NOTE**: This post is a re-post; I wrote it a number of years ago and it continues to inspire lively conversations between myself and those of you in the community who…want to wake the f*%k up!!

I initially wrote this post after writing the post, Too Much Chaos in Your Life? Shut Up and Meditate. In that post I tested the waters to see how you felt about my sharing a bit of my personal life as a means to letting you know that I’m not a meditator who sits in “bliss-land,” meditating on some magic carpet-ride, oblivious to the suffering of the world or even…my own suffering. From the feedback that I received, it worked!

That post, followed by this one, went so well that I’ve decided to share this post again, because sometimes….you’ve just got to wake the F-up!!. 

Life is Trying to Wake You Up!

Do you ever want to say, “I’ve had it” and mean it?!!

Do you ever have times where no matter what you do, everything that you’re working on seems to have obstacles that make the going even harder?

Have you ever had times where everything you’re doing seems to take far longer than you’d imagined with results that are far less productive than you’d hoped?

Do you ever feel like life is just one big conspiracy to wake you the f* up from your distractions and habits?

Sometimes I doubt whether my meditation practice can really take care of all the crap that’s raining down on me and lately it feels like a constant crap-storm! I feel like I’m standing up to my knees in a cesspool and wondering why it stinks!

I’ve written about working with whatever arises, and using the breath as an anchor for attention. I’ve also written about using the things that scare you or that you fear as a means to work with your mind.

Lately, it’s been like the universe or…whatever has been saying to me, “Okay man, here’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s time to walk the talk. Get real. Wake up!”

I’ve received a lot of training on working with the emptiness, or lack of substance, of phenomena; emptiness of thoughts, emptiness of sensations, emptiness of emotions. And, most of the time it works…until it doesn’t.

Meditate When Life is Difficult

It’s easy to sit on a cushion or in a chair and work with your mind. And it’s easy when everything is going according to plan to say, “My meditation works so well!” But, what do you do when the crap hits the fan, big time, and your meditation doesn’t seem to help you out of the feeling of overwhelm, or frustration, or exhaustion? What then?

Usually, when something challenging happens, even if I’m thrown off a bit by it, eventually I regain the stability of my mind, whether through the natural cessation of whatever it was that was challenging me or through the practice of bringing it all into my meditation.

But what about when situations and events come, one after another, seemingly without end, and never give you a chance to say “Time out!” How are you supposed to deal with that? Can meditation make a difference when there’s no down time, no space between assaults?

Dive Deep Into What is Difficult in Your Life

Here’s an image that just came to me. If you’re a swimmer and you’ve swum in rough seas, you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about. If you don’t swim and are scared to death of drowning, then this will work for you too.

Imagine that you’re out in the waves and you get slammed by a big wave. You go under and just as you come up again for a breath, there’s another wave which knocks you under again.

Imagine having this happen repeatedly, without an end, until you feel like you’re drowning. Get the picture?!

At some point in the above scenario, you either get a break from the waves and have time to catch your breath, or…you drown.

I think that this is how I’ve been working with life recently. I’ve been trying to resist the onslaught of waves without success. I keep on getting a mouth full of salty water!

But, is there another option? What if you dive deep and swim in towards shore, coming up with your back towards the waves, just long enough to get another breath and then dive down again.

Eventually, you reach the shore. And you get there by surfing the waves instead of getting pulled under. This is what I’ve been doing recently.

This doesn’t mean that I haven’t panicked and that there haven’t been times when I was sure that there would be no coming up. What it does mean though is that when I relax and survey my surroundings, I’m able to work with my environment and with what’s happening with a lot less fighting against the current.

Don’t Panic, Meditate!

Meditation is about surveying your surroundings, it’s about recognizing that you’ve been pulled under and then, without panic, bringing your mind into the present moment-to-moment awareness and understanding your situation. It may not be about getting to the surface; sometimes it’s more about living in the depths.In the depths of despair or pain, in the depths of suffering or confusion.

Meditation is about finding yourself wherever you are…finding yourself and returning to your meditative mind, your awareness, even when you feel like you’re drowning. Easy? Never said that. Essential? Absolutely.

Meditation is surfing the waves of whatever arises, keeping your balance. It’s also about knowing when you’ve fallen off or have been pulled under, and returning your attention to the present as quickly as you can, away from the distractions of the fall, away from the waves on the horizon.

And sometimes, it’s about realizing that the waves, the water and the pull downward are all an experience of the mind. And that mind can be changed, through the consistent practice of meditation and through returning to your practice time and time again when you feel like you’re drowning in the cesspool of your mind.

My recent explorations of the depths haven’t been joyful. They haven’t been easy. And I’d do anything to not be going through them. But, they have given me an incredible opportunity to wake up, to wake up to a mind that is beyond the fitful flailing around on the surface and beyond the struggles beneath the waves.

Maybe life is in a conspiracy to wake me the f* up, and for that I am truly grateful…though not always willingly……..

So I’d like to ask you, what do you do when it all seems to be coming crashing down? And, if you meditate, how do you meditate? What do you meditate on? What works? Does the metaphor of waves work for you? Or are do you find your meaning in the mountains?

How To Meditate

Maybe you’ve already got a meditation practice. If that’s the case, great! Keep it up. And feel free to use all of the content from this site to support you in your efforts. If you haven’t started to meditate, begin now.

Many people don’t meditate because they believe that they need to do “something special” in order to meditate, maybe you’re one of them. “Doing something” special isn’t the case. All you need is your breath, and a few minutes of time set aside to begin your practice. Here are some tools to get you started:

This site has tons of tools for learning how to meditate.

I encourage you to look through the HUNDREDS of articles that I’ve written and especially check out my weekly meditation tips and other useful meditation materials provided for your health and well being. And please let me know if you’d like to discuss anything with me, have any questions or need clarification regarding anything that I’ve written about.

Thanks for visiting and have a mindful day.