Meditation log 06/11/12

6:40 a.m. One hour seated noting. A lot of sadness throughout. The sadness felt "stuck", kind of anguished -- rather than a simple sensation that passes quickly. Also noted: roiling, sleepiness, aversion.

Started the hour with about 7 minutes of self-metta. Then, had the idea that I wanted to "just sit", rather than do the activity of noting. Started to "just sit", but then saw thoughts arise and didn't want to let them run rampant. So added very gentle noting, even slightly more gentle than when I tried to follow Beth's instruction to do be relaxed.

But when I noticed all the sadness, and how my body was holding it, I ramped up the noting to my usual pace (a little slower than 1x/second) to see if that made the sadness less sticky. It didn't. But I stayed with the faster speed anyway, because it was more familiar.

I had a lot of thoughts, and often a thought was followed by sadness.

Now, as I write, I feel the tension in the right torso/throat that I think was associated with the sadness in meditation.

Day full of sadness! Curtly told Eric he needed to take care of the half-done organizing project around his desk by end of day Wednesday. Then felt really sad. Sadness through session with Trip. Sullen all day at work. Resisted being mindful; wanted to engage in angry thoughts. At home in the evening, ranted to Eric about his disrespect for the space in the house. 30 minute run fueled by angry thoughts; by second half of run, though, got into a noting groove and let go of thoughts. Talked more with Eric. Went to bed alone. Noticed habit of feeling bad about this choice, but diverted this train relatively easily. Told myself that it was right for me to take care of myself, to "stay within myself" as Rodney says.

5pm At a bag of Famous Amos choc chip cookies. This is the last thing I ate all day.

10:30 p.m. About 50 minutes seated meditation in bed. I think I started with metta, but mostly I did noting. The noting practice got unpleasant so I set a timer for 30 minutes so I could stop thinking about quitting. I couldn't wait to quit. I can't remember exactly what was unpleasant; I think it was a sticky glob of sensation in the right torso. I was surprised that I could meditate this long this late at night without being interrupted by RLS or sleepiness.