly to a lengthy succession of difficult experiences happening one after the other… pain, crying, etc.

And it is not that these things go away and never come back. Indeed they are always available. The one thing that is consistent, though is that they get easier and easier to be with. I get more comfortable with them to the point that when they come I do not immediately react with running or wallowing, but have a choice about how to be in them… “Wow, I’m really frightened. My belly is a rock and my throat hurts. I can see an entire drama arising in my mind about this. I think that I will watch that drama like a movie playing in my mind and not act on it. I can see that it is not true, just what my mind is creating to make sense of this fear that I am feeling.”

This kind of liberation is an immense blessing. Not being ruled by fear, jealousy, greed, anger, pain, etc. is wonderful. And of course, sometimes I am able to notice and accept and sometimes I run or wallow long before I ever realize that something worth noticing is even happening.

In the mean time, I am reassured by the Buddhist idea of The Middle Way, which contrary to its name is not, as I understand it, about staying in the middle, but about balance, about allowing everything as it arrises. The Middle Way says that we should accept all parts of life, all ends of the spectrums; that sometimes you will need one extreme or another and sometimes you will need the paces in between. The Middle Way, or Middle Path does not embrace just one way, it embraces all ways, it stays at the centered in acceptance and accepts everything.

Acceptance is a big deal. It is difficult for me to do. It is hard to accept things that I don’t like or want and yet it is one of the best practices I have found for helping me deal with those things. Acceptance doesn’t mean I have to like those things, it just means that I acknowledge them (versus trying and ignore them) and then let my mind move on to something else (instead of focusing on them and creating drama). Acceptance means that when thoughts and emotions float through, I say hello and let them go.

One thing that you can try is something that I’m using a lot lately to get me through a really tough spot in my own growth. I’m struggling a lot with overwhelming thoughts and emotions about my own self worth and I remembered a Buddhist practice I learned a long time ago in Thailand.

In this practice, when you notice a thought or emotion you say what it is, you name it, and then let it go by actively looking for the next one. In this way you are first acknowledging and then letting go. This is a beautiful way to practice acceptance.

This time, I’ve been thanking what arises as well. A thought will arise and I realize, “Ah, you’re trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to protect me.” This little addition of gratitude makes a big difference. It helps me acknowledge the thought or emotion for the good that it is trying to do, which goes a long way towards accepting it and letting it go versus resisting it or wanting to dwell on it, figure it out or turn it into a drama.

Elena Maria Foucher writes about personal growth on ElenaMariaFoucher.com and teaches Meditation Made Easy, simple tools for relaxation, over Skype. Contact her at Elena@ElenaMariaFoucher.com.

(This article first appeared in the online magazine CoSozo.com.)

Abandonment: If You Always Have You, Can You Ever Truly Be Left?

AbandonmentAbandonment has been a strong fear of mine. I find it interesting that on a planet of 7 people that that would be a fear, but there it is. Fears are funny things.

Turns out quite a few of us share this one. Abandonment issues, the fear of lonliness, can feel insurmountable, like a huge obstacle blocking our path.

I used to spend a lot of time as a child unconsciously worried about who I was going to spend time with and for how long and when. Lots of planning and strategizing went into this, schedules and phone calls, conversations and the like. As I grew up and became an adult I started a long process of learning to love myself. I’ve found that one of the wonderful side effects of that journey has been that I don’t worry so much about being alone anymore.

I didn’t even know how I felt about being alone until it started to get better, until I had begun to love myself enough that the fear started to fade a bit.

Much of that fear was unconscious as was all of the things I was doing to avoid it. I would engage people in conversations longer than I needed to, listen to people that I wasn’t interested in listening to, hang out with people I didn’t really like and do things that I didn’t really want to do. I’d do all of this thinking that I was being generous and kind or at worst just filling free time, if I thought about it at all.

And why not? There’s nothing wrong with being with other people. With helping people by listening to their problems, supporting them with my time and energy and getting the same in return.

Except that the motives weren’t clean. What I didn’t realize was that I was doing these things not out of pure compassion or a clean and clear need for help. I was doing these things from an unconscious fear of being alone, of not being liked, friendless, lonely, unloved, abandoned. Icky.

These unconscious fears drove me, and since often I didn’t really like what I was doing or who I was with, I wasn’t giving the best of me nor able to receive the best from them. The whole situation was messy and unfulfilling for me and I imagine for them as well.

Until it all started to change. I didn’t make this change on purpose. I didn’t even realize it was happening! What I did do was slowly start liking myself more and more over time and that allowed me to see, “Hey! I don’t really want to do these things! I don’t really want to hang out with these people! I’m not really happy with these interactions!”

