meditation – Brooke Lyn Landon

Six Days of Silence: Journal Entries From My Silent Meditation Retreat

A06FE6BC-3B5F-4617-B8AA-051C0B97DDFF 7/28/19

What does someone want to get from attending a silent meditation retreat at a monastery in Northern Thailand? It varies. Some may simply want to find stillness and peace, and others go with the intention to find themselves. Who knows, maybe the dude with a giant man bun made of dreads infront of me wants to levitate back home in a state of enlightenment.
I’m doing this to put myself out of my comfort zone because that’s where change happens. I go to grow. I don’t want to have expectations or a desired outcome. I want to see what the experience will bring me. Granted, if I were to have chosen a desired outcome, I probably would have wanted to leave turning water into wine, so I’d just be setting myself up for disappointment.
The highlight of my first day at the monastery was opening my eyes after a lying down meditation practice, only to realize I had fallen asleep. By that point, everyone else was sitting up, listening attentively to a monk sitting on the stage infront of a giant golden buddah statue. I made eye contact with a woman next to me who was clearly amused by my state of shock. I couldn’t blame her. I was too. Still, I internally judged her for not waking me up.
Now it’s day two. Considering the fact I talk like an auctioneer and eat like an elephant, the whole shutting up and fasting thing is going much better than expected. Almost too good. Maybe I’ll start to go insane tomorrow. That’s what most people had been telling me would happen at some point. That said, every experience is unique, and only time will tell. Highlight of day two was appreciating the beauty during a walking meditation practice.
*3 hours later* I was upgraded to a single dorm suit. Is it too materialistic and un-zen of me for that to be the new highlight of my day?
7/31/19

It’s certainly not getting easier, but I’m up for the challenge. At least I’m not looking like the young man sitting to my left. I haven’t seen someone fidget around so much since I was at the LIB music festival, but they were happy and on drugs.
Breakdown of my unconscious thoughts today goes as followed.
86% unnecessary worry and overthinking (Like I think the fact that I didn’t buy a souvenir in Sweden isn’t going to kill me, but the heart palpitations I get thinking about it during my meditation practice say otherwise)
12% comparing and judging myself (There’s no doubt all this pad thai has been taking a toll though)
2% other (probably food related)
Fun stuff.

8/2/19

As my time at the Wat Pa Tam Wua Forest Monastery comes to an end, I think it’s safe to say I won’t be walking out of here turning water into wine. Instead I’ll be walking away with something even greater. Mindfulness and a deeper sense of self. WAIT ! Before you internally roll your eyes and think “Dis generic ass bitch serious right now? I could have guessed that.” Understand that I’m not spitting those words out to sound like every basic bitch that travels Asia and floods her instagram with her adventures (Yes, I do that too, so no judgement there. @mindartists)
It’s not the awareness like “I’m aware Im eating right now.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to not mindlessly shovel food in your face like the day before you decide to start a diet. The mindfulness I speak of goes deeper.
It’s like getting a free Disney Fastpass to avoid the lines full of ungrateful grimy children and foreigners who have no sense of awareness or boundaries. You pass them instead of resentfully standing behind wondering what happened to your own morals and patience. You detach yourself from what you once identified so closely with, giving you a sense of liberation and peace. There’s certainly more on this topic, so stay tuned for a future blog post. For now, I’m signing out.

Best wishes always,
Your slightly more enlightened friend,
Brooke Lyn

It’s Happening For you

road-man-broken-car-6078-1 The time I crashed my car in Santa Barbara.

The chick who acted like Mother Teresa around everyone else, but was the biggest bitch to me.

The person I had a crush on that I totally thought was a guy until I had already caught the feels.

The text I sent to someone I was dating out of insecurity, causing a ripple effect and ending with my mom referring to him as “The Devil.”

None of it happened to me because nothing does. Life happens for you.

…

Those instances lead to some of my biggest insights. They often come out of your comfort zone, in frustration, or fights.

