I remember the very first time I went to a meditation retreat. In retrospect, I spent most of the time pissed off. I was annoyed by the loud bell, waking us up at an ungodly hour. I was angry that my knees hurt when everyone else seemed as comfortable as could be. I was annoyed that the meditations seemed so darn long. Don’t they ever get hungry?
A lot of the time, my inner meanness is inverted back to myself. Why do I have wrinkles? Why am I not more successful?
Why, why, why?
My inner voice sometimes gets mean to the outside world. It judges. It presupposes. It is the part of me that I don’t want to admit because it is a heck of a lot easier to pretend that on the inside, I have Miss America answers.
World peace. Always world peace.
I am not perfect, and we are not perfect, and meditation doesn’t make us perfect. Meditation gives us the silence that we need to say, “Oh hey there, mean girl. I see you. You don’t need to lead me, but there you are!”
Like the mean girls at high school, all that our inner mean girl wants is to be seen and heard.
The next time you sit in meditation, or even just have a quiet moment of nothingness, notice whenever something stirs up inside of you that is judgmental or offhand or just plain cruel.
Can you sit with that?
We like to ignore parts of ourselves and highlight others. It is why we are choosy when it comes to our social media pictures (not that angle) and introverted when we are living in moments of conflict.
It is why we scroll our phones when something uncomfortable niggles in our bellies.
Sit with the mean girl and see why she is there. Does she have jealousy? Is she scared? Does she want validation?
Give her what she wants. Give her some time. A big fat hug wrapped in the bow of meditation.
You won’t open your eyes to perfection. But you will recognize that you – all of you – is worth examining and sitting with.
You have the choice to be whole.