Shew! What a difference liking myself has made! As I like myself more, the parts that I don’t like become more clear. As I get more comfortable, the discomforts become more obvious to see and feel. And to stop.

I’m happy to say that I am much more conscious about how I spend my time and whether it’s fulfilling or not. At this point I don’t worry much about being alone on a social level, and the personal level is slowly unwinding itself as well.

How did I go about liking myself more? How can you go about liking yourself more? Those are great questions!

Honestly, I don’t know which of the things I did were a necessary part of learning to love myself. I’m sure that the people who’ve scaled that mountain all the way to the top can share a better overview of the process than I can. There are lots of books and courses you can take, so look out for those to inform your journey to self love.

One thing I can say for sure is that loving myself as much as I do now means that I have me and that I am enough.

What ever your journey towards self love, if you choose to take it, the view from the top will be worth it. I know because the view from here is totally amazing, and I’m only part way up!

(This article first appeared in the online magazine CoSozo.com.)

Relationship Rescue: From Abuse to Amuse

Relationship Rescue“Sometimes things are so bad that I have to laugh so that I don’t cry.” David Deida

As fas as I can figure, there is no miracle cure for fixing relationships.

There are things that we can do to make them better, tips and tools for improving this or that.

But making the whole thing sublime? Nope. Not that I’ve seen.

Too bad, as far as I’m concerned. It would be great if my relationship with my partner was the cleanest, most beautiful, light bearing thing in my life.

Instead, while it is a source of great joy, it is also happens to be the thing that uncovers my darkest parts. It shows me where my demons are; handily pointing out all of the icky, nasty, icky things that, frankly I would rather just keep hidden in the depths.

On the other hand, this is also one of the greatest gifts that my relationship gives me. It points out in glaring detail and no uncertain terms, where I’m needing growth and change.

It pinpoints exactly where I need to shine some light.

One thing that my relationship has been showing me lately is my tendency to get angry. My partner thinks that I’m the cause of the anger, that I initiate it, and of course I think that he does. Is one of us unconscious about bringing the anger or are we both? This is an endless argument that our shadows could enjoy fighting over forever.

What seems to matter most is, what can we do to stop being angry in the first place?

How can we stop it as it’s happening and even better how can we stop it before it starts?

Great questions.

Usually, if I’m writing about something it’s to share some tip or tool that I’ve discovered to be really helpful. Not this time.

So far nothing that we’ve tried works. This issue seems to require some deep excavation and a big does of bravery as we shine our lights into the recesses… we may need a light house versus our standard flash light approach.

How do we do that, we’re wondering?

We’ll probably use many of the familiar tools for illumination: meditation, journaling, shadow work, inner child work, conflict resolution skills, psychoanalysis, dreamwork, journaling, rituals, etc, etc, etc. Big moments of clarity and insight will happen eventually.

In the meantime, it just hurts, so I’m trying to remember to not take myself too seriously.

I try to remember that we’re both human, having this wacky human experience, that I don’t really know why I’m here and what any of this means… and that in that case I’m free to laugh or cry as I choose. That in the larger sense, there is no clear reason to choose one over the other, so why not choose to laugh?

As I’m looking at this painful issue that feels so abusive with no clear way to fix it, this is the one thing I can think of to lighten the situation. Laughter.

I can cry in frustration.

Or I can laugh with delight… Yay! Another shadow dancing into the light!

Elena Maria Foucher blogs her experiments in joyful living on the Joy Lab at ElenaMariaFoucher.com. She teaches meditation and stress management in Hong Kong and is the creator of simple, quick meditations you can learn while brushing your teeth at ToothbrushMeditations.com.

(This article was first published in the online magazine CoSozo.com)

Second Chances: How Loving an Abused Animal Opened My Eyes & Healed My Heart

Second ChancesI live in a tiny neighborhood at the top of a very long hill. I’m far from the throngs of Hong Kong and ensconced in the wonders of nature. It’s truly an honor to be a citizen of such an urban environment and to live where I can hear crickets sing, watch hawks soar past the balcony and rain sweep over the bay.

Obviously, I live on the outskirts of Hong Kong. Instead of being among the cosmopolite, I’ve chosen to live among an extended family of villagers, kind hearted souls whose grandmother rules the root and does her flock’s laundry each morning. It is a beautiful, clean and quiet setting.

When I moved in I was delighted to notice a lovely husky, well tended, on a chain under a tree at one end of the property. I love dogs and it was great to know our neighbors did too.

Or so I thought. It became obvious pretty quickly that though she was well cared for as far as being fed and her area cleaned twice daily no one spent any more time with her than that. Her caregiver ignored her and no one took her for walks. Ever.

