Oh, there's so many things I want to talk about, and I only have four days left before Family kicks in. I want to write about my collection of this year's Christmas fortune cookies. I want to post holiday music reviews (oh well, we'll see if/when THAT goes up). I want to post some amusing predictions for myself in the year 2005. And yet, I fear nothing much will be written, because I still need to finish one person's present idea (which is um, complicated) and I'd like to get through some Farscape episodes while I still have time to watch them, and I fear the rest of my weeknights are going to be booked up in a hurry, since at some point I'll go over to Jess's and Denise wants to get together, and I spent tonight hanging out with Heather and co. in the end.

But today we'll stick with a discussion on meditation.

I was having some fun at Barnes and Noble Saturday night, but mostly ended up picking up well, tree-hugging hippie crap books. I picked up Susan Miller's The Year 2005, which will have to be in another entry, and I picked up Sonia Choquette's Diary of a Psychic. I wasn't intending on buying it, but I started flipping through and realized after I'd gotten through 2/3 of it in the bookstore that I might as well, you know, PAY FOR IT. Lord knows I ain't that psychic, but it's an entertaining read to go through.

And I also picked up Stacey Wood's Psychic Living. I hadn't heard of the chick, but her book was placed in a chicklit section (don't ask me why), and it looked interesting, what the hell. This was probably the only book I bought that night (except for The Winter Oak, to which I already read the first book and assumed I'd like the second) that I didn't flip through in great detail beyond the opening and the table of contents, and now I really wish I had, because I might not have bought it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have.

The book is a primer on how to develop your psychic power and how to use it "on command," if you will, to start working through your problems in life, figure out what unconscious beliefs of yours are dragging you down, etc. All of which is well and good (hell, that's why I read tarot, no?),
BUT.
But, but, but. Unfortunately, this book almost immediately falls into my one pet peeve on psychic stuff- i.e. meditation.

I am not a neophyte to meditation by a long shot. I went to some freaky hippie-ish schools, and they started us out meditating in kindergarten (probably as a way to shut us up). In middle school, they stuck us in a "skills" class where they often had us sitting around doing the big white ball over the head, etc.-type of meditation. As a kid who refused to pop aspirin and who had headaches pretty damned often, I listened to Mom's meditation/self-hypnosis-y tapes in hopes of curing them the natural way. I'd lie around in the dark imagining my body filling up with healing orange fluid, blah blah blah. I've been doing this crap for a long time.

And it has never worked for me. Never. It hasn't even gotten close to working.

I can't bloody stand meditating. The sitting still, the enormous deep breaths, the saying of "Ommmmm" or some other stupid phrase, the "make your mind a perfect blank" thing. I can't stand "make your mind a perfect blank," because mine doesn't work that way. It doesn't quietly empty and then sit around comfortably empty, waiting for Something Else to walk in. Making my mind blank is like suddenly being strangled- it's about that comfortable. Every second of "must...make...mind...blank...deep...breaths" is torture, and the longer it goes on, the worse I feel, and the more I can't stand it any longer. I can't wait a good long time for whatever-it-is to show up in my head. My thoughts need to come back. It goes against everything in me to be empty-headed, and it makes me feel crappy to boot.

I feel nothing, it doesn't work.

In all of my readings on psychic stuff, nobody ever acknowledges that Mandatory Blank Mind might be a problem for people. Apparently for most/all folks, it's like rolling off a log easy. Or maybe people don't think as much as I do. Grr. But all make it very clear that Mandatory Blank Mind is VITALLY important for EVERYTHING.

Much to my dismay, this book starts out almost indicating some way to fix the problem, and then ends up being even worse for Mandatory Blank Mind stuff than ever. The author almost/kinda acknowledges that some folks might have a problem with this at the start:
"I know what you're thinking. "No, not meditation!" A few years ago I was scared of meditation, too. When I first studied the psychic senses, meditation kept coming up over and over again. My initial reaction was to reject it as restrictive and boring." She seems to think the sitting still is the problem. But soon enough, she's brushing it all off and saying it's fine to sit as you like, but, "Follow the instructions and go with it; despite the lingo, I promise it will be an enjoyable experience." Which makes me feel kind of dismissed right there. I've tried it, I've never enjoyed it.
Then it gets even worse in the kick-Jen-in-the-gut approach:
"It is very important that you take a few minutes and get it right, since this quieting of your mind is the basis for all of the exercises in the book. It is the first thing you have to master before you can get down and dirty with psychic energy and create the life you want."
In other words, if I fail at the start, I might as well bloody take the book back, because it'll be useless to me. And upon further flipping through of it, every single thing in the book involves Mandatory Blank Mind. Fuckola.
And finally, she thinks it's simple and easy-peasy. "When you have a sense of electricity and heightened inner senses, you have made it. You should feel a change within two or three breaths. Wasn't it easy?!
If you feel like you don't understand how this process works, or if you are a little confused, give yourself a break. It will be easier the second time you try it, and by your third time it becomes old hat. And don't worry if you're fidgety or if your mind is racing. That will stop when you get the hang of it- which shouldn't take too long, because, don't forget, you are a natural-born psychic."

I've tried it A LOT MORE THAN THREE TIMES, and I have never gotten it. My mind never stops racing, except when I'm trying to choke off the flow, and that just plain hurts. I don't get anywhere, I don't feel enlightened, all I feel is crappy and like I just wasted my time.

Hell, I tried it again last night. Going off of her "sit in any position you like" thing, I decided to do it in bed, when kind of sleepy (i.e. the closest I'll naturally get to "blank mind"). Deeeeeeeep breaths. Lots of deeeeeep breaths. Blaaaaank mind.
And what happened? "Split Screen Sadness" popped into my head on repeat. I hadn't had it stuck in my head and hadn't even listened to it of late, but it wouldn't go away for more than a few seconds. I could. not. go. blank. Again, it was torture trying to shove thoughts OUT of my head and not replacing them with anything but dead head. Still, the song kept coming back. Call it a hunch that my brain was just plain incredibly bored, and not that my spirit guides were hinting that I shouldn't date Jennifer Love Hewitt.

I. Don't. Get. Meditation.

I don't think I ever will.

And since apparently none of this stuff will WORK unless I can sit around with a perfectly empty head for a long duration... I can't get anywhere. And it pisses me off.

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