Well, I definitely tried meditating on Friday night, as I had promised. It just didn't work out because there was a lot of background noise from a TV in an adjacent room. It was a bit too distracting for me to focus on my meditation (physical and mental) even though I attempted for a few minutes. The focus just wasn't there. I'm not quite proficient enough to block out that much noise just yet - but I may be in the future.

So I tried again yesterday, this time without a TV; only a radio was on in the background. I was certainly more successful with this attempt. I was able to focus on the physical sensations within my body, then visualize the "nothing" (in my case, an empty white circular space with a black background). I let the thoughts pass through while trying to refocus on the "nothing" visualization and feel the physical sensations within my body. I managed to successfully redirect my thoughts a few times, but after a few minutes I had a hard time getting the thoughts back on track. I called it quits at that point.

Today I was somewhat anxious about some recent work events (because the hospital provides such a wonderful, collegial work environment... I'm not going to go into the details, but people suck LOL). Initially, I was able to push the thoughts into the background just a bit, but they overwhelmed me after several minutes and multiple tries. I just let them pass while doing a bit of housework, and I'm now calm again. Knowing me, the thoughts will return again a bit later.

That all said, the fact that I was able to push them away a bit, and the fact that I was able to let them pass after some time, is an improvement. This tends to stick around longer, and now I've shortened the time. I've gained *a little bit* of control over my thoughts. This is progress.

Over time, and with consistent practice, I intend to gain more control over my thoughts, rather than having my thoughts control me. If only 2 brief meditation sessions could create such a noticeable improvement, I can only imagine what further sessions will do.

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