Harder Than It Looks

Where: London Buddhist Center, Bethnal Green, London, UK
When: June 24, 2009
What I Like: The subject, the depth of field, the light and the textures, and the balance in the shot between the focus and out of focus areas.
What I Don't Like: Maybe I'd like the background to be brighter, a little more interesting? Maybe I'd like more color? But overall I'm happy.

20 minutes of meditation first thing in the morning is working well so far. In that I'm doing it. The meditation itself is frustrating though, for some reason when I do it on my own, I feel a lot of tension in my abdominal and chest muscles, which is a feeling I associate with anxiety, stress and panic. So I'm working on disassociating the feeling from the emotion, and on exploring the sensation and getting to a place where I really grok that all I'm feeling are muscles contracting. There isn't anything bad happening, I'm just sitting, watching my breath and feeling muscles contract. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

What's funny is that when I go to the zen center, or sit with my friend Magda, I don't feel this. It's just when I sit by myself. And the pattern of thoughts seem to be similar in both places, so I'm not sure what's causing the tension. I'm trying not to focus on the cause, just on helping myself recognize that physical sensation is not emotion, and does not have to be responded to WITH emotion. If that makes sense.

In other news, I'm 30 today! I have to change my profile description! So far it feels like being 29. My husband put an enormous amount of thought and secret planning into the day, and as a result I'm off to one of the nicest spas in London for the whole day! Then we're going to have a delicious meal in a fancy French restaurant. Best husband ever.