It’s all happening for you I promise and swear. You’ll be pleasantly pleased when you find the gems hidden there.

Crashing my car lead me to the place of my dreams. It wasn’t at all what the situation had seemed.

I realized the universe will always have my back, even when the process feels like a heart attack.

It’s happening for you, I know this to be true. Before you throw in the towel, ask what it is trying to show you.

hOMe sweet hOMe

Folding my 1,000th towel, like I had been in the housekeeping industry for decades, I questioned why I was staying at this job that didn’t fulfill me in the slightest. Is this out of love or fear? I asked myself as I heard the sound of men grunting and slamming weights on the ground like they had serious daddy issues. The fact that even came to mind was enough of an indication to know this was the latter. Still, my mind refused to make a decision easily.

That week, I weighed the pros and cons about as many times as I thought about food, which is to say those were basically the only things I thought about that week. Some of the cons were, I don’t like any of the things I have to do at the gym, one of the girls treats me like shit for legitimately no reason and acts like mother Teresa to everyone else, a lot of the people there I don’t feel comfortable around, when I’m not at work I think about how I don’t want to go, and when I’m there I count down the minutes until I’m out. Pros were money and free gym membership. Though I made the decision a million times harder than it needed to be, and was still nervous about money and what I would do next, I put in my two weeks notice and felt relieved to have finally done it.

I was aware of the gym’s policy that after quitting, I was not allowed back in the facility for three months, even if I wanted a membership. Totally a logical rule because my five foot nothing stature was surly intimidating, and they must have needed a break from feeling inferior I suppose. I thought I’d spend the next three months using all of the free gym trials around town because free is basically my middle name, and hope that by the time they’re all up, three months will have gone by so I can go back to my old routine of HITT classes and BodyPump. The longest trial around town was at a nearby yoga studio, so I chose to start there even though yoga for me at that time was like a soap opera. Long, boring, and overrated. I figured I had nothing to lose considering they had really nice studios and showers, and yoga sculpt, which was basically a HIIT class disguised as yoga.

After my first class, I turned to the girl to my left who was sweating like she just took the ice bucket challenge, and said “I’ve never hated to love something so much in my life.” The rest was history. I began a work exchange program there, where I mopped up sweaty floors and yoga mats for an hour and a half a week, in exchange for a $20 a month unlimited membership. Not only did I meet Allie a few months later, but the beginning of another significant event happened then as well.

Fast forward a few months later, and my eyes widened like a Californian yogi just discovered they ate something with gluten in it. $2,500 was the number staring back at me. Immediately my decision to get my yoga teaching certification began to waver. I noticed in that moment that my excuses that were firing out about money and time were all fear based, and this all happened too serendipitously for me not to see what would happen if I followed through. As I handed over my credit card, I gritted my teeth like I was watching one of those videos that show up on my Facebook newsfeed of people making poor choices, and I know they’re about to hurt themselves. Once the transaction was made, I felt a sense of relief that I had made the decision. The relief made me know by making this choice, I was following my heart and not my head.

It made me aware that most of my anxiety comes from not making a decision, and once I actually do, I feel a million times better. It’s like when I went on a bungee swing in New Zealand. Suspended hundreds of feet in the air, dangling like a piece of bait, I looked down full of fear, nerves, and excitement. Once I made the choice to pull the cord and drop, only the excitement remained, which turned to pure joy as I swung and stared at the magnificent cliffs, luscious green trees, and lake that surrounded me. It’s the prolonging of making a choice that so often causes the anxiety and confusion. When I follow my heart and stay in my truth, pure joy is inevitable.

Though I had no idea what to expect, and didn’t even intend on becoming a teacher, I knew only good could come of it. If anything, I thought it would give me something to write about, and that it did and so much more. Slowly I began to notice people perceiving me as the type of person who would go out to eat with a rolled up yoga mat, wanting to order a BLT with gluten free bread, and no meat. To be fair, that’s not too far fetched.