Having an "Off" Month, But Looking Up

Lots of people talk about having an "off" day, where things just don't seem to be lining up. I'm just as prone to having them as anyone (as they're statistical coincidences), but I seem to have managed to get the cosmic slot machine to come up all lemons for the last several weeks.

In nearly every aspect of life, anomalies have piled up on this recent period. The surgery was an obvious one, but it's been followed up by things like the wrong insurance card being used at both the clinic and the hospital, causing a long stream of phone calls to get it straightened out. Then there's the letter from the IRS, with a less than polite request for $1200 to be sent in by April 11 for something from 2005. One of my incisions doesn't seem to want to heal. And we can't forget my fileserver going down in a blaze of glory.

When I was much younger, I used to ascribe these stretches to superstitious sources, and try to straighten things out, not by actually addressing the issues themselves, but other actions: reducing the "bad" things I thought I might have done to bring disaster on myself, etc. However, as I got oler, I realized that these kinds of stretches just come every so often, no matter what you do. You can't change that. You can only tough it out and work to remove the obstacles.

And, things like making sure you're getting the right amount of sleep (for me that actually means getting less than I "feel" like getting when I'm depressed), eating right, keeping your emotional balance in check, etc. do definitely help in dealing with stressful periods.

Fortunately, that looks like it might finally be getting me somewhere on most of the crap going on right now. I cleared out several of the problems yesterday and hope to get through a couple more today. I did a stint of meditation this morning that is leaving me refreshed and looking forward to the day. I started doing my own blend of meditation, which is half hypnosis.

I've always had difficulty with falling asleep while meditating if I close my eyes and distraction (of the conscious thought kind) with my eyes open. The last few times, I've been staring at the electric sheep screensaver on the big TV, which is abstract enough and interesting enough to get lost in, without actually having conscious thoughts. When I combine that with listening to a program of binaural beats generated by Gnaural, I'm able to relax, refresh and clear the cobwebs out pretty well.

I like this approach to meditation as it's less touchy-feely and still gets the brain in the state you're after for the benefits of meditation.