More Georgia. Less Clarence.
Imagine that I have two friends, Georgia and Clarence.
One day, they invite me to go jogging with them.
At the meeting spot, Georgia beams, “Come on, let’s go!”
Clarence, however, scolds: “Those shoes are all wrong. You need real jogging shorts. And your socks? No support at all.”
I’ll let you guess which one I’d rather spend time with.
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I’m trying to meditate in seat 24B, the middle seat, on a flight.
The practice I’m engaged in is to pay attention to the sensation of breath going in and out of my nostrils.
But, the Top Gun reboot is playing on my neighboring passenger’s screen, and I can’t seem to stop furtively watching.
My thoughts wander…
Was the movie funded by the Army, the Air Force, or another branch of the military? Did the studio pay for the use of the planes, or did the government pay the studio to make the military look good and attract recruits, like the movie Backdraft did for fire departments? What year was Backdraft? 1987? 1991? Which Baldwin brother was in that?… Oh, shit, I’ve totally lost track of my breath in my nostrils!
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The instructor of the comparative meditation course I’m taking suggests “more Georgia, less Clarence.”
Though he doesn’t use those words.
“Instead of scolding yourself when your mind wanders,” he says, “celebrate catching yourself. Like this: ‘I just found myself straying from the breath. Isn’t that wonderful? I just caught my attention again.”
That reframe is a total 180 from my knee-jerk self-criticism.
More Georgia. Less Clarence.
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What if this week, we practiced being just a little kinder to ourselves?
And if you’d like a no-pressure place to practice, I lead a live meditation online, weekdays at 2pm (ET). Join me here: https://rotb.org/meditation
