Meditation Cafe: Navigating Transitions With Eyes Open Practice

It’s in times of transition that your practice is likely to suffer, or any time where there is a change in your routine. How you navigate these times, literally determines whether or not you inadvertently cause yourself suffering.

It is true that Meditating every day at consistent times, is the ideal way to Meditate for most people. It is also true that neurotypical and non-neurotypical folks alike are likely to struggle to maintain consistency in their practice when there are major life transitions occurring or changes to routines.

The neurodivergent among us struggle with transitions on a daily basis due to differences in our executive functioning capabilities, also many of us have sensory processing issues which makes things like holidays, travelling, changes of environment and changes to routine extremely challenging. There’s a lot more information being absorbed and having to be processed than in a neurotypical brain, which eats up valuable energy and can easily lead to meltdowns, shutdowns, burn out and exhaustion.

The nature of meditation is to change your relationship with your mind and experience yourself beyond your thoughts and limiting beliefs. What is beyond, is the Silence, the space in which all the thoughts and all phenomena is arising and dissipating within.

When we are unaware of this deeper Presence and in stressful periods of our lives, our attention contracts and gets fixated on the thoughts and feelings, known as phenomena, as the mind tries to work out what to “do” for the best.

As we become more adept at Meditation, this movement towards contraction becomes less appealing and we either don’t go there, or if we do (usually in times of transition), once we realise, we absolutely know that there is more and we see what is happening for what it is. Depending on the Nature of the chaos and drama we find ourselves in determines how quickly we come back to the “beyond”. Sometimes we will need support to do this as we navigate all the beauty and all the messiness of being Human.

We tend to think of chaos as when the tower falls and life is falling apart, yet times of extreme Joy, excitement, adventures, holidays and when we fall in Love, are all causes for dysregulation!

Here’s where eyes open practice really comes into play. If you find yourself having not Meditated for a few days, do not despair. The Silence hasn’t left you. It is innate. You haven’t lost it! It is not possible for you to lose the Silence in any way, only that you lost awareness of it, or never had awareness of it in the first place, which is why we Meditate, to become more aware, to wake up to the Silence, to our own Conscious Awareness.

Because the focus of meditation is to primarily make you more alert and more Present, you can absolutely Meditate with your eyes open throughout the day. You are not moving into an altered state but an optimal one.

It is likely that when you notice your practice has slipped you will encounter some form of self violence as self denigrating, “I’m not good/consistent/committed enough” type of thinking. These thoughts are no different to any other thought. They are an invitation like any other thought you’ve contracted into, to say a Mantra, to get in the Sacred vehicle that will carry you back to being Present, even if only momentarily!

It is the backwards and forwards movement that builds the alertness muscle over time. Eyes closed is great for this, eyes open stops the build up of stress until such time as you can get back to closing your eyes.

When you are experiencing trauma, eyes closed practice can be detrimental. Eyes open practice can be much more helpful in the journey to moving beyond those experiences in our life that have been frightening, traumatic and downright awful. We must learn to meet ourselves with gentleness and discern what is actually helpful for us right now in this moment, not what is ideal or what we have been told we “should” do or “should” be experiencing.

Whatever is happening is happening. How we meet life in all it’s glory and all it’s Joy and all it’s pain, is an Art. Practice, (whatever that looks like) Patience with ourselves and Humility, are qualities that we cultivate when we commit to Meditation. Committing means committing to keep coming back. To commit to keeping the desire alive to know ourselves more deeply and wholly. We are more than our thoughts and feelings and yet we all experience thoughts and feelings.

In times of transition do not worry if your eyes closed practice slips and keep the intention to come back to it. Do eyes open practice until you find yourself back on your Meditation cushion or seat. Do not let the mind persuade you though, that eyes closed is unecessary, especially in those more Joyous times where mind may convince you that you’re “there”! There is no destination. There is only Life unfolding in an unbroken stream of NOW.

There’s a few spaces left in my Angel Cosmology workshop in Market Harborough next Sunday 6th October 2024. Find out more here.

Here’s the zoom registration link for tonights Meditation Cafe, Monday 30th September 2024, 7.30pm, to join us as we explore how Self Enquiry and Heart Words Meditation, eyes closed and eyes open practice, can support you through transitions:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlceigrj4qGNbUTBM4jYcnpUNp-gQEEnp_

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No previous experience necessary to join us, an open mind and willing Heart is helpful. You can find the weekly registration links, read about any potential contraindications (especially read if you’re struggling with your mental health or experiencing any kind of trauma) and other things you need to be aware of, on the Meditation Cafe page . If you have any concerns, please contact me beforehand to discuss whether this Meditation practice is for you, or how we might adapt the practice to support you.

Meditation Cafe is part of The Silent Revolution and is free by default. If you’d like to support me in this work, you can if you feel called to, “Buy Me A Coffee” in the Cafe, pay for the tuition received (the going rate is between £5 – £8 for similar online classes) or express your Gratitude with a donation here:

http://paypal.me/thebendywitch

There’s no obligation to donate implied AND all donations are Gratefully received 🙏🏼💞

Thank you for liking, sharing blogs and poems you resonate with with friends and for sharing any thoughts provoked, contemplations and your experiences of Meditation in the comments.