How I find calm in the midst of mental storm

I have a monkey mind monkey mind monkey mind monkey mind monkey mind. It chatters and chatters and chatters and chatters. I can't seem to stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it – even when I need to sleep or concentrate on work or read or watch a movie. Sometimes, I lose track of plots because my monkey mind monkey mind monkey mind interrupts.

I am incapable of napping. My monkey mind monkey mind monkey mind won't let me.

I believe, fervently, that if I could quiet the chattering in my head from time to time, I could focus better, accomplish more or, at the very least, get a nap in.

I've tried to meditate in the past. I would think about clearing my mind. Then I'd think about how I'm thinking about clearing my mind. Then I'd think about how I'm thinking about how I'm thinking about clearing my mind. Then I'd ... you get the picture. Ultimately, I'd leap to my feet and make a mad dash from myself.

Taming the monkey

Clearly, drastic measures were necessary. So I went to Santa Fe, checked into a resort/retreat called Sunrise Springs, which offers classes in the "meditative arts," and hired a meditation coach for an hourlong lesson in monkey mind taming.

The truth? I was skeptical. What could Donna Thomson, who wrote The Vibrant Life: Simple Meditations to Use Your Energy Effectively, tell me that I hadn't heard before? Surely the power of my mighty monkey mind was greater than any techniques she could impart.

Happily, I was wrong.

Donna has done the whole strict Zen thing but teaches something looser for the less disciplined among us. Meditation purists might scoff, but Donna advocates "weaving" meditation moments throughout the day if you can't sit for long periods of time.

Talking with Donna, I realized that trying to force my monkey mind into meditative silence is like trying to force a rambunctious toddler to sit quietly through a symphony. I can't beat it; I have to work with it.

Donna suggested visualizations to help me find a quiet center even as my monkey mind swings from trees. I imagined myself sitting on a park bench near a playground where my thoughts could run wild. I imagined myself in front of a bank of televisions flickering with all my monkey thoughts. Similar to the technique of using a mantra, visualization gave my busy mind something to do.

We also did some visualizations with color, imagining breathing in each color of the rainbow. (I like breathing in orange, but yellow makes me nervous. For what that's worth.)

I also took a class in Asian brushwork, another meditative art offered at the resort, and painted pictures of bamboo. For this, you must find a balance between fluidity and intention in your brushstrokes. The strokes look like they are done quickly, but you can't get too loose or they lose their grace. With too much or too little control, the strokes will fail. How's that for a metaphor for life?

After two days at Sunrise Springs, I was talking about my energy a lot, without even using air quotes or ironic tone of voice.

My beautiful bench

Back home, I've been spending a few minutes on most days sitting on an imaginary park bench. As a result, one day at a time, I am finding my quiet center.

This new quiet is spilling into all aspects of my life. I cleared the clutter from my desk. Down came the bulletin board full of yellowing ephemera, which was nothing but visual noise. Out of sight went all the odds and ends – the subway token, the little wooden acorn, the small plastic toys – I used to think helped my creativity but now realize just agitated my monkey mind. Amazingly, since I cleared this clutter, keeping my desk clean is easier. I no longer accumulate the piles of paper I once did.

I'm no yogi. My mind still gets stuck in unproductive loops and still I can't imagine meditating for an hour or more. Nevertheless, my imaginary park bench is changing me, just as I hoped.

Someday, if I keep it up, maybe I'll even manage a nap.

—Sophia Dembling, Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Meditation: A tool for coping with modern life

Whenever you feel worn out, remember that you are a vast storehouse of energy, not a hopeless piece of machinery.

Your heart is beating. Your blood is flowing. Your body is teeming with energy. You just have to learn how to conserve, calm and release that energy with your breath.

Donna Thomson, a licensed social worker and meditation teacher based in Santa Fe, has developed a method for doing that, which she said has worked well for clients in the U.S. and Europe.

"A few seconds of meditation can give you as much energy as a night's sleep or a cup of coffee," according to her new book, The Vibrant Life: Simple Meditations to Use Your Energy Effectively.

