“Shut Up!”

Prayer and meditation. Step eleven. Riiight. A recent ‘Just For Today’ talked about the need for some ‘quiet time’, specifically how beneficial it is to take twenty to thirty minutes a day to sit down, quiet the mind, and reach for greater conscious contact with our higher power. Do I do this? Um, in a word, no. Do most people in Recovery do this? Yeah, I’m going to have to check that box ‘no’ as well.

We’ve got all the excuses in the world. Our lives are busy and meditation is HARD. I’m not sure how much of it is this fast-food culture of instant gratification I live in, or how much of it is just that addicts like myself are like me; I can’t speak for anyone else, but my brain is LOUD. Meditate for 20 minutes? You’re kidding, right??

More often than not, I sit down at my prayer bench each night. I fold my legs, light candles, and try to quiet the messy havoc that is my conscious mind. I reach out to God, speak of the things I’m thinking of, what I’m obsessing about, check in with my fears and my worries. I ask for help. I say prayers and wish for grace for those in my thoughts who are having troubled times or that I’m concerned for.

Some mornings I have the foresight to sit down and have a check in with the big G. That does help a lot, although I’m pretty sure most meditation experts would say it’s not truly prayer/meditation time because I’m sitting there having my orange juice and a cigarette while I’m doing it. Whatever. It helps me.

I think that’s really the point. I’ve heard about all kinds of different meditation and prayer styles. I was at a conference once for my home fellowship where we did a workshop on meditation. There was a heated debate about what exactly constitutes a meditation. Some were insisting that only sitting quietly and doing nothing counts, whereas others were talking about how they found walking or dancing to be meditative. One individual insisted that riding his bike was meditation for him.

I’ve been to a meditation service. That was an experience. Imagine if you will over a hundred people all sitting together in the same room in silence for forty-five minutes. VERY strange. Talk about quiet! It was eerie, being in that room with so many other people and everyone saying nothing. One of the quietest, tensest silences I’ve ever experienced. Yet, I suspect my discomfort was really my own. Hopefully those who attend these types of services on a regular basis are able to feed off the calm from the others in the room. I was not.

My mind is one of the loudest places I know. All my thoughts, feelings, the things I think about and obsess over. It just goes on and on and on. I’ve had many conversations with my sponsor about how we deal with it, and I’ve heard many in the rooms talk about the committee, or the hamster wheel, that is our brains. It’s frustrating. Infuriating. My sponsor says he’ll reach a point where he finds himself shouting at his mind, “that’s ENOUGH!!!” I’ve been there, too. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve shouted at my own brain to just shut the fuck up.

Meditation helps, though. I can’t argue with that. So does prayer. Maybe with a dedicated practice, those of us with the Disease can learn to quiet our inner insanity. My own experience is that when I find myself caught in those mental feedback loops, talking to God about it helps. Ask and you shall receive, as the old saying goes.