As I sit in what I was hoping to be a peaceful Sunday night meditation and reflect on my performance in the past week I was “gently” reminded about distractions.
The cool spring evening and my spearmint tea had plans for journaling and connection. However, my new 20-year-old neighbors across the road had other plans. With disco light spinning and what I can only assume was “get lit” radio playing my late night “quiet time” was a faint memory. Their colorful music had also awakened a fellow neighbors dog whom in what I can only describe as the sound of a mule being branded, did not like the light night “get lit” station of choice.
I sit there still attempting to connect with universal wisdom as the lights flash by my eyes and the trumpets of that poor K-9 echo through the night so I did what anyone would do.
Got pissed.
Bro… It’s fucking 11 pm at night on a gosh damn Sunday, who in the fuck decides to throw a 10 person banger in a 1-bed apartment. I’m half tempted to call 911, not for noise control but because it must take someone having a fucking stroke to string together the events you’ve decided to construct this evening, Lemony Snicket would be proud. I hope you young bloods have some bottom shelf tequila and wake up tomorrow morning with a hangover that’ll have you making the same promise that you did last week to God, that if he makes it go away you’ll never drink again.
After dismembering these fine young adults in the safety of an ancient torture chamber I made up in my mind I came to a quite profound realization. One that stopped the dismembering on flat bill cap with the sticker still on it #4 and gave me some beautiful insight that made me think “shit maybe I was connecting with universal intelligence after all.”
Distractions Will Always Be There
As someone who takes my own personal inner work seriously, it took these hoodlums to make me realize that the intention of the reflection wasn’t to make me better at reflections it’s to allow me the ability to increase self-awareness so that I can create a better week, next week. The distractions will always be there but ask any meditation expect it’s not the moments of profound silence and 20 minutes straight of following the breath that allows for breakthroughs it’s the recovery from the distractions. The music is found in between the notes, and it’s the flaws in character that let the light shine in.
It was somewhere between “Baby Got Back” and Lil Waynes “Be like Me” that I had the realization the I was going to take this massive distraction that was in front of me as a means of training my brain to find gratitude in any moment.
So I started thinking hard about what to be grateful for at the moment. A true moment of Jedi training. I let the thoughts float and before I knew it the memories of my best mates came flooding to me and the realization that these fine young lads and ladies were making the same life long memories that I once did and I suddenly had this smile on my face. These young leaders were probably thinking about how they were going to ding the universe or change consciousness because a half gallon of bottom shelf vodka will do that you do. Mission accomplished. I ended up doing this practice for another 30 minutes, with the dog who was moaning like a mule, the fire truck going by. My downstairs neighbor who likes to rev his engine when he pulls in, everything. But here’s the beauty of this practice. It was more than likely the richest environment I could have provided my brain with to train it for optimal performance. The distractions will always be there but my ability to be in the moment, flow and groove with the emotions that were coming up for me is what really set me up to wire my brain to do this in everyday life.
Next Day Update:
The next day was an absolute bliss off my rampage of midnight gratitude my brain was in seek and destroy mode for everything that might have held a negative charge to my existence. The poetic part happened later that night when it was one of the most silent night I can remember in my neighborhood and as I sit on my deck I almost missed those “darn kids” smashing beer cans on their undeveloped frontal lobes.