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Oh, doing nothing. It sounds like such a simple and easy idea but I found this weeks menu item to be ridiculously hard. Here is a comedic run down of how my week doing nothing went:

Day One: Read the chapter on doing nothing. Discuss at length on Twitter how I am going out of my way to procrastinate doing nothing. Laugh at the irony of this. Finally force myself to calm down and do fifteen minutes of nothing. Realize five minutes in that I hate to be alone with my thoughts. Attempt to watch my thoughts like a CNN ticker. Begin fighting the urge to look at my blackberry. Finally succumb to looking at my blackberry. Realize that it has only been 12 minutes. Force myself to sit still for another 3 minutes and reflect on how uncomfortable it makes me to just be alone with my thoughts.

Day Two: New precautions need to be taken. I band my Macbook, Ipod Touch and Blackberry from my meditation area. I am excited. This is the day I am going to be able to do nothing. Not having distractions around will make it so much easier. I close my eyes and my thoughts begin to race. I try to just accept them but find myself judging them and categorizing them. Painful thoughts begin to emerge. I put them aside and focus instead on what I am going to make for dinner. I plan out all of the ingredients in my chili. Fifteen minutes later I have done a lot of menu planning and not a lot of nothing.

Day Three: How hard can it be to do nothing? I rally myself and decide this is the day where I am going to be able to be still with my thoughts and get through fifteen minutes of actually doing nothing. I close my eyes and those negative thoughts come creeping in. I try to give them funny costumes and put them in a parade. It works for a couple of moments untill I find myself slipping in to thinking negatively. I open my eyes, breathe deeply and try again. This time I can see a parade of negative thoughts and it makes me laugh. I manage to get through fifteen minutes of a negativity parade.

Day Four : I am beginning to grasp doing nothing but I do not want to have to watch a negative thought parade every day. I decide that to get me in to a better state of mind I should listen to my favourite meditation by the lovely Goddess Leonie before starting. I do this and I find slipping in to nothing after the meditation is a lot easier. I am able to be still and focus on the light radiating all around me. Sucess!


Day Five: The hospital is the perfect place to practice doing nothing. You are sitting around for hours on end with little to no entertainment. When my lovely best friend leaves for work, I decide that it is time to practice doing nothing. I begin by trying to do nothing in the waiting room surrounded by people speaking loudly, sirens and nurses yelling. I decide that this is not the greatest background noise for doing nothing. I get out my Ipod and try to find a meditation and remember that I have the White Noise App. An app that allows you to listen to different background noises in order to go to sleep. I turn on my favourite the ocean and set the timer to fifteen minutes. My thoughts are racing. I let them race for a moment and then let them wash away with the ocean tide. I do this for each thought. Fifteen minutes passes in a flash. I continue to do nothing at the hospital and realize what lovely stress relief it is.

Day Six: I decide to try another method. I run my bath, light some candles and put in my favourite Lush bath bomb. I submerge myself under water. The thoughts come back. They are messy and all over the place. I try to use the washing away metaphor but it does not seem to work. I take a deep breath and imagine the that each of my passing thoughts has a personality. I really enjoy doing this and realize that I have been in the bath for more than hour. I smile at my pruny skin.

Day Seven: I find myself slipping in to doing nothing while waiting to see my doctor. Wait? I am starting to like doing nothing? I ponder doing nothing while doing nothing and laugh at myself.