You are the way

meditation contemplations, having visions with my mother, finding comfort in darkness, opening doors for my family

Into the darkness I go, that’s the thought that passes through my mind every time I close my eyes to meditate. Sometime I meditate to escape the moment because to me the darkness can be comforting. After all, the darkness is a familiar home resembling the womb where we spend a lot of time growing and coming into existence to experience life as we know it to be today.

The places where I gain the most insight during meditation is when I’m outside or when I’m in the tub. There is an expansive quality to being outside and that’s the quality I want my mind to be in for life. It’s the way the leaves dance in the wind and the way the birds just go. They get to fly around with their homies all day everyday but they also get to wonder off from the tribe to do their own thing too.

To me, birds are very confident.

They are the epitome of freedom.

I would like to be more like them.

I want to be more like nature.

I just recently discovered how submissive my mind is to the water. I always take baths with intention because quite frankly showers can be quick not requiring any intention at all. You hop in, you hop out and you’re done. I’m hardly a long shower girl but I suppose if I got to shower under a water fall I would be lol.

For a bath there is a preparation that has to happen. The water has to fill up to your desired height. The temperature must be right. Then you have to wait for all of this to happen because who sits in the tub while the water is filling up? I don’t. The hairs on my skin will lead me to a shiver and my nipples will perk up from being warm at the bottom where the water flows and cold at the top where the water has yet to reach.

After all that prepping, I don’t see the point of hopping in and hopping out. So I enjoy the fruits of my labor by letting my body and the water become one creating a pause in the moment.

I always aim to create pauses for myself in this busy world or perhaps I would go insane.

How do you create pauses for yourself?

Just before hopping in I sprinke a bath concoction made up of salts and herbs into the bath. Maybe adding some orange blossom water so I can smell the pleasant aroma of flowers or adding a few drops of lavender or a eucalyptus type essential oil for that cool stimulating effect.

Just going off vibes here.

Then I close my eyes to relax and catch a break.

Sometimes I get rigid in life because I’m afraid that things won’t play out how I want them too. When I take baths it’s because I know I need to soften, trust, and surrender. That’s the perfect energy for visions to land successfully in my psyche. I saw the most beautiful things that I know will come true in time.

I don’t know how to swim but now I really want to learn how to.

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Nothing is happening outside of the moment and everything is happening outside the moment when you’re meditating.

Meditation is a way I cope with being in a world that can be so violent, so loud and so unwavering in the way that there is always strife of some kind.

I don’t meditate to be peaceful because I am already that. I meditate to maintain the connection to the peace within me because there is always something that’s tugging at my attention to be at war with myself, my circumstances, and others.

I don’t mediate because it’s cool and I want to look “ a way”. I meditate because I am the way. Everything is happening regardless but when I take the time out for myself through meditation I understand that life is always open arms to me and my ability to participate and co-create. I do have a say in the way my life is made.

I don’t meditate because I’m forced too. I meditate because I want to and since it’s my practice it’s very flexible. I don’t have to be chanting an Om mantra to the top of my lungs, but I could. I don’t have to be sitting crossed legs and I damn sure don’t have to be doing it for hours and hours on end. When I’m on the go it’s 5 minutes, when I’m being intentional it’s 10 minutes and when I’m just wilding out I do 30-45 minutes.

Sometime dancing is my meditation as I flow into dance moves without any thought. I like to let my body take over because otherwise i’m up in my head all the time.

I leave meditation feeling a little more seen, grounded and connected than before I entered it. I think I find the darkness so comforting because it’s a loud silence that ‘s filled with everything.

Whatever I seek in the darkness I can bring it with me into the light.

When I seek myself I find her. When I seek love I know it.

Meditation has strengthened my mind so that I can pick and choose which thoughts I want to act on. I know incessant thoughts aren’t unique to me and my mind. I know you deal with them too.

The best thing I can tell you is to not be at war with yourself.

Always strive to be on your side.

That’s what meditation does for me. It reminds me that the best way to live a full life is to be a friend to myself.

It teaches me to not be so harsh with myself when I don’t get things “right” and to quiet the inner critic because she isn’t always needed, just sometimes. It teaches me to remember.

Meditation enhances my imagination and helps me to see into the unseen. It teaches me simply believe.

I know meditation has the power to shift things around for people but I never force them to try it.

I hosted a virtual meditation class in September and my mother showed up. It meant everything to me because I know that she didn’t know much about it. I know she was raised in a time where people never had time to take care of their mind. It was just about providing and working.

Her willingness to show up meant that she wanted to learn.

She not only showed up because I’m her daughter but because she acknowledged that part within herself that wanted inner connection.

She trusted me to be her guide.

I called her recently and told her about having visions in the water. Reluctant to say so at first, but the words just came out

“When I take baths I get visions in the water”

hoping that she wouldn’t shut me down and think I was crazy

she replied

“omg me too, I’ve been having visions of the past”

“wow past life regression, maybe there’s something there for you” I said.

Meditation strengthens the generation

because when your people see you doing something good for yourself they feel the call to do it too. It’s just a matter of introducing them to the way and letting them know that they can do anything from there on out.

“Tiana had a meditation class I went to” my mother said.

“Omg why didn’t you tell me? I want to do stuff like that” my aunt said.

My family will understand that they are the way, I open new doors for them when I do what I do.

If you got down this far you a real one, your voice is appreciated leave me some feedback below and visit my links.

love, Tiana<3