Dada Meditations
How many times has someone said to me, “the only thing you can control is yourself!”? And I’m like: WHAT?! I’m apologizing and shamed over tons of things I’ve done. If I had control over myself, I’d be a much better person. Not just the popping offs I wish I hadn’t done, but the fear reactions I have … see a snake and scream kinda business. Fear is a powerful reactor and the body takes control and does it’s whole own thing without consulting our precious mind. What about the million times I ate the cake I didn’t really want, couldn’t stop with the bag of chips, went ahead and took a shot of whiskey even though I hated myself for doing it? How about falling in love with shitshows over and over?
There are tons of things I do that I wish I didn’t, and things I don’t do that I wish I did. So why am I arguing with myself, why can’t I start flossing or get back into yoga? Maybe the answer is that our whole self is a construction of three parts: ego, subconscious and body, and they are NOT all on the same page.
I think of our toxic coping mechanisms, our monkey mind, our self-shaming, our addiction paradigms as a symptom of not having a Unified Will: that agreement between mind, body and spirit about how we live and who we are.
A Unified Will is an essential component to growth and health. Which means we have to start investigating beyond the everyday thinking mind, the conscious, identity mind and figure out how to visit the body and soul. The body and soul are speaking to us and informing our actions, but it feels like they are out of our control. The truth is, they are your best confidants, your staunchest advocates, and hold the path to fulfilling your best self. And we need to learn to listen to them.
So how do we start to have open communication between our conscious mind (Ego), subconscious mind (intimate connection with all personal memory and the cosmic consciousness: the information rich energetic substructure of the universe, NBD), and our body? How do we learn to listen to the quiet insides which are beyond verbal language and are absolutely asserting themselves in our lives? Meditation is one path.
Only you know when you are meditating, or not. It’s a purely within experience. I could be sitting still in lotus pose and not meditating at all, but screaming inside my brain about how I need to bite my nail. I could be at a party, surrounded by nightlife, and be deep in a trance state.
My belief is that we are often meditating when we don’t even know it. You arrive at work and don’t remember driving at all, that space is a taste of meditation. When you wake up and sit still over your coffee, just relaxing and enjoying; walking the woods without a care in a world; the liminal space between waking and sleeping!
The practice of meditation is what really interests me, and being intentional about experiencing altered mind states.
I call my practice Dada Meditation because there are no rules and it can be found everywhere. You don’t need a mat, a pillow, a shrine, an expensive membership to a spiritual gym, a guru, a plan, there is no way to actually fuck it up. You don’t even have to sit still. It’s about quieting and witnessing the mind. We’re developing a relationship with ourselves.
Several sort of forms of meditation have emerged on this path:
— Repeated Movement Meditation: this takes place when you concentrate your Whole Self (mind, body, spirit) on maintaining a single movement for an extended amount of time. How long? 30 seconds. 11 minutes. 2 hours. Doesn’t matter, just choose an amount of time you can really commit to on a regular basis and do that time. I do 11 minutes a day. What’s the movement? Anything. Spinning, head rolls, shoulder rolls, walking, bouncing from one foot to the other, standing on one foot (better be jacked! lol). Whatever movement feels sustainable to you.
— Zero Space: this is what the rest of the world thinks of as “meditation”, where you are really thinking nothing. Or trying to think nothing, it’s harder than you think. When you start thinking, and you will, this is the most natural thing in the world. It is clouds across the sky of your mind. Notice and observe them, tuck them away for later if you want. Send them a happy wave goodbye and return to zero.
— Relax AF Meditation: I use this one when I really want my mind to explore an idea. I lay down, sink in, set the timer, and let my mind daydream away about whatever I’ve decided to dive into. It’s sometimes things like, where do I want to go on vacation, can I remember third grade, why do I hate my birth name, what is gender, where does my art show belong? The question doesn’t matter, the exploration and accessing memory and imagination does
— Breathing Meditation: This is just what it sounds like, breathe, dude. Do a fancy breath you learned from youtube, feel the temperature of your nostrils as you breathe in and out, focus on really filling up your lungs and then letting the breath out, practice circular breathing, hold your breath. All of these techniques are fun and cool.
— Staring Meditation: Through staring, I’ve discovered all sorts of interesting things with my vision. I’ve made people, clouds, stars disappear; I’ve broken down white light into it’s constituent colors; I’ve been able to see double of small focus points all the way to the entire visual field, I’ve turned the world black and white or sepia, I’ve seen auras; I’ve turned the visual field upside down. Basically this meditation is super fucking rad.
What do you need to remember while you are meditating?
- Breathe. Breathe easy or breathe intentional, but always return to the breath.
- When “thinking” invades, just swipe left on it lovingly. Acknowledge “thinking” and release. Return to your intention.
That’s it! I can’t tell you how delicious, invigorating and moving the practice of meditation in my life is. It has informed me of so many subconscious fears and dreams, it has triggered body memories which liberate me from bad cycles, it has helped me regulate my emotions, knee jerk reactions and pop offs, it is key in being able to speak up for myself, speak my truth, know and hold my boundaries, it opens up the heart to a tremendous compassion! Peacefullness, serenity, strength and love arise.
