Everything feels like a huge commitment
including choosing a topic for a blog post. I have two or three other ideas I might want to write about, but I don't have the energy for more than one. I have to pick just one right now, and stick to it. Or get partway in then abandon it - which I sometimes do.
And this - which topic to write about - is an incredibly minor thing. It's maybe 30 minutes of my time. It is isolated. It is a single event, no follow-up, nothing I need to do tomorrow or a week or year from now.
This is hard for me because when I try to settle on one thing, my brain is bombarding me with "WHAT ABOUT THIS OTHER THING?" And another and another and another thing. Sometimes it's quieter or louder. Sometimes I'm more able to manage or less so.
I've been meditating recently (I've meditated on and off for many years now) and this bombardment became apparent to me during a Mental Palace meditation.
I imagine myself sitting in this medium-sized rectangular room. All the walls are white, except they're creating light instead of reflecting it, in a pleasant and soft way. This room has no doors and nothing in it.
But my mental palace meditations from years ago were different. The room was similar, but there was a door, and a table, and other features that were available when i wanted them.
So I'm envisioning myself sitting in this new palace, but the old palace is quite literally being placed on top of it in my mind. I touch the wall, and I'm in the new palace, but I can see the old one - as if projected like a 3d hologram. I can see it but I can't touch it.
Choosing which kind of meditation to do is another one of these often-overwhelming commitments. I have time/energy/motivation to do one meditation and if I pick the "wrong" one, it feels like a waste. So I will often stress about what approach to use for my meditation. Or when I'm looking for a guided meditation, it's incredibly distressing picking one to go with.
I have this problem with many things, at least when there is not a strong feeling to guide me. This can be difficult with food. Some days it is. Like if I have 5 different TV dinners in the freezer, and I don't have a hankering for any one in particular. Oh boy.
But I'm often driven by strong feelings. Usually at dinner time I look at my available dinners and I have a pretty clear feeling about what I want to eat. At these times, I'm not bombarded, and decision-making is simple.
I have all kinds of routines and practices that help with these things. My grocery shopping, for a time, was incredibly stressful and plagued with analysis paralysis. These days, it is extremely routine, so most of the decisions are essentially already made for me. Some items are more varying, like my fruit & salty-snack selections. But for those, I'm usually in the mood for one of my go-to snacks (chips & salsa, cauli & hummus, etc) or I'll just buy the cheapest decent option (grapes, grapes, grapes).
Last night's Mental Palace Meditation was much clearer and more focused than the one a few nights ago. This time, I started by talking to myself about it, describing the room, and telling myself this was my place and I was in control. I was, mostly, but not entirely.
But I think it was helpful. Most of this post is inspired by those two mental palace meditations, and the insight they allowed me to have into my mind. The chaos happening during those meditations is the same chaos happening when I want to make decisions about what groceries to buy, where to put something that doesn't have a designated storage-place, or which video game to play.
Don't even get me started on long-term commitments. Mostly how it's gone in the past is I get really passionate about something, I dive in head first, and then I find myself caught up in this commitment that I don't want and don't have the mental capacity to handle.
I hope to continue meditating. I hope to continue exploring my mind and learning about it. I hope to heal and grow and become more able to manage my mind and direct it in meaningful ways.