10 minutes a day, Meditation & the Pandemic transformed my Daily Practice
Photo Credit: Carol Gimbel
The Ex-Emanuel Vardi c. 1725
In March when the pandemic lockdown began, I began a 50 day meditation course on Sam Harris’ Waking Up App. I was told 10 minutes a day would change my life. Of course I was skeptical, and I resisted quite a bit along the way. I mean, “I have studied yoga with an 81 year enlightened yogi who brought yoga to NYC!” so, how could some kind of generic guy named Sam Harris compare to that?! Well...he did! (and Sam Harris is no “generic guy”)
I have dabbled around meditation for 20 years, never a daily practice. The Waking Up Introductory Course 10 minutes a day had a huge, transformative effect on my body, mind and spirit. My relationships have deepened, my inner peace expanded, my heart has opened and I feel more balance and well being than possibly ever in my entire life.
The point of writing this is that it got me thinking a lot about my viola practice. In March, when the pandemic lockdown began, I also stopped practicing. That wasn’t too unusual for me. I have all kinds of rationalizations for my extreme up and down relationship with practicing. I am an “artiste” and doing nothing is important?!? It is true, brewing, the seeming-to-be-doing-nothing is tremendously important, and I wholeheartedly believe in it. The beginning of the pandemic was a time we were all shifting gears and finding our own inner compass, so backing off from practice was a reasonable thing to do. But, as the pandemic continued on it required me to find the desire to truly find my practice as an artist and find the drive for it within myself, not from any outside validation, support, deadlines or pressure.
So, I share this --- if 10 minutes a day meditating could transform my life, I wondered what 10 minutes a day could do for my viola playing? I had no issues or hurdles doing 10 minutes of meditation a day? How come, I asked myself?
The answer: when I show up with myself to sit, I have no expectations. In 10 minutes of practice I don’t expect to be enlightened, as good as someone, anyone else, or have any idea about a “perfect” sit. Meditation teachers don’t mention anything about those kinds of comparisons or judgements either. The message is -- Don’t judge. Just sit and see what happens.
I decided to apply this to my viola playing...and it worked! For 2 months I have practiced every day, with joy. Well, of course I get frustrated or find myself wanting more from myself. But the overall process has become one of joy. It is a process. I allow myself to show up for 10 minutes and see what happens. Usually it ends up being 30 minutes, or 50 minutes, or 2 or 3 longer sessions in a day, or sometimes just 10 minutes. But the consistency and the openness to allow, to realize that my allowing comes from 30+ years of experience, has shown me so much. And to know in my heart that I have the desire and dedication, and I am enough, has given me solace and focus.
As my practice has begun to evolve, I also have noticed posts from colleagues and friends struggling and / or finding similar solutions. Well, I have noticed these stories for years actually, but they are generally hidden, or come out only in one on one moments. I see the curtain coming back on the struggles in classical music - the feeling of tremendous pressure that we are supposed to “appear” a certain way, perfect to others and ourselves. I consider how other artistic practices are committed to creating what they call “safe spaces” for collaboration, and I have begun to hope that as we as classical musicians find our way during this pandemic, that the realness of what we do will open up safe spaces for making music together when the time comes (I hope!) that we can again. This is not to ignore or make light of the deep issues our community faces, with many of us struggling to shift gears to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, and all of the anxiety of this crazy time. I also realize this post comes from a tremendous place of privilege to have the resources to be able to continue my practice. It also comes from a place of mourning and missing my colleagues, friends and the beloved stage, our ultimate teacher.
For those who want to join me, how about we use #compassionatepractice10 to start our conversation or to share videos and ideas about our 10 minutes a day.
I know I have many meditator friends out there who have probably already cracked this code years ago, and those, like me, just at the beginning. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and ideas.
With love and gratitude, Carol
Special thank yous:
To Junah Chung for supporting me with weekly check-ins, encouraging me to go on this path and helping me to stay committed and non-judgemental towards my creative flow.
To the Waking Up App Support Team for making the app available to everyone — that money should never be the reason why someone can’t get access.