I had a horrible meditation week (among other things), and it reminded me that it’s November, the 11th month, and on the 12-Step Calendar that means it’s time for me to seek, through prayer and meditation, some goddamn conscious contact with something bigger than my own debilitating ego.

I was distracted by the usual horseshit, second-guessing my life choices, and I couldn’t meditate for more than one dumb minute at a time. It wasn't for lack of trying; for a couple of days, I had a brilliant plan to be more aggressive about my meditation, since my brain couldn’t stop winding itself up. Aggressive, as in, “I’m gonna meditate the shit out of this meditation.”

And there I’d sit, rocking back and forth, clacking my back teeth, and closing my eyes so tightly I could feel the veins in my neck pop out.

To get out of it, I re-read Aimee Barrodale’s short essay on meditation she wrote for us waaaay back in 2018. It’s called “Meditation Is Supposed to Be Unbearable” (paid), and the title alone reminded me it’s never supposed to be easy.

“What you do is pick a place to sit—on the floor, on a chair, it doesn’t matter. The only important thing is that you sit with a straight back. Then you set a timer for five minutes. When you start the timer, all you do is nothing. Just sit. If you feel the urge to cough, you don’t cough. You just watch that desperate, panicky feeling. If you can’t resist and feel you must cough, then you stop the session there. If you have an itch, don’t scratch it: just watch. If your phone rings, don’t jump to answer it. Just do nothing.”

Finally, last night, I stopped trying to force my head into some mysterious portal and tried again. 16 minutes later, I felt marginally better, and survived.

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Behind the paywall: a few more mini-essays about Emotional Sobriety and art, featuring Karina Rykman and Trey Anastasio; a love letter to Nick Flynn; and some Stoicism.

Plus all the usual Sunday rundown recovery routines I used (or neglected) to help me survive the week. It’s $5.

There are also more ways to support: Annual, Founding Patron etc. There’s a $500 tier which grants you lifetime access and a signed Small Book from me. You also get a one-on-one Google Meet where we can talk about recovery or sports or You Can See Everything or all of those things. But the major upside is: you help us continue to do the things we do here. See you down there.— AJD