Fit What You Are Ready For

It's funny. Sometimes I actually BUY books. (Usually, I'm a proud and frequent user of the Dallas Public Library.) When they seem like they might possibly change my life I'm more than willing to throw down the cash. But what happens most of the time is because I have more than 3 weeks to read these, they sit around staring at me while I finish up on my current library books, and then eventually they make their way to my bookshelf, unread. But then eventually, when the time is right, they get read.

Sometimes it's months later, sometimes YEARS.

Last year when the paperback edition of the 10th anniversary edition of "Wherever You Go There You Are" came out I bought it. I was toying around with the idea of meditation even then I guess. But apparently, I wasn't quite ready for it because the book ended up on the bookshelf.

But lately, thoughts of that book keep coming to mind. Oddly. I think I keep dreaming about it even! Coincidentally I just finished my final meditation class of an 8-week series today. Last night I started flipping through the book. I got it out barely remembering that it was about meditation and mindfulness. This time when I read a few chapters I was completely sucked in. Now I have a reference point. Now mindfulness and meditation practice isn't so very foreign to me and I have a greater interest because I know at least a LITTLE something about them.

The introduction said:
"Each of us has to chart our own course, and it has to fit what we are ready for...
You certainly have to be ready for meditation. You have to come to it at the right time in your life, at a point where you are ready to listen carefully to your own voice, to your own heart, to your own breathing-just to be present for them and with them, without having to go anywhere or make anything better or different. This is hard work."

You bet it is! Maybe I wasn't ready for this book when I bought it, but I'm pretty sure I am NOW. It seems interesting to me that I must have planted the seed of interest somewhere last year regarding meditation and I just barely remember it. I'm pretty sure it was right before or right after Mom died. I knew I wanted to be reflective, find some new tools to help me thru life, etc. I'm sure my mind was in a place where, had I already HAD a meditation practice it would've been helpful, but diving into it knowing nothing about it would've been grueling. But I knew enough to buy the book. I guess I knew eventually this book would be good for me. Now is the time. Now it seems to fit.