Meditation

I've meditated since I was a child. Really, flapping and pacing and overstimming is meditation for all autistics. We just happen to meditate kinetically. Still my prefered method, through yoga and dance. I don't often sit still to meditate or say pretty words or any of those fancy things. I just do it. More natural to me than breathing. When I meditate, I don't get my breathe/swallow sequence confused and choke on my own spit.

At some point in high school, I finally read about meditation. It talked about clearing thoughts and finding your center. Since this time, I assumed that when you meditate and clear thoughts that the thoughts should stay clear for days. You bring the clarity back with you. So I figured I sucked at meditation.

Apparently, it is only clear while you concentrate so you feel relaxed and refreshed after, like a nice nap ought to do. Only better because you don't dream.

Why, one might wonder, did I think the clarity should be brought back and last forever? Because that is how I meditate. I drop down to the depths of myself, wrap myself in the dark and comfort there like a warm blanket, and bring the blanket up with me so I can stay wrapped in that comfort all day while I work and do all my stuff. Part of me is always in the meditative state, renewing the blanket, while the rest of me does daily living stuff. When I actually concentrate on it, I find clarity in the dark fire of my soul that I can't find anywhere else, and I feel loved and whole and well.

I got very curious about how other people meditate. I thought I meditated like everyone did. It never occurred to me that there was any other way to meditate. Until I read about it and thought I was doing it all wrong. I tried the "clearing the thoughts" method a bit but gave up on it as something I'd never succeed at and went back to my warm blanket.

I wonder if my method might be closer to the way a buddhist monk would do it. I also wonder if I'd get more answers to my questions if I went to live in a buddhist monastary. I don't find many people who have any clue what I am ever talking about, let alone able to delve even deeper into my questions.

Mostly I wonder why I only feel whole and loved when I'm sinking so deep into myself I can forget the outside world, and I walk in the other worlds I see and feel. (When I say forget, I do mean forget!) What is it about interacting in this world that is so caustic and scratches with sharp angry bristles until you burn and bleed?And it isn't the entire world. I'm fine away from cement and from humans. I'm fine out in nature. I'm fine among my people. It's just surrounded by the human artifacts and human people that I drown in the echoes from their thoughts that are so disjointed against their words that are again so disjointed around their actions.

So I'll just wrap in my warm blanket and keep trying. I'm sure there is some little trick to coping with the outside world if I can just find it.

Hoorah for autism. Let's get rid of filters and just let the world bombard us from every angle! And then try to hold down a job and be a functioning member of society so that we have any hope of survival! WHEEE!

*sinks into the dark*