Thomson has compiled breathing, visualization and movement exercises that are simple enough to do wherever you might be.

"Meditation isn't an esoteric practice; it's a necessary survival skill," she says.

Set aside the notion that you're too busy or too undisciplined to try meditation. You don't have to buy into Eastern religion or commit to a daily practice to reap benefits, Thomson says.

In fact, she discourages people from making the exercises a fixed program, another "should" for already overwhelmed people.

Thomson pulled together a collection of meditations from a smattering of spiritual, metaphysical and psychotherapeutic traditions in a spiral-bound workbook for meditation workshops in Germany, Switzerland and the United States.

A translator in Cologne, Germany, encouraged her to find a publisher to turn the workbook into a hardcover book. That's how the first edition of The Vibrant Life came to be printed by Knaur-Verlag in Germany in 2002.

Then, last month, Sentient Publications of Boulder, Colo., published the 110-page book in English. On June 10, Thomson will launch her booksigning tour at Borders Books in Sanbusco Shopping Center.

Thomson is married to Bob Schrei, and they live in an off-the-grid house they built in Glorieta. "I learned a lot about conserving energy at a personal level from living in this house," she says.

Her foray into meditation came out of a period of turmoil in her life. In 1970, Thomson entered the Zen Meditation Center in Rochester, N.Y.

At age 21, she had just given birth to her son. And she had been drifting in and out of college studying English in Ohio, while the Vietnam War divided the nation.

"I can't imagine what I'd be like without the meditation," she says.

As part of her training under Roshi Philip Kapleau, a pioneer of American Zen, she spent three hours a day in meditation. She became a devout practitioner. She moved to Santa Fe in 1981 to help Kapleau start a new Zen center here, but those efforts didn't directly result in a new center.

In all, she studied Zen for 15 years.

Once she left that structured environment, she began to think about how to weave meditation into a fast-paced life that is full of pressures and distractions.

In The Vibrant Life, Thomson provides 35 ways to enhance your energy. She recognizes a broad spectrum of energy sources -- everything from acceptance and love to prayer.

But she adds, "I'm not trying to define energy. It's experiential. You know when you have it, and you know when you don't."

The book is about the energy people often can't find enough of in the modern world -- the energy that flows when you begin to recover from an illness, or after physical exercise, or when you're in love.

In her book, she goes beyond the practice of Zen, including references to Christianity and other spiritual practices. She focuses on breath, which she says is energy, nourishment and a reminder of "universal abundance."

In one chapter, Thomson describes how to release energy through choice.

"Low energy is associated with a feeling of powerlessness," she writes. "The more you experience your power of choice, the more energy you will have."

In another chapter she describes how to transform the destructive force of anger into positive creative energy.

"Contemplation is a form of meditation; it is very different from thinking about things over and over," she writes. "You have to create a contemplative space. Then as you begin to explore your anger, the energy is similar to reading a book ... In contemplation, you are reading yourself -- turning the pages of your experience, absorbing your own knowing, seeing your reflection, and studying yourself."

Thomson also emphasizes the importance of what you say and think.

"Resolve to eliminate these phrases from your vocabulary: 'I don't have the energy. I don't have any energy. I don't have enough energy,' " she writes.

"Instead, you can say, 'I need to replenish my energy today. I need to be careful with my energy today. I need to help my energy flow more freely today.' Remember that you always have energy -- more than you think."

In one-on-one sessions, Thomson helps clients use meditation to cope with psychological as well as health issues. She says she has no scientific proof, but she thinks meditation boosts the immune system.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, practicing meditation has been shown to induce some changes in the body, such as changes in the body's "fight or flight" response that regulates many organs.

But more research is needed to determine what specific changes occur in the body during meditation and whether they influence health, according to the center.

Nonetheless, meditation is a type of mind-body medicine that is generally safe. So the next time you're maxed out, why not try it?

The book even includes a section for people who have experienced low energy for so long that they don't feel they have enough juice to do the exercises.

—Diana Heil, The New Mexican
June, 2006