These past few weekends we have not had many household plans. I worked on a few projects and went to a few parks. We had a few family lunched, but the lack of plans was palpable. My wife was not too pleased with the development. She mentioned she prefers to have plans and enjoys working toward a planned activity with the family.
During the weekends I worked on sitting and trying to experience my emotions as they arose. On several occasions I felt myself wanting to move on to the next activity. I tried to sit with the current activity and feel the motivation to move arising in my thoughts and feelings. This was particularly evident when I was trying to put my kids to sleep. I wanted to get downstairs and exericise and then catch up on the news. As my son lied in his bed and asked me to stay in his room I sat and meditated.
I sat and watched my breath and felt the sensations of urgeny of tasks that I could be completing downstairs. I watched these thoughts arise and I continued to sit, glued to the floor, watching my breath.
I had the same experience as I put my eldest daughter down. I sat on the floor and felt the pull of all of the other things that I could be doing. I sat on the floor and watched my breath and experienced the desire of wanting to exercise and surf the news sites. I let that desire go and returned to the breath. Then I watched the thoughts of other possibilities float into my consiousness and I continued to breathe.
This was a powerful meditation where I felt I was able to overcome the need to follow my desires for a short period of time and sit and enjoy just being in the room with my kids as they drifted to sleep.
