The month of March is personally devoted to a daily morning meditation practice.

10 minutes for 31 days dedicated to sitting, breathing and focusing the mind. Since its a treasured practice, why not start a daily routine, I thought. Sounds easy right? The first couple of days, it was: Sit down, turn on the gong-timer and attempt to manage the chitta vrittis (mind chatter) for 600 seconds.

The difficulty starts a few days later.  You know you’re headed downhill when the excuses flow like water “I’ll eat something first and then sit,” “Too much work to do today, I’ll just do it tomorrow (or lunch/or evening etc.).”

Knowing fully well that this spiral quickly leads to the abandonment of the overall objective, we then have to simply say, “No,”out loud—suck it up and plop down.

It’s just 10 minutes. We can certainly give ourselves that much.

Keep in mind, there are no expectations associated with this personal meditation experiment. No delusion that somehow transcendence will take hold and life’s daily idiosyncrasies will no longer be of any effect.

When trying to cultivate permanent habits, we have to start somewhere.

Maybe we’ll lapse but hopefully we won’t. Some days are easier to sit than others, but as with most things in life, continuing and pushing through the difficulty is important.  It is only through facing challenges head on—mental, physical and emotional—can we remove them.

It is only through discipline and determination can we start to crack through brick walls.

“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” ~ Roger Crawford

Remember that.

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Ed: Kate Bartolotta