Don't let your thoughts take you to the dark side!
Let’s talk “mindfulness” for a minute. Who read the last challenge and immediately thought, “F that, I’m not going to sit still and not think for 10 minutes” or tried it for 60 seconds and then gave up because it was stupid?! Be honest.
Mindfulness, meditation, or any other conscious form of looking at your thoughts is often poo poo’ed into the realm of hippy bullshit or something there of, especially by us Type – A CrossFitters. There’s nothing sexy about sitting on a cushion doing nothing for an hour or more.
The quote that I put up last week about people not being able to sit quietly with their own thoughts was an extremely accurate one, in my humble opinion. Our mind, the tool that we have developed to figure out a lot of important puzzles in our lives, is also, our greatest enemy.
For anyone that found sitting still or in silence for 10 minutes challenging – ask yourself why? Why is 10 minutes with no distractions, beeps, blurps, interruptions, or movement, challenging for a species that can put another human on the moon (if in fact that really happened)? Why is the highest expression of the tool so much easier than simply being able to watch what it produces with no attachment?
My old boss used to describe our brains as a chainsaw. He’d say that a chainsaw is a brilliant tool, especially if you need to cut down a tree or two. However, if there are no trees in site, the sound of a chainsaw buzzing in your ear all day will drive you mad. Look at the world we live in, we’re running out of trees with an increasing number of buzzing saws.
Having control over the tool between our ears, being able to use it when needed and turn it off when not, is truly one of the keys to wellness. If this challenge was harder than you thought, keep playing with silence, keep playing in the space between thoughts until you are comfortable dwelling there. The more often your brain has to sit on the sideline, the better it will serve you in the long run.
End of meditation rant.
Today’s Workout:
Pendlay Row
5-5-5
10 Rounds for reps:
30 Seconds row for calories
30 Second AMREP Toes-to-bar
2 Minutes rest
