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creativity, lifestyle, meditation, mental health, Self care, Uncategorized

On Meal Time Meditation

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I take meal time very seriously. I am one of those people who finds no delight in bragging about being too busy that I don’t get to eat. I enjoy meal time, I enjoy setting out time in my day to sit, eat my food, take in the flavours and think about nothing more than each bite.

Unfortunately however I do not work in the kind of space where this is celebrated. In my line of work it is almost expected that you be willing to miss out on meal time in order to make this or that deadline. I am happy to say that amidst all of this pressure I have maintained my right to have a meal away from my laptop at least most of the time.

I recently watched an interview with Tracee Ellis Ross who was being interviewed by Oprah. Tracee as we all know has come to not only be known as a talented actress, a businesswoman, the daughter of a legend but also as a self care goddess living what she terms “a joyful and juicy life”. I am a big fan of Tracee, I have loved her and watched her since her time on Girlfriends where she played the role of Joan, who I can only describe as the poster child for the careful black girl. I identified with Joan, and I thought Tracee was hilarious (I also appreciated that she represented those of us who are lacking in cup size).

Anyway back to the interview. In the interview Tracee said something very interesting about meditation in which she said she defines it as “doing what you’re doing when you’re doing it” . I thought this view on meditation was brilliant because it made it possible to do it everywhere and in everything. As though reading my mind Tracee went on to describe how she tries to do this while eating her food, specifically soup, which forces you to slow down, sit down and eat.

Since watching this I have been even more adamant about my meal time. I am working through a lot of beliefs that I thought I’d let go off about what it means to be productive, worthwhile and valuable. I am unlearning the belief that in order for me to be any of the things I’d like to be for my team I have to become anxious, overworked and unable to take time off to eat when the time comes.

The commitment to this sort of resolution requires me to be okay with going at it alone. This means sometimes delaying my meal time until a task is done so I can be fully present with my food. It sometimes looks like sitting cross legged at my desk with my laptop closed and eating my food while listening to music. And sometimes it means having meal time by myself because no one else shares my beliefs around food and meditation. However the commitment to my resolution shows up, part of doing what I am doing while I do it is me accepting that it won’t always look the way I want it to be and sometimes I’ll have to be flexible enough to let go of my perfect picture. But sometimes, only sometimes, it also means insisting that it needs to be the way I want it to be, even if it is for myself and by myself.

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On Leaning In (While Black) Seven Years Later

I read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In a while ago, probably a few months after it was first released in 2013. I found the book interesting and helpful at the time since I had big ambitions of becoming some big corporate powerhouse who would be jet-setting all across the world and who would obviously need to do a lot of leaning in in order to not only get there but to thrive once I made it there.

In my very foggy memory I remember agreeing with Sheryl’s perspective on romantic relationships because I had grown up believing that the partnership part of romantic relationships was the part that should be the loudest. I, for no other reason than the fact that it made perfect sense to me, have always understood that being with a partner that would expect me to carry the full weight of all domestic labour was an unsustainable endeavour that I had no interest in taking on.

I also remember being very grateful to Sheryl’s highlighting of my own biases that I had observed in others but never quite paid careful attention to when it was time to confront myself in the mirror. Since then when feeling of dislike for another woman I ask myself whether I am simply taking part in the Heidi versus Howard case study and disliking a woman disproportionately simply because of her gender and nothing else. This little tool has been helpful to me. It has helped me keep a level head around the likeability of other women as well as my own likeability… that is until recently.

Over the past few months I have found myself overly worried about my likeability as it directly correlates to my, for lack of a better word, professional success. This is very new territory for me. I have almost wholeheartedly become accustomed to worrying about my likeability as it relates to my general personality. I have of course grown up (hello 30!) and in my last year in my twenties let go of the notion that there is something wrong with my personality. So no, this is not one of those self-deprecating blogs.

I have, however, found myself in professional spaces wondering whether or not I am too much of an angry black woman given my very strong stances on transformation in my particular field. I have thought about how I could easily be shooting myself in the foot because I am fully aware that I walk into rooms; black, a woman, opinionated and with a sense of belief in my opinions and that might not always land softly in some rooms.

This past weekend I lazily re-watched Sheryl Sandberg’s TedTalk on leaning in. I went in hoping that it would be a simple solution. That I would somehow reach into the depths of my psyche that would remind me who I was and why I needed to be where I was; black, a woman, opinionated and with a sense of belief in my opinions. I really was hoping that I would find my problem, name it and get to the business of fixing it.

Unfortunately to my disappointment I still have no solution. This in no way is a criticism of the book seven years later. It was a book that needed to be written and it was a book that never claimed to describe the full spectrum of all the intersections of womanhood. So because of this I hold no grudges. With that being said though I found myself still in need of a solution.

I recently went on a yoga retreat with a group of amazing black women and I found it interesting that I was not the only person who felt this way. I was not the only one who has been wondering whether I am in the way, whether I am too much to handle and whether my opinions should be voiced out loud. It appears there is some sort of bug going around that is making us all wonder whether we are worthy enough to be in the rooms we are in. The experience I had with those women a few weeks ago has been carrying me through and ringing in my head and I hear their voices every time I feel like I need to step out waving my angry black woman flag. And I must say knowing that I am not alone in this experience, that a group of amazing and self-assured women have also found themselves similar situations to mine. The experiences I shared with those women reminded me that I am not fortunate enough to be in a position where a lot of people who look like me are allowed to speak and speak loudly at that. I am in a position of tremendous privilege and with this comes an awareness that we need more of us.

