At this point, I have lost count of how many times I have gone to the meditation class. It has become a part of my Tuesday routine. However, last time I went was the Tuesday before my spring break, and during this class, something went wrong. Not in a terrible way but in an embarrassing way. During our first long session of meditation, while sitting down, my left foot fell asleep. I didn’t want to move it around because the point of meditation is staying still, and I remembered during my orientation that if our feet fall asleep, we are supposed to ignore it. So, for what felt like an eternity, I tried my best to ignore the tingly feeling that was happing in my toes. However, when they rang the bell, we all had to get up to start our walking meditation. Well, let’s say since I couldn’t feel my toes, I fell a couple of times trying to stand up. This was humiliating because I felt like everyone was watching me fall as if I was a fish in a tank. I tried to forget that it even happened until we had finished our meditation class. As I was walking out, the instructor told me that my feet most likely feel asleep because I wasn’t meditating in the correct position. This made me even more embarrassed because that means that the people who saw me fall knew that it was because I was not meditating correctly.
This bothered me, leading into spring break. However, instead of feeling bad about my poor meditation, I decided to look up videos on YouTube on how to sit during meditation properly. Now I feel ready for my next session tomorrow. I have the chance to show off my fantastic meditation skills to all the people that looked at me when I think.
Later on, during my Spring break, I was able to connect this traumatizing experience to the story “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley. In the story, the character Victor deals with the death of his mother by fascinating over things that are alive and things that are not. This then led to him becoming fascinated with anatomy. This all created a perfect storm for him to bring a person back from the dead creating a “Ugly Monster”. After his creation came to life, he was horrified by what he had created and fallen ill from his creation. Lockley, his friend, was able to bring him back to good health. I know you are probably wondering how this part of the story connects to mine.
Well, I feel as though my journey to understanding and finding calmness through meditation is like how Victor is fascinating over life and death after the passing of his mother. Then like Victor, I went down the wrong path. For him, it was creating a monster; for me, it was sitting awkwardly. Which then lead to my foot falling asleep. Then there was the moment of shock. In “Frankenstein” this was when Victor was horrified by how ugly the Monster was. In my case, it was my embarrassment of not being able to stand up. Finally came the realization or the “aha moment”. This was when Victor fell ill after he realized what he created. For me, it was realizing that I was sitting in the improper form.
It’s crazy how just that one small crazy moment in meditation helped me to relate and better understand the character Victor while I was reading Frankenstein.
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