“Isn’t it a lovely day! It’s cold and there’s a patch of frost over there. But the sun is warm on my back and I’m all toasty in my gloves and hat. Look how far we’ve come. It’s always better to look at how far you’ve come than how far you’ve got to go – I wonder how far we have got to go? Ooh, this is a steep bit. Thank goodness it’s going down – but we’ve got to get back onto another ridge of the Downs to return to where we started, so I hope it’s not as steep going back up. My socks are falling down, and my boot is loose. I think one of my laces needs to be retied…”

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about concentrating on what you’re doing, so negative thoughts don’t get in the way. Since then, I’ve been trying to make a discipline of this and to notice my thoughts. Last week, we were walking on the Isle of Wight, and it was there that I tracked these thoughts. It seems to me that, even concentrating on a task, or in this case, the pleasure of walking, we cannot escape thoughts. Getting into a meditative state, where there is no thought, seems impossible for me.

So, how do we meditate? It seems that meditation is good for our mental health – many people have recommended it to me and I’m sure they have to you too.

Well, I’ve tried guided meditation; the ones where the voice starts by getting you to relax every muscle in your body and then guides you through a meditative exercise. The problem with that, for me, is that as soon as I feel I’m getting into the right state, the intrusive voice comes in telling me to think of something else.

Then there’s the idea of focusing on a candle. I’ve had better luck with that one. It’s easier to concentrate on the flicker and hiss of the flame than it is a voice. What’s difficult then is to make the time every day to light that candle and stare into it for the ten minutes or so it takes to get into the right state.

There’s no doubt that meditation does make you feel more peaceful and prepared for the day – or prepared for sleep if you do it at the end of the day.

I’d be very interested to hear from you, dear readers, as to what your experiences of mediation are. Are you “successful” in mediation? Do you struggle like I do? And do you receive any benefit from it?

And, if you’re interested, we walked nine miles that day and fortunately, didn’t have any precipitous climbs back up to the ridge. We did get lost at one point but, as my husband said, we weren’t lost, we just didn’t know quite where we were!

And we slept very well that night.

Mary

A Moodscope member