OM.

Keep breathing. I had trouble sleeping a few nights ago and starting meditating. I lived in Thailand for a while a few years ago and started meditating with a great coach and after a few months went to a magical wat in the forest (complete with a cobra in the bed) for a retreat.
Even the cobra didn’t deter me from meditation—although I moved beds.

I naively thought that it would be easy to keep up the practice on my own once returning to my normal life here in NYC. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’d try it in bits and spurts until finally abandoning it, putting it on the shelf with “things I’ve tried”.

Lately, I’ve taken it off the shelf and given it more attention. It’s so much harder than I remembered, but that’s also because I have a cat who likes to rub all over me when I sit on the ground (or anywhere for that matter).
As I meditated late the other night, I finally felt really peaceful and ready to try sleep again.
No sooner did I lay down when the thoughts came rushing back in my head and as I told myself “breathe”, I realized I wasn’t breathing at all. I was just laying there holding my breath.

That’s bad.

The last few days have been rough. Friends have been emailing me saying things like, “I’ve been reading your blog. You’re not yourself and I’m a little worried about you.” I’m so transparent.

I needed perspective. So this morning I woke up and thought, “You have nothing to be stressed about. Nothing has happened to you. There is nothing wrong with you. You have not suffered any losses. Your medical tests are fine. OK, so you’re a little older, but there are worse things (I’m not so sure about this one, but I’m trying it on for size).”

And down I went to the meditation floor. I’m not sure how long I stayed there—long enough for the cat to get bored rubbing against me without getting rubbed back—but when I opened my eyes I just started praying out loud. To whom, I’m not sure because I’m not a religious person, but I wanted to put it out in the universe. I didn’t pray for anything, but simply made a list thanking the universe for all I already have.

Today, I found many meditation centers in my surrounding work/home neighborhood and I’m going to try some of these places out and see if I can find a more guided practice out there to help me in my journey.

Thanks for everyone chiming in about exercise. I think I’ll hold off on my Vinyassa yoga and pilates for the first 10 days post IUI. Since my gym has an indoor pool, I’m going to take up swimming instead. My walk to work everyday is about 2 miles roundtrip and I’ve continued to do this. I’m incorporating some Hatha yoga for the first part of the TWW and I think that should be good.

Exercise and staying healthy is just such a huge part of my life, it’s been rough living my months in increments of two weeks and changing my routine. But, maybe change is good.

Be healthy everyone and remember to breathe.