Revisiting Meditation

I. For this reflection, we ask you to find a way to meditate. To do so, you have two options:

I’ve decided to do option B for this particular project because I’ve done Yoga before during my high school senior year and it was actually fun. I haven’t done meditation and yoga in such a long time so I’ve decided to do the Yoga class again.

II. Before you begin your meditation, we ask you assess and take notes on your own state of mind during the 24 hour period leading up to the meditation.

A. First, take note of the moods you’ve experienced.

I felt very stressed and exhausted from the continues studies (on average 2 exams per week), internship interviews (every other week), volunteer work and the family responsibilities for this particular week and particularly the last 24 hours. This is very exhausting as my schedule involves attending classes Monday through Saturday. Although I did feel a sense of confidence because I did study a lot and actually understood the material for my exam and felt very secure about my results.

B. Assess your overall level of anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10.

My overall level of anxiety would have to be 5-6 (where 10 is the highest level of anxiety).

C. Assess the level of physical tension in your body- where do you notice the tension? Try rating your overall tension on a scale of 1 to 10.

The tension in my body has to deal with the level of tiredness and drowsiness experienced at particular moments of the day such as when I am reading for a long period of time. The tension on my body is on a scale of 4-5 (where 10 is the highest level of physical tension).

III. After you have finished your meditation, re-asses your state of mind and body.
A. Reassess your mood on the chart.

My mood did improve as I was able to deter the constant thought of “What do I have to do next? Am I missing something?” and I had a sense of calm and relax feelings. This helped lower my exhaustion as I was able to relax during the meditation and acquire focus. For some reason my confidence did not disappear but it was not on my mind or in my thought. I did not think about the exams that I just finished and I was not worried about my confidence but instead I was released of these thoughts. I did not have a huge improvement in the level of happiness but I can say that it was a slight improvement.
B. Reassess your level of anxiety from 1 to 10.

Surprisingly as I said in my previous comments, a lot of the constant thoughts and worries either disappeared or weakened and this lower my anxiety a dramatic level. I would categorize my anxiety after the yoga and meditation at a 3-4.

C. Reassess your level of physical tension and rate it from 1 to 10.

My physical tension improved much more than my anxiety because the yoga and meditation involved stretching and relaxation of the muscles and focusing on a particular task. I really enjoyed the particular tasks where you had to do a tree like pose and keep your balance with one foot and focus on your breathing. My level of physical tension after the yoga and meditation would be 1-2.

IV. Describe the experience– What type of meditation did you choose? Describe what was going on in your mind and your body, what kind of thoughts and sensations did you experience during the meditation? Were there any challenging or frustrating aspects of the experience, and if so, what were they? Would you try this again in the future? Why or why not?

I performed a yoga form of meditation where you would perform different forms of stretches and moves (positions) in an effort to release or gain back some of the energy within your body. The meditation actually involved staying in a particular position as still as possible and trying to relax your whole body as best as you can. Then as you did this, you would try to control your body, which involved moving nothing (no part of your body, including your eyes). Then you would breathe and relax and get everything off of your mind. Finally as we approached the end of the meditation, we would start moving one body part at a time and come back to “life” – first the toes, then the fingers, then our arms, etc. During this whole process I had a sense of calm and relaxation because the room was such a quiet place, there was nothing to distract us and it was comfortable. My mind was able to gain control over my thoughts and I began having less and less thoughts. I did not have any challenges as I actually did this form of Yoga/meditation in the past during my high school life. Although at first it is difficult to block the thoughts, it became easier as I acquired more focus on the task of meditation. I would try this again in the future since I’ve done this in the past before (right before my classes in high school, beginning of the day) and I felt a lot more awake and energized during the classes after when compared to the days that I did not perform this particular form of yoga and meditation. I just felt a sense of energy and relaxation that made me feel better and that is why I would like to do this again.