Can You Spare 3 Minutes?

The beginning of June I visited my dear friend Bree Ervin. We got to talking about 3-minute-meditations. My story clearly impacted her because she not only put them into practice in her own life but she blogged about them too. Click here to read... 

One of my clients, we’ll refer to her as Carla, had been beating herself up for not taking the time to do the meditative sequence that I had suggested to her for processing her feelings. “No worries,” I had told her, “your lack of follow through is just information.”

I remember when I first began meditating following a debilitating health issue in the early 90’s. My mind would either race or I’d fall asleep; there was no in between. Being the Type A personality that I was back then, launched me into the challenge of learning to meditate, even if it killed me. Not only did it not kill me, it positively changed the course of my life. 

I gave myself a doable assignment to begin with—I would go outside and breathe for a few minutes. I’d do it during my breaks at work. I figured that if people could use their breaks to go outside and have a cigarette that I could use mine to go outside and breathe.

I could stay with my breath for about 3 minutes.  It’s so easy to set ourselves up to fail by expecting too much from ourselves. But sometimes the only way to know our limitations is to put both feet in and try. I had given Carla too much to do, but the only way for us to know was for her to witness the resistance that sprung forth from her assignment. I asked if she thought she could squeeze 3 minutes of breathing into her busy, entrepreneurial schedule. No focus on feelings, just go outside and breathe for 3 minutes.

Morning is optimal but anytime will do. It’s just that how we begin our day makes a statement to the universe. We can be the leader of our day or allow our day to lead us. It is our choice. She agreed that adding 3 minutes of breathing a couple mornings a week was doable.

I got this message from Carla a few days after our session, “Trish, you’ll be pleased to know I breathed and did yoga this am. However I cannot seem to stop crying.”

Carla had met her resistance--the very feelings she had been assigned to access. My response, “Now you know what has been blocking you from slowing down. All good. When we do something that we have been resistant to doing we find out why. In your case, lots of stored tears. Not sure if you have my book, but my chapter on coffee is my experience with being super human.”

My Type A personality had prevented me from breathing and feeling too. A health issue slowed me down and steered me toward learning to meditate, but I’d recommend 3-minute-meditations over a health issue any day. Technology is even 3-minute friendly these days. As my friend Bree shared in her blog post, you can program reminders to breathe right into your phone.

There is treasure hidden in Carla’s tears. I look forward to uncovering it during our next session.

• Are you having trouble slowing down?
• Can you afford 3 minutes of down time a couple days a week?
• Give it a try. Maybe you’ll even meet your resistance and retire your super-human tendencies as I did.

Friends in this Love,

Dr. Trish

For more info on Super-Human and Type A tendencies check out these chapters in "Why Me? Why Now? Why Not? Finding Opportunity In Your Obstacles:

Chapter 7: Coffee, Crystals and Empowerment

Chapter 12: What’s In A Smile