When I gently inquired it turned out that a cousin had installed her there when he moved into an apartment that didn’t allow dogs with promises to retrieve her soon. That was three years ago.

This husky has been on a chain for three years. She’s been there day in and day out. No walks. Wow.

I was shocked.

It was heartbreaking to know that no one cared enough for her to fill her basic need for exercise, and the idea of being confined to a two meter chain, day in and day out was unthinkable. I felt terrible. This was a tragedy that I couldn’t bear. Every time I looked over at her from my balcony I felt so sad I wanted to cry. I couldn’t live next to this kind of cruelty and not do something about it.

What was I going to do?

I asked if I could take her for walks. Grandmother said, thank you, but no. She didn’t want to be liable if anything happened to me or the dog or anyone else. Her reasoning made sense and I knew better than to argue with grandma, so I gave up trying to rescue her that way.

I decided that the least I could do was to send her loving looks instead of showering her with sadness from my balcony. I decided that at least I could send her love, even if from afar.

And that’s when things started to change.

That’s when I got a chance to see this situation from a different place.

As I started to look at her with love and without my filter of tragedy, I began to be able to see her again. I started to be able to see how she felt instead of projecting onto her how I felt. I began to notice that she wasn’t sad at all. In fact, she was quite happy! How could that be, I wondered? I began to watch her carefully, my heart open.

As the days past, I noticed that she took pleasure many things. She wagged and shook with joy every morning and evening as her food was delivered, and took delight in the woman who gave it to her even though the woman ignored her. She didn’t mind. She was still happy to see her. She was content regardless. Amazing.

She enjoyed the scents that wafted up the valley and she would often walk over to the edge and sit and sniff the wind and watch whomever was walking up the hill. And wonder of wonders, she even took herself for walks. What I had thought were the neurotic movements of a trapped animal trying to get off her chain were actually the happy wanderings of an animal content to walk as much as her chain allowed. Almost daily she calmly walked the full perimeter that her chain allowed, stopping now and then to sniff things and check out the latest leaf that had blown over or insect that had landed on the flowers next to her. She varied her walks, going in one direction one day and another way the next.

Mostly, she just seemed content for no reason at all. How interesting. I wondered if I would be able to keep my head up and interested in the world if I were captive. Her interest, her contentment seemed to be a part of her regardless of her captivity.

And all of this would be pure conjecture and me just trading my sad blue glasses for rose colored ones except that I finally got up the nerve to go over and make friends with her. I’ve spent a lot of time with dogs, so I knew to proceed with caution in case she had lost her socialization or was aggressive (defensive) when approached by a stranger. I wanted to make friends, so I was very careful not to scare her. Also, she’s a big dog. With big teeth.

It took me almost a month of slowly gaining her trust before I got close enough for her to carefully sniff my hand. Only, once I finally got there she wasn’t careful at all. I needn’t have worried. Turns out she’s super friendly and loves to say hello. From that moment on, whenever I approach she wags and prances and plays and almost knocks me over with kisses and love. She’s only complained twice when I walked away from her, and both times I knew that I was leaving in the middle of playing and that we weren’t done yet. She was right.

I’ve spent a lot of time with her over the two years that we’ve lived here and I can honestly say there’s so much love and happiness in that dog, it’s astounding. She’s extraordinary. She’s one of the happiest dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Probably one of the happiest beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.

She gave me a second chance. A chance to open my eyes and see what is really happening inside her. A chance to see what freedom really looks like. Through her I’ve begun to understand how Nelson Mandela handled all those years in prison, emerging strong and free and whole, and why Moojii said once that a man free in his heart can be in prison and yet be the only free person around.

She shows me that freedom comes from within as I greet her from my balcony every morning. And yet everyday I meet humans walking around in prisons of their own making. The contrast is amazing. She’s free because she chooses freedom. Many of us are in prisons of unhappiness and discontent because we choose them. This dog understands that. I can see that she does. I hope that all of us can understand that as well.

(And bless the aunt who has recently taken her on two walks!! I’m trying not to hold my breath, or bring my needs into it, but I am really happy at this turn of events! May we all be free inside and out!)

Elena Maria Foucher blogs her experiments in joyful living for the Joy Lab at ElenaMariaFoucher.com. She teaches meditation and stress management in Hong Kong and has created simple, quick meditations that you can do while brushing your teeth available at ToothbrushMeditations.com.

(This article first appeared in the online magazine CoSozo.com.)

Real Talk: Speaking and Listening About Things That Matter

Speaking&ListeningOur relationships are the most valuable things we have. They are the gold that helps make life worth living.

