Dear LPG,

We are locked down again and I have been thinking that after nearly a year of all this many of us have made many self-promises, yet the vast majority of us, regardless of age, will have not managed to achieve many of the goals we set ourselves after nine months of going nowhere.

For all the things I promised myself I would do with all the time I have spent home alone, the list that I made at the beginning of the first stay-at-home session last March has very few items ticked as ‘Done’.   I think that, like many others, I am suffering from thinking that I have so much time on my hands that there is little point in rushing anything really.

After a year of having all the time in the world, have you taken a good look at the things on your original list of achievements without being able to find one item that you have actually achieved except learning how to get up later, eat at all the wrong times, neglect to do even the most basic regular exercise and think about the deeper aspects of life far too deeply for your own good.

I have promised myself that this time it will be different, and I have started by revisiting that list I mentioned earlier but, since I appear to be so good at doing nothing I thought that I might capitalise on that skill.

I used to do martial arts a long time ago and I remember the ritual of starting each session with a short period of meditation, designed to mentally prepare you for a mind-set which distanced you from the complications of life, so that you were ready to focus on the task ahead of you (and vice versa after the session)

The first few times I tried it I can remember being told to think of nothing, but that is really difficult.  I would find myself wondering what I fancied for dinner or letting my grey matter speculate on what would happen to a soap opera character next, but eventually it did work to some extent and somehow each experience did leave me feeling a little more peaceful.

Coming back to the present, while my knee replacement will not allow me to sit on the floor and assume the position, I have found that sitting on a chair while relaxed for a few minutes seems to help when it comes to psyching yourself up in preparation for getting started on some of those items on the ‘things to do’ list.

I have found some basic beginner’s videos and I have also found that scheduling a time to share the experience with a friend, using the wonders of the internet, is a very good way of adding a little structure to your day, and a chat about if each of you did achieve your goals before you embark on such a meditation session can also give you a bit more of a reason to achieve.

VM, Surrey

VM has found a few videos which will help you to get the idea…

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