From Meditation to Mountain Climbers!

Written by Anne Marie Constanzo Wednesday, 01 February 2012

Day 1 of February. Month 2 of the year. Number 2 on my list of 12 new things to do in the year 2012: 50 mountain climbers into a one min plank hold. Totally doable, right?

Last month I was doing (attempting) five minutes of meditation a day. My success rating wasn't so high. In the beginning it was (of course) but it definitely tailed off there at the end and I can't really say why. Well, of course I can, I lost momentum. Week three in January feels like light years from the Happy New Year beginning when all is shiny and new and change is in the air. At week three we might as well be in June in terms of remotely remembering our goals and aspirations for the new year.

Meditation, despite all the emotions it brought up, was almost a necessity for me in the those first two weeks. Then the icky feelings came up and that stunk. And then this newfound unwillingness to spend my time sitting in silence while the baby was sleeping (I had a MILLION other things I could be doing!) definitely side railed me. And now a momentary struggle to get myself back into it. (Who knew sitting in silence could be so challenging. Thank heavens for the new month and the new goal!)

However, despite these struggles, meditation and I have not abandoned our relationship just yet. In actuality, it has ended up helping me out tremendously. So much so that despite it not making it into my list of things to do everyday (like changing diapers), it will be in the mix. There were certainly days when I could not wait to sit in silence and try to disengage my overactive mind and/or remove it altogether from my head. And of course there were other days I felt totally balanced and didn't need (or want) to sit still and 'not think'. (Not that that ever happened, but I tried. That mind/ego thing is a tricky thing to try to turn off!) I did, however, get better at increasing that space between an event and my reaction, and for me, that's a huge plus! When something wasn't going my way, or an argument was on the horizon and all I needed to say was some small slanderous comment to get it going in full force, I was actually able to stop, for a moment, and think before I reacted. In my own little personal life history, that has never happened. Never! And now that I can do that (mind you, not all the time, I'm no yogi here), I'm actually happier. I've created that little space between event and reaction and it's helped tremendously! TRE-MEND-OUS-LY! So I'm considering month 1 of 12 new things to try in '12 a total success! (Applause please!)

Now to tackle month 2 and the mountain climbers. I'm thinking (hoping) that this month, less animosity will arise from within and it will be totally smooth sailing. My ultimate goal by month's end is to get it up to 100 mountain climbers into 1:30 plank hold (with 5 minutes of meditation thrown in for good measure!)

Anyone else out there with a February goal? Anyone?

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