I’m writing this post, which I’ve promised to write for a long time, on the morning of my 41st birthday. While doing my “sitting” this morning, I realized how much I’ve changed in a year, felt grateful, and said to myself, “Today is the day to write this.”

I didn’t want to use stock images. I wanted a visual that, while not professional, reflects reality. This ritual truly makes me feel like I’ve been sprinkled with stardust, and that’s how I arranged my visual 🙂

I am a documented, reported hyperactive. Not the kind of hyperactive person who’s just very naughty, but I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Years have been spent trying to balance this… which I now understand is a result of general metabolic disorders when viewed holistically, but back then I was only trying to stay still with a medication called Ritalin. Even waiting at a red light was a nightmare for me. The moment I sat still, a missile wanted to launch upwards from inside me, and controlling it was the hardest thing in the world. I experienced these things more during my adolescence and early twenties than in my childhood. Because I wasn’t too young, I had a broader perspective, and during that time, I bought 1000 books to see if meditation would work. When I become interested in something, I can’t stop at the beginning. I absolutely have to reach the “advanced” level. I read a lot of meditation books, but I absolutely couldn’t do it. Every time I tried, these things bothered me the most:

* I can’t stop thinking; my brain never stops.

* I can’t sit still.

* Saying mantras in Sanskrit, a language I don’t understand at all, is ridiculous (because I can’t progress with anything my logic doesn’t grasp).

* Being fixated on an object is also ridiculous.

* I can’t do things like inhaling through my eyes and exhaling through my nose, or inhaling through my mouth and exhaling through my ears.

* Just as I sit down to start, my nose starts itching. ‘Don’t scratch it,’ they say, ‘your brain is doing this to you.’ It’s ridiculous, how can I stop scratching or touching it?

* Just as I’m about to start, I get the urge to laugh 🙂

* I don’t have time!

These are the things that come to mind most quickly. Everyone in the world talks about the benefits, but I can’t get past these things I’ve listed and get to the point to see the benefit.

Those books are still on my bookshelf (because you can’t throw away or give away books). None of them worked for me…

Then years passed, and I found healing in different ways. I can say that when my physical ailments emerged, I forgot about my soul. I dealt with my body so much that, suddenly, I realized I was also healing mentally. With age, a calming effect came, but my thoughts about meditation didn’t change.

When I started my Health Coaching training, they gave us some relaxation and calming exercises to practice before meeting with our clients. These 2-3 minute focus and rejuvenation exercises started to work very well for me. They were simply about counting breaths, like counting sheep. The aim was to prevent the mind from wandering, to return to the present moment, to detach ourselves from our own problems, and to focus solely on the client. That’s where I took my first step. What we were doing didn’t have a name or identity like meditation. I started without realizing it.

The real change happened last November when I started the MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) program. My main goal was to support the stress management of the people I worked with, but I underwent a complete transformation. I was so impressed by this program that I started MBSR instructor training, which I’m still continuing. Here, I learned that meditation is something far different from what I had read and researched before. That’s how my awareness journey began. I hesitate to call it meditation because in our country it can be confused with religion, etc. I call it “sitting or standing.”

I sat for 12 minutes a day, and my life changed!

The MBSR program is more experience-based than something you can just read and practice. It becomes internalized through experience and practice. That’s what happened to me. It’s very different from what we’ve learned from books and documented training. Although I initially insisted on receiving notes, I gradually surrendered to the process. I transformed and transformed.

It’s gotten quite long, but I hope you’re still reading 🙂 Now let me explain how I do these sitz baths. I’ll continue by describing their benefits and effects on the brain in the rest of the article. I was very surprised when I first heard about them.

I will be implementing these in my newly started Elimination and Awareness groups. Participants will be able to experience these with me.

* I usually do it in the morning after waking up, before breakfast, but there’s no such thing as the best time. The best time is the time that works best for you.

* I sit upright. I have a meditation stool because my knees hurt, but I also use it cross-legged or on a chair. The important thing is that our backs are straight. If we’re sitting cross-legged, a cushion to support our hips is important; this helps keep our backs straight because without support, slouching is inevitable.

* The only thing I do is focus on my breath. No special breath, no special object. Just observing my breath, which is with me every moment in the normal flow of my life. Its traces, its movements in my body…

During this time, there are lapses; my mind goes to yesterday, to tomorrow, but I notice this and return to the present. The goal isn’t to sit like a statue without thinking about anything. That’s very difficult anyway. The mind’s job is to produce thoughts, and it’s constantly doing its job. We just observe this, set it aside, and return to our breath.

* If my nose itches, I scratch it; if I’m cold, I get dressed; if I’m sweaty, I take off my shirt; if Dino comes, I touch him, etc., etc… None of these things disturb my “sitting.” I return to where I left off, focusing again on my breath. My breath is with me and within me at every moment.

* The thought, “I need to just sit still, without thinking. If I can’t do that, I can’t meditate,” is the biggest obstacle to us doing it. Believe me, I think the number of people who can do this in the world is less than the fingers on one hand. It’s not about thoughtlessness, it’s about noticing our thoughts and feelings and being able to stay with them.

* Actually, the more stimuli we receive from the outside, the better. These stimuli give us the opportunity to practice noticing and returning to our breath each time. We become even stronger.

* There’s no ideal time. 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes… however long I can. Sometimes in bank queues, sometimes while waiting for someone. Instead of getting angry at that moment, I use that time to calm down by returning to my breath.

So, that’s my “sitting still” adventure. I’ll explain the benefits I’ve seen and its relationship to the brain’s structure in a separate post, this one’s getting too long 🙂

Sending you all love.