Here is the transcription of my most recent video blog:
(And here’s the audio on AnchorFM)
Hey everyone, it is actually later on the same day that I recorded my other video about meditation. To recap, I was talking about waking up in the morning and meditating because I am going in, or I went into my first day back at work in person, and I was really worried about it, because it’s very hard for me to be in big crowds, and it’s hard for me to make small talk with people that I don’t know very well, and so I was meditating, hoping that this would put me in a calm mind frame to be ready to deal with all of this, and instead, all that happened was my butt fell asleep, and I got pissed off, okay?
So I went to work, and you know, everything was exactly the way that I thought that it was going to be. All of the things that I thought were going to be triggers – the people, the meetings, the small talk – absolutely were triggers. However, because I had taken the time to be quiet and notice what I was actually feeling, I was able to take care of myself and give myself some space and also articulate what was going on with me so that others would understand that it wasn’t about them. So that actually gave me an important insight into meditation, which is that again, it really is about quieting down and listening to my inner voice and what’s going on with me. And what that does it is it enables me to take care of myself, which makes me then palatable to other people, okay? So I was thinking originally, “The point of meditation is to make me calm so that other people will like me better.” No! That’s not how it works. Meditation is so I can take care of myself and then I will be easier for other people to handle. Cool.
The other piece to that is that when I did my earlier experiments in past years with meditation, I didn’t understand my own neurodivergence, okay? I think I may have had an idea that big crowds were difficult for me, but I just chalked this up to a personal failing, right? I didn’t think that maybe it was just a legitimate part of the way that I’m wired, and the same thing with the small talk, you know? I always beat myself up for being so awkward, for not knowing what to say, for saying things that, you know, other people thought were weird or uncomfortable, and now I get it. I just – I don’t like to talk about surface-y stuff – and that’s okay. So, giving myself that permission. And then giving myself the permission to communicate that in a way that was polite, you know? So I think I’m finally maybe starting to understand at least a little bit of why everyone is so high on meditation these days. Because it wound up being more useful than I thought it was going to be. So – thanks for tuning in! See you next time.