Spiritual Sisters, Reconfiguring Expectations

June 12, 2025

Meditation on a mountain

So, I took a break from meditating for 3 days reader, something I didn't think I would do when I started. When I started, I was filled with the fire of a new thing, which tends to excite me. I'll admit I'm one of those people who gets really obsessed with and excited about new things when I discover them, then with time my interest tends to wane. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, or a quality I want to nurture. I thought as I grew older, I would grow out of it, but so far, no luck. A lot of the time it has been music, bands or performers, so it's been mostly harmless to have these swaying obsessions, but my spiritual learning is not something I want to be transient in my life. I need it to be permanent. I want to be happy.

But for some reason I found that while meditating I was finding it way too difficult to focus, while I was relaxing my body and slowing my breathing all I was really doing was thinking about one topic at a time with my mind. I hadn't shut my inner voice out or turned its volume down, I was no longer ignoring it and letting it run in the background, I was putting my full awareness on it. This amounted to thinking very deeply. This was not the same as the peace of stillness, the ability I had to focus my awareness on a single flickering candle flame and block out nearly all else before. Now that candle's flame was not enough to hold my attention anymore, so I concluded that I needed a new subject to meditate on.

Waterfall in the woods

I have been reading books and seeking out meditation advice online, and I ran across the advice to meditate on loving kindness. I wasn't even sure how to do that, but I gave it a try, and it proved to be a beautiful experience because what came to mind was my grandmother, who lived on social security and didn't have very much. She must have had 20 grandchildren though (thanks to my wonderful and prolific uncle) so at Christmastime we all got socks from her, which I personally thought was too much. But every year she bought eggs, butter, and sugar and made what had to be 5 or 6 batches of Christmas cookies, frosted and decorated them, and filled up big Tupperware containers to give to all of us. I mean containers and containers. Everyone got plenty of cookies, even when Gram was in her late 80's, right up until she went into a nursing home, she made sure all her family got plenty of cookies for Christmas. Making and decorating sugar cookies is so much work, now that I'm older I've done it, and I would much rather give cash! But she didn't have money, all she had was her hard work to put in to show her love for everyone. I have so many examples of loving kindness from her. I found myself crying from the deep love I felt during that meditation.

That was a beautiful experience. But aside from that one meditation, I still found myself struggling to concentrate, and when I did concentrate, I didn't find myself at peace, sitting on that dock at the perfectly serene and still lake that looks like glass, with the high mountain peaks and the beautiful sky. I was just doing some deep thinking, and I was getting frustrated with myself. Instead of trying to ignore my thoughts I was trying to shoo them impatiently out of the way. When I found that I had been paying attention to a thought I felt frustrated and angry at myself for being weak. Impatience, frustration, and anger are not what one should be feeling while meditating, even a beginner like me knew that.

Ocean breaking on a rocky shore

In the course of my search for meditation advice, I came across the advice "take a break" which I decided was probably what I needed at that point to reset. I stopped for 3 days, and it felt weird, I felt a little unstable, not sure if I could handle things as well as I could when I had that spiritual moment twice a day (or more) to center myself. But I found I could still use some of my new tools in regular life, and this is where my sister came in handy. Do you know how some people in your life just understand you without you having to say a word and it feels like you've known them for many lifetimes, and you can't imagine ever living a day without them?

Well, that is not me and my sister. We are seven years apart in age, we've never been close, at times we've fought like demons, and I have always been flabbergasted by the choices she makes and I'm sure vice versa. But one major way we have always differed is that she holds a grudge. She is still mad at my parents for mistakes they made 40 years ago when she was a wild teenage girl, and they were young adults. She remembers things everyone else forgot 30 years ago and is still upset about them and brings them up and acts out about them. It is one of the things that has always upset me about her most.

Sisters on the beach

But over those three days, her behavior was like a gift to me, because it gave me something to let go of. Before the idea of what she had done or said had even sunk into my psyche, I just let it go. I didn't ponder it, I didn't try to understand or analyze it, I just let it evaporate into the ether. Her actions and reactions are not my problem unless I make them my problem, and I didn't do that. We didn't fight. Only smiles and goodwill were given by me. I kept letting go until I didn't feel that I had to involve myself in the drama in any way. I tried to do that with everything that came up that bothered me, just letting go.

When I came back to meditating that fourth day, I was a clean slate. I didn't get angry at myself for anything that I did. I only meditated for about 15 minutes, and that was fine. I didn't "go deep" or have any realizations, I wasn't filled with the fire of a new obsession anymore. Now it was just the determined steps of a soul making a new path for herself to follow, for life, with God's help. Now I appreciated that I had slowed my breath, slowed my heart rate, slowed my thoughts down, let go of some anxiety, all of that is a lot without revelations and blasts of light! I appreciate the beautiful things meditation does for me just in my physical body let alone my spiritual one. I've also started doing a little 15-minute yoga routine some days on YouTube. I want to make that every day, and then a 30-minute routine every day, but it's going to take time. I just want to be able to sit in the Lotus position honestly, but it's going to take a lot of Yoga to get this busted body in shape to do that without pain. Lucky for me I used to do Yoga in college so it's not totally unfamiliar to me.

A person in Lotus

And happily, my focus during meditation, which I am back to doing twice daily again is starting to return. I think most importantly, I don't get down on myself no matter what happens. I heard Mayim Bialik say on her podcast that she had a Yogi once tell her not to get mad when her focus strayed during meditation, but just to treat it like a little puppy and put it back where it belonged. You wouldn't be mean to a sweet tiny puppy, would you? Treat your focus the same way. I like bringing that gentleness to meditation, it feels right. Especially for someone that is healing right now, like me.