The Journey Was Great!

I recently started a four week program on "stress reduction through meditation". I've found that the best time for me to meditate is early in the morning while everyone else is asleep, before the day starts. I usually wake up before my alarm goes off so I get up and meditate then. When I'm done I've just barely started my day, but feel like I've already accomplished so much. I hope to continue taking the this time for myself and meditate every morning. I'm learning how to take that calm with me through my day (though not always successfully)!

I was first introduced to meditating through two of my classes at Granite State
College. Over my years at GSC I had the opportunity to take some of my classes as "Weekend Intensives". (As an aside, I highly recommend taking weekend college classes. Maybe more on that later...).

I took a Comparative Religions class and we explored many different faiths and practices. We went to a Buddhist Temple, had two Islamic men come and share their faith with us, went to a Catholic service and we also learned about meditation. This was the first time I'd ever meditated and it was a brand new experience for me. Sister Mary Anne was a wonderful teacher and a wise woman. She explained that "intention" was more important than "attention" when meditating. To me that meant attempting and practicing meditation was key, rather than worrying about doing it "right". The calm I experienced with meditation was welcome, but as the class finished, and the rest of everything demanded my attention, my meditation practice became nonexistent.

A year or so later while pursuing my adult college program I choose to take a class called Spirutual Wellbeing. This was another fabulous class. Jackie, our instructor, was knowledgable and enthusiastic and the students in class openly shared where they were on their own spiritual journeys. Again we focused on different types of meditative practices. For me this was refreshing and calming. I enjoyed the time in class and being open to all the different ideas that people brought to class. I remember being so impressed by one young woman in class and the journey that she was on and how this class had impacted her life. At the end of class everyone had to make a presentation. The young woman who impressed me so much gave us all a quote from Mother Theresa (which I still have). Some of the other presentations had us doing art projects, some focused on meditating. The meditations in class were quieting and restorative, but unfortunately fell by wayside as before.


This new four week class I've started at a local health care center has me now meditating again. GSC started me on this meditative path and I hope to continue forward with meditation as a part of my day.