I now have that as a confirmed fact, after almost barfing in a dojo tonight.
I went to my first group meditation, and you know what? I can't do it. I totally cannot do it.
I can sit until my hips ache. I can sit until my left foot goes so completely numb I can't move it at all. But when I'm so woozy and lightheaded I feel like I'm going to throw up my dinner... when a cold sweat breaks out on my face and neck... when I'm breathing like Darth Vader... I have to quit.
So I will continue to meditate at home, gently and briefly. And probably rarely.
My cat sleeps on the window sill whether I can sit well or not.
2 comments:
I'm sorry the group meditation was so sucky for you, Mike. Do you think it was something about the posture, the environment, or was it an out-of-the blue anxiety attack?
sweeney
Posture and anxiety attack are likely culprits.
My left foot went completely numb. I don't mean tingly 'kinda numb' numb: I mean dead as a piece of firewood numb. That has never happened to me before -- sitting or otherwise -- and it scared me.
(As my gerontologist friend dzaster pointed out tonight, this is the kind of thing that causes phlebitis. [It is phlebitis, isn't it?])
So I was a little freaked out about that. It cleared up as soon as we got up for walking meditation.
You know how when your foot goes to sleep and you get the circulation going again, it just stings like hell for a few seconds? That didn't happen. It came right back to normal with no unpleasant sensation at all.
But as soon as we went back to sitting, it went dead again, and that's when I started to get a little anxious about it.
So the cold sweat and heavy breathing may have been the result of that.
Or maybe not.
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