The Art of Doing Nothing

I've found peace in small amounts throughout my life. The type of peace that allows me to think about nothing and everything all at once. I used to only find this kind of peace through small amounts of meditation each day, but with this class and the current situation that we're all facing I've found this time increasing.

When I would meditate I would mainly focus on touch. The clothes touching my body, my feet in my shoes touching the ground, and the air against my face. I would feel this heightened sense of touch as I took a minute or two at a time to think about nothing except what I was feeling. I started this meditation practice because with classes, work, swim practice, and dance practice I often found myself overwhelmed, and even when I wouldn't be doing anything, my mind would be racing. This caused me a lot of stress and exhaustion because even when I stopped I was never really stopping. So in between, I found moments to take a break. When walking to class I would slow my breathing and focus on everything around me physically. This practice not only enhanced my mood but made me feel more awake and fresh wherever I was going to next.

This time increased this past semester when I would come to this class. During the presentations and while writing and reading blogs I found this time was healing and allowed me to reflect more on things that before I didn't really think about all that much. I would focus on what was mainly affecting me and neglect to notice all the little things that built that one thing. I've realized that all of my experiences are so much more complex than the one-sided mirror in which I was seeing them through. There are a million different sides to every experience and there are even more stimuli within that experience that we take in but usually ignore because there is one stimuli or one way to view the story that seems to be stronger than others. While working with my group on the smell presentation I had a revelation that what I thought was taste was actually smell. My whole life I had been so sure that my experience with eating was solely taste but now in my 19th year of life I know that flavor comes from smell and vision and all my other senses to make up the whole picture of what food actually tastes like.

Since we've been home I was first feeling a lot of the negatives. Missing out on collegiate nationals, my friends, my actual on-campus college experience. The longer I've been in quarantine though, the more I've found myself really truly experiencing nothing. What I mean by this is, I've found more time to feel at peace by just experiencing existing. When I go for walks with my mom I feel like I experience breathing more than I ever have. It's crazy to think that I should feel a similar way every time I walk outside, but now it's like I have nowhere to be and not too much to think about and I just breathe and exist. When I get out of the shower I'll sit in bed and look into the eyes of my reflection and for a couple of minutes, I just exist. My actions in that moment have no real purpose other than taking time to completely clear my mind. I've found that for me, existing is the way that I am selfish. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by things I need to do and people I need to see. I stop to just experience life in it's simplest form.

This semester I have found such a great appreciation for my small moments of nothing. This class and this quarantine combined have provided me with such a wider understanding of small "meaningless" things that to me, mean everything.