I knew that if I tried hard enough, I could learn to calm my mind, focus and even\u2014dare I say it?\u2014meditate. Turns out I was wrong.<\/p>\n
I took karate and jiu jitsu for years. Yes, I focused during those classes\u2014but that\u2019s because I was either (a) teaching or (b) being punched in the head. There\u2019s nothing like trying to motivate students or block punches to keep your brain on task.<\/p>\n
My karate and jiu jitsu days are behind me\u2014but I\u2019ve still clung to the notion that I could, if I really worked at it, become master of my mind. So I signed up for tai chi.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how tai chi worked: The instructor would start each class by telling us to empty our minds and focus on our breathing. Then he\u2019d teach us poses with funky names, like grasp the bird\u2019s tail, catch the ball of energy, and cloud hands.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to tell you what those poses look like\u2014unfortunately, I have no idea, because the instant the instructor told us to empty our minds, my brain turned into a rabid howler monkey, and it spewed out random thoughts for 60 minutes straight. When had stamps shot up to $0.85 each? How long would it take for my ear to stop itching if I didn\u2019t scratch it? Did I put cornstarch on the grocery list? After trying to empty my head and not think<\/em> for an entire hour, I was exhausted.<\/p>\n The problem couldn\u2019t be me<\/em>, of course\u2014the problem had to be tai chi. So I quit that class and took my rabid howler monkey to a different meditative martial art\u2014qigong.<\/p>\n Five minutes into the first class, it happened\u2014the instructor told us to empty our minds and focus on our breathing. I tried\u2014I really did. But the howler monkey bounced through my head, summoning all sorts of new, pressing questions. What country eats the most garlic? Why isn\u2019t<\/em> there a \u201cu\u201d after the \u201cq\u201d in qigong? Did I leave the dryer running? How old is my printer? All of these thoughts\u2014and many more\u2014bashed through my brain within minutes of being told to empty my head.<\/p>\n Clearly, I\u2019ll never learn to meditate\u2014but I\u2019m sticking with qigong, anyway. The classes are free, I can walk to them, and my brain is getting a great workout. Oh, and China is the biggest consumer of garlic (per capita, they eat 30 pounds of the stuff each year). You\u2019re welcome. Now go focus on something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I knew that if I tried hard enough, I could learn to calm my mind, focus and even\u2014dare I say it?\u2014meditate. Turns out I was wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}