One of the biggest challenges in my relationships is resolving differences in ways that celebrate versus denigrate each other. Sometimes the gold can get so beaten out of shape in these situations that it breaks apart.

I’m learning the art of respectful disagreement the hard way, and I’d like to share two big nuggets of wisdom in the hopes that your road to mastery can be smoother than mine.

Nugget 1: Sometimes all you need to do is listen.

One of the best things that my first husband and I did when we were separating was to attend a class on conflict resolution. We didn’t end up using the method of Nonviolent Communication that we learned. What we did do was take some of the principles of that class and develop a method for discussion that worked for us. We stumbled onto brilliance, and created the most peaceful and loving break up I’d ever had. Mostly what we did was learn the power of listening.

What we discovered as we went over issues we’d been fighting about for years was that we didn’t actually know what the other person thought.

What? How could that be? We’d heard the same arguments from each other over and over again!

How could we not know the other person’s arguments?

It turned out we hadn’t actually been listening.

For years.

Yikes.

How did that happen? I imagine that at first we were too hurt and angry and defensive and in a hurry to get across our pain. That we were too upset to slow down and listen to what the other person had to say.

How can that deafness continue for 12 years? All I can say is that when I think I’m right, I generally don’t pay attention to anything else. All I can hear are my thoughts, my logic, my reasoning. I didn’t listen to him because I assumed that I knew what he was saying. Ouch.

Now that we were willing to take the time to hear what the other person was saying, we were equally amazed at what we were hearing.

“Wait, you’re not mad that I used savings to buy the motorcycle, you’re upset because I didn’t ask you about the color?! Really? … Oh. …. Sorry about that, I didn’t realize the the color mattered to you.”

And poof, that was done. Gone. Over.

We’d been arguing for years and in 5 minutes of actually listening, we cleared up the whole thing.

Amazing, right?

90% of our discussions were like this.

Seriously.

It’s astounding what some focused listening can accomplish.

Nugget 2: Even if you think that you understand what the other person is saying, check.

This, in fact, is how we discovered that we weren’t listening. We checked.

How did we check?

One person would say what they thought about an issue (for a set time) and the other would remain silent and just listen. Then the listener would repeat back what they understood the first person was saying.

So, note that the listener isn’t mentally preparing their argument in response, they are listening for understanding and saying what they understand.

Then the first person confirms and clarifies, confirming what matches their thinking and clarifies what doesn’t. The listener says what they understand from the clarifications and this repeats until both people are satisfied that the listener understands the speaker.

Then you switch roles and the listener becomes the speaker on the topic.

Sound tedious? It can be! We found it incredibly helpful to have a structure to follow when things got heated. When hearts and minds start bending out of shape, it’s helpful to have guidelines and limits that you’re both happy to follow.

If you want to get better at conflict resolution, I encourage you to find or create a method that you and the other person both like. Do things that encourage clear listening and check for understanding even if you think you understand already! How will you know if you don’t ask?

And no matter what you’re discussing, remember how much you value the person in front of you and your relationship. Remember that you enrich each other and make life that much more golden.

Elena Maria Foucher blogs her discoveries for enjoying life on the Joy Lab at ElenaMariaFoucher.com. She also teaches meditation and stress reduction in Hong Kong and is the creator of simple meditations you can do while brushing your teeth at ToothbrushMeditations.com.

(This article was first published in the online magazine CoSozo.com.)

Spiritual Awareness through Cultural Immersion

Spiritual Awareness thru Culture

Enlightening Radio Interview: Spiritual Awareness through Cultural Immersion

Christine Andrew, owner of CoSozo Wellness interviewed me for her Enlightening Radio show. Here’s what she wrote about it:

“Every moment in our lives has the opportunity to provide deeper awareness and insight into our true essential nature. Traveling to and living in a completely foreign country or within new cultures and belief systems enables you to confront and encounter awarenesses that you perhaps might not have the opportunity to experience any other way.

Joining our conversation today is Elena Foucher, the Founder of the Joy Lab in Hong Kong. Elena delivers short and easy meditation tools and tips that you can literally do any time. She also has a fascinating backstory with Enlightening Radio host Christine Andrew. On today’s show, we’re not only discussing that rich history, but also some of the insights that you can gain in your life, whether you’re in your own backyard or half way around the world!

There’s a rich and deep world within each of us. Use the messages and examples of today’s show and dive on in! For more information about Elena and the Toothbrush Meditations, please email Elena@ElenaMariaFoucher.com or visitwww.toothbrushmeditations.com.”

Recorded 23 August, 2014, click the link at the top to listen to the interview.

Enjoy!,

Elena