TL;DR: Comment on @cest.madeleine or my instagram post to join the #Commit2Sit Meditation Movement. We will add you to the Facebook page and Instagram group to keep us all accountable for a daily meditation practice for the next 21 days. Meditation is free and so is this group!
Some ramblings from that Oatmeal Girl
Very often we put off what we know we should do. “Eh, I will start exercising next year,” I say dismissively, scooting my tennis shoes to the back of my closet. Going to start journaling every day, tomorrow. Today is the day I start eating more mindfully. On second thought, going to have to delay. I pull the covers over my head, let my laundry pile up. Why is this? Michelle Segar, a psychologist who studies human motivation (and an amazing UMich professor / author of No Sweat, a book that changed my life) has found that while humans are long-term rational beings, we are short-term emotionally motivated. While I know what is good for me, I often DO what feels good for me. And sometimes that is laying in bed, eating hummus with a spoon. Alas.
So what can we do? Obviously there are benefits in reframing our perspectives, cognitively redefining an experience to not only be good for us but to also feel good. Finding those small joys in otherwise dismal experiences. However, I just really find it hard to believe that an hour and a half Orange Theory class (read: traumatic re-experience of high school lacrosse sprints except more public and with a coach who knows my name AND heart rate) will ever feel GOOD. Maybe with more jogging it could feel less painful, but I have my doubts that any sort of physical exertion will make me feel the way a jar of peanut butter does.
Community makes things easier
So what does this mean- should we give up? Accept that doing chores and completing accounting homework will never feel good and commit to a Dionysian life of pleasure and peanut butter that Freud himself would say was inevitable. I say no. While it is true it can be difficult to change the experience of an action, we can change the context. We can create a community, a social support system for those things that are less than wonderful, and experience a different type of joy. One I believe that can keep us doing those things we didn’t spring out of bed wanting to do.
For me, one daily practice that I struggle with is meditation. If you know me, you know I don’t sit. And even when I do sit, I am not still. And even, on the absolute rarest chance that I am both sitting and am still, there is absolutely no chance that I am being quiet. And if, I was forcibly trapped against my will in the no talking allowed, reading room of the Law Library and have happened to find a seat, there is no chance that my brain isn’t whirring and spinning around a million thoughts. Thus, a practice that requires you to sit, be still, and to quiet not only your voice, but also your mind, is nearly torturous for me. Sometimes I fall over. Sometimes I cry. Sitting and meditating for twenty minutes is my personal Superbowl and it is really fricken hard.
But I have found that, as with most things, it is easier to meditate with someone or a group. It is much easier to face your Superbowl with a team than just your pea brain and wee amounts of willpower. There is something about sitting in a group, knowing that no one else has given up, that keeps me in and going. This is probably just sheer stubbornness or blind competitiveness, but hey, it works. Groups keep me accountable.
The thoughts behind #Commit2Sit21Days
So enter Winter Break. As I leave my wonderful college campus and buddies, I face the next three weeks with just my little pea brain and wee willpower. These sort of tools that equip me to sleep for 14 hours yesterday and not move from bed except to get a new book. Nothing wrong with that, but my parents might be concerned if I go all Rip Van Winkle and they never see me over the next 21 days.
Why 21 days?
The book I happened to pick up yesterday was The Power of Habit, which is, as the title suggests, about how powerful habits are in our every day. Only 5-6% of the decisions are actively chosen by us, the rest are a result of our past experience and habits. If given the bilateral choice to meditate or do literally anything else, I probably won’t choose to meditate. Thus, I realized, if I wanted to keep up my meditation practice, I was going to have to make it a habit.
Social scientists have come to a comfortable consensus that 21 days is the length of time to make a choice a habit, if that action is chosen everyday of those 21 days. So I decided that I simply must meditate for the next 21 days. To me, this would be like waking up and walking into my personal Superbowl every single day of break. If I was going to do this, I was going to need a team.
Enter Maddie Ross, my greatest cheerleader, mindful extraordinaire, blogger buddy, aspiring meditation guru, and best friend. Recognizing that we could not be the only two people in the world who struggled with regular meditation, we concocted the idea to form an accountability group, called “Commit to Sit.” Anyone can join this group, and it will take form in an Instagram and Facebook group. All that is required is that you to set an intention for your next 21 days and follow through on it, posting in the facebook group to inspire and motivate others. If you feel comfortable, each day please post how you meditated and one thing you are celebrating. It doesn’t matter if your meditation practice is five minutes or fifty, if you keep your eyes open, or if you prop yourself up on a wall. Whatever your practice is, practice it.
But Sarah, why would I want to meditate and how does one meditate?
Well this is a great question. You have come to the right place, as I, too, had absolutely no clue how to properly meditate a mere three months ago, and well, okay, I honestly still don’t know what is the “right” way to meditate. But that is the beauty of meditation! You can’t do it “right,” you can only do it. There is no shortcut or cheat code, you just gotta sit there in your body and not move. If silence absolutely terrifies you, there are a bajillion meditation videos on Youtube and apps like HeadSpace and Insight Timer that can help guide you through it. My meditation practice is twenty minutes sitting on a cushion cross-legged (so my feet don’t fall asleep / hips don’t rip themselves out of their sockets), calling attention to my breath, and returning to the breath when my mind wanders.
But why should you meditate?
Among my favorite benefits of meditation are what it does for stress-reduction (lowering the reactivity of the amygdala), increasing ability for compassion (activating the brain’s circuitry for happiness and compassion), and elevating our ability to focus and reduce negative self-talk in our brain (quieting down the “default network” in the brain that ruminates when we aren’t engaged in a task). I learned this from my current favorite book Altered Traits, which if you have stood in a fifty-foot range of me, you have probably heard about. But what I think is the most remarkable thing about meditation is its univeralness. Anyone can meditate. Anywhere. It costs no money, takes no skill other than resilience. And you can do it now. All you need is five minutes. You can find five minutes for yourself. Especially in the crazy hectic times of holiday and year-end, you owe it to yourself to find five minutes.
And we are here for you. Already a bunch of amazing, inspiring humans have joined the #Commit2Sit21Days Community and have committed to mindfulness, healthy habit making, and themsleves. You don’t need a New Year’s Resolution. Resolve now. Commit now. To yourself and your life. Commit to sit and the world will plant itself at your feet.
"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and grass grows by itself." - Zen Proverb
With light and love,
Sarah & Maddie