Returning to a Lapsed Meditation Practice, Mindfully

Source: Pixabay, altered with Prisma

Time flies. And sometimes it drags us behind it, like a cowboy fallen from the horse but with a spur stuck in one stirrup.

It's been a couple of months since Your Mindfulness Toolkit has cracked open said "kit" with a tool or two for you. The humble mission of this project, which has included a book (Practical Mindfulness: A Physician's No-Nonsense Guide to Meditation for Beginners), a blog, a podcast series, a Twitter feed, and perhaps an Etsy shop with macrame'd, saddle-shaped zafus, has been about getting more of us identifying and training up our capacities—our privileges, really—for mindful awareness via meditation. Lowering the bar in learning to sit in observation of our experience helps each of us manage and reduce our suffering, and cultivate better adaptation to the uncertainties of living.

Today's tool: getting back in that saddle.

Uncertainties of living, a loss of initiative, or just plain "don' wanna today" can knock us off the whinnying mare. Stuff happens. Novel events or even crises intrude. We find ourselves taking a break from a helpful, intentional practice.

Just a break, it is, and that's fine; sometimes a respite is helpful, and rigid discipline a burden or even an exercise in masochism. We've all seen and probably experienced this, especially in the midst of this recent era of viral fear, isolation, and deprivation. Exercise, social contacts, nutrition plans, mindfulness practices... good for us, but also tough to fully and persistently sustain, day after day, on the bumpy ride of contemporary life.

Yet a break can morph into the new normal. Stamina withers, attention goes back to scattered and vigilant media consumption. Intention and deliberation—mindful actions—ebb; mindless distraction and inertia fill the void.

My own bumpy ride of late has included the prospect of recurrence of bone cancer after six years in remission, as well as a noticeable worsening of a post-radiation condition, dysautonomia, as my workflow has become more grinding and intense over the last stretch of time. The reality of clinical work overload during the recent months of COVID waves has challenged my own internal reserves and distracted me from some elemental practices in self-care.

Yes, I stopped meditating. Oh, I deluded myself with brief daily check-ins on maintaining focus, empathy, and compassion on clinical days—a couple of mindful breaths, and the box is considered checked.

A meditation expert... not meditating? Poseur! It happens. Like the loss of attention in a single moment of meditation, a lapse in practice is pretty much the same thing, writ large. Something pulls us offline. The irony of dropping away from more mindful awareness is that its antidote is also its antithesis: waking back up.

Here's one blunt tip I could offer you, and coulda/shoulda even employed: Don't stop meditating, not now, in this tense moment. Less rigidly, breaks are ok but can slip down the slope into full-on lapses in practice... any practice. So be, well, mindful of your breaks, even setting some return expectations.

But lapses happen. Very human stuff. And the way back is familiar, literally built-in to the incremental lesson plan of daily meditating: "When we become aware that we've lost attention, note it with a minimum of judgment, and return to the observing."

Another tip: about that judgy part. It's inevitable to have some. For me, it's been some positive/rationalizing judgments: "I've been so busy, I've been sick, I'm worried about the future, I'm just really tired." And also the critical ones (see "poseur" comment above.) Judgments are what the mind does, but dwelling in them is just another avoidant stay in Dodge City. (Boy, Howdy.)

So: Recognize but don't get too stuck in the mud of "Why'd that happen?" It'll likely become clear sooner or later in returning to the practice. Get back on course, and restart. That restart can be a back-to-basics breath practice to get some reps in. It usually helps to start with shorter periods to get back in the flow, used to the familiar physical and other stuff that rides along with sitting.

Lastly, these lessons apply not only to our own equine mishaps but to working with others (patients, students, caregivers) with their own particular struggles in saddling back up. Compassion and reinforcement of "It's OK, how can I help you get going again?" models the non-judgment ideal that is an essential aspect of the practice.