And so I have decided to lean into the wonderful women I went walking with in the rain and I have realised that I may not like the eyes that stare back, this gnawing feeling of being disliked and the other emotions that come with voicing opinions that may seem like a hammer among powder brushes – I do however have a responsibility to myself and others like myself. I hope that going forward I will dig into this responsibility and steer clear of leaning into the fear that comes with the self-doubt. Honestly, I hope I will lean into whatever I can get my hands on because a lot of things are options, but leaning back is definitely not one of them.

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On Digital Minimalism

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A little while ago someone made a comment about how I have every gadget known to man and although this statement wasn’t necessarily true it was close enough to how I feel that I sort of found myself looking around me and wondering if maybe I have too many screens.

I mean there are items that I need to get my work done – my work laptop, the additional work screen and then the work phone, those are a must. Then are personal items which have brought entertainment into my life like my phone, my tablet (also used as a notebook) and then my kindle. So yes, I think I tend to go a bit overboard with all things digital. I could go on about how some of these items were gifts and not at all my fault but I am going to go for the honest angle and just state outright that I like and enjoy my tech products.

With that being said though, I think one would be dishonest about the impacts technology has on other aspects in our lives by claiming that it acts only as a beacon of entertainment and all that is good in the world. For all that technology has given us it has taken quite a bit from us too. I do think that when we look at what has been taken away from us we tend to want to do that on a one size fits all basis. Which means that we assume that what applies for someone else should apply for everyone and we then use that as a yardstick for judging ourselves and others.

Since the beginning of this year I have been on a journey to discover what digital minimalism means for me. This meant that I have had to cut back on some of my favourite apps (hey there blue bird app), putting in some rules around my phone and what I use it for (bye bye pretty people on my phone) and no touching my kindle to read when I am around others – except when I’m in the car or on a flight, I think that’s acceptable.

There is a lot to be said about cutting out on digital use. Some things are true and some things seem less true than others, in my experience however there is always something to learn from taking sometime away from the digital world.

Over the past few months for example I have learnt that I can get my news and stay up to date without constantly scrolling down my feed. I have learnt that social injustices still get me as rilled up when I hear them over the radio as when I read them on twitter. I have learnt that I am still very capable of reading an entire book in a day if I choose to.

I have also learnt what it feels like to be bored. To just sit with my thoughts and twiddle my thumbs. To have nothing to do while I wait in line, to wait to be picked up and look straight-ahead because there’s nothing to look down at.

I think the best lesson I’ve learnt is that I’m going to have to define digital minimalism for myself. I know, there’s a whole book about it but I am going to have to make my own rules in this case. I will have to take charge and decide what’s important to me and how I am willing to commit to that.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve made the best decision in my life, and sometimes I feel like I perhaps drank too much from the productivity-YouTube cool-aid. Either way at this point I am enjoying the time I feel like I’ve gotten back, the face-to-face connections I am making and the many many new things I am doing when I am not lost in my technology.

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On Happiness

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I found myself happy this morning and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I felt, happy and I am happy this morning. It seems foreign, it seems like an old familiar face you see in the grocery shop and you spend the next five minutes strategically circling them and asking yourself “Where do I know you from?” without ever approaching them and asking. That’s what happiness feels like this morning. Yes, I have been happy. And I was happy not so long ago but today it felt like a new kind of happy. A calm kind of happy, a happy that I can only describe as joy and I am being honest it terrified me.

Usually what happens when I am happy is that I start to ask myself when I will be sad. But today I am happy and I am not going to dissect it. I am going to sit in comfortably my joy just like I have comfortable been sitting in my sadness for so long. I am going to sit and welcome joy on the seat next to me just like I did with my grief when I lost my grandmother, just like I did with my disappointment when I failed my final board exam last year and just like I am always so openly ready to do with the darkness that’s always tugging at my me.

I think it’s quite strange how as people we have become so hesitant when we are met with joy. When we are met with that tiny feeling reminding us that maybe it isn’t all bad and maybe the sun will shine again and it will do so gloriously.

I say we but maybe this is just me. Maybe this is a reminder for me. Maybe this is me telling me that I should wear joy when it comes as eagerly as I am willing to wear everything else. Maybe this is me reflecting on yesterday’s session with my therapist wherein I didn’t know how to articulate that I am breathing. I am breathing easy. I am noting a slowed down pace in my lungs and in my mind and I am liking it. I didn’t know how to express that. I am very good at expressing everything else. And maybe part of the journey is learning how to express happiness as well, because when it comes, I’d like to recognise it at first glance when it enters through the door again.

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Gym on Sunday: A Self Love Hack

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My favourite time to go to the gym is Sunday. It’s quiet, there is no one there trying to correct my form and no one trying to sell me a diet I didn’t ask for.

It’s a peaceful time for people like me who were too overwhelmed with life during the week and are now trying to convince themselves that our gym membership is worth having. It’s no pressure, it’s “Wow you made it here? You have permission to walk at a leisurely pace and reward yourself some ice cream after this. Job well done!”

Gym on a Sunday is amazing. It’s a gold star for effort. It’s an A+ for participation. It is practically high fiving yourself for existing and it is definitely the sort of self care I revel in. It’s a necessary win in this world that sometimes seems like it’s full of throat punches.

So take it from me, if you want to feel good with very minimal effort toss the face mask aside, throw out the nail polish, skip the bubble bath with essential oils – all that is too much effort. Gym on a Sunday gives you maximum rewards for literally showing up.