17 Days of ZING!

The 17 Days of Zing! is a bright-hearted spiritual challenge prompted by Goddess Leonie of GoddessGuidebook.com. We started on November 1 making today day 12 of the challenge. It's a commitment to practice a so hum meditation for 5, 10, or 20 minutes each day of the challenge. The meditation is simple ~ breathe in so exhale hum ~ and surprisingly effective for calming body and mind. (The so hum is said in your mind.)

cheering reminder

Simple, effective, and exactly the kind of thing I need... thus exactly the thing I'll avoid, forget, delay... until so many days have passed I quit. So I posted the image from challenge on my desktop where it's zinging its call to zen up at me 8 hours a day 5 days a week. The 5 hardest days. And it's working.

For months (all year?) I've been trying to establish a daily practice of silence or meditation. Instead, I've developed an addiction to hulu... or checking email & facebook & folding laundry & surfing headlines & catching up with Colbert & Stewart... an addiction to distraction. Why? What am I avoiding? How is it I have time for all the mental junkfood but I don't have 10 minutes to sit still & silent? It's actually good for me. The 17 Days of Zing! appeared as a doable commitment in good company. I took the challenge.

I started at 5 minutes and quickly moved on to 10. Yikes! The first 10 minute session I did was a plummet into cruddy stuff. Oh, this is why I don't do this. I'm, like, totally convinced that the world is a terrifying dangerous place and you should settle for less lest you draw attention to yourself and call down destruction upon yourself and your loved ones. (Long story short.) I don't know where all that crud came from but I do know that I've used it as my compass for too many decisions. I'm rousting it out. I'm choosing, planting, tending something new.

I went back to the 5 minute version for a couple days until I regained my balance. Then back up to 10. And it's good. Last night I actually experienced the my-body-is-made-of-jello depth of relaxation that some of the other women have reported. My mind isn't relaxing. I just keep bringing it back into the gentle syllables so hum. Other cranky worrying words rush in to any pause - which is teaching me to do the meditation in a steady gentle flow of one word sohumsohumsohum. Letting my mind drift on so hum, like a feather drifts through the air to the ground. (We're going to need another 17 days or so.)