My mind is racing, basically about nothing. Details. To-do lists. Downton Abbey and what’s going to happen to all the characters. Seriously?

I can’t sit still today.

I don’t even call it meditating, what I do in the morning. I call it my “quiet time” as I sit in my grandfather’s black wooden rocking chair, my feet on my great-grandmother’s needlepoint stool, holding my cup of tea (in the tea cup with an “S” for spectacular) – but it is part of my daily attempt to meditate, to be mindful, to be quiet and present.

And I can’t sit still today.

I asked my good friend recently if it can be harder for survivors of trauma – especially bodily trauma that’s been forgotten or pushed aside (or disassociated from) – to sit still and be present and mindful. She said it can be. She’s got a PhD in psychology; I expect her to know.

I don’t know that that’s what’s going on with me. I don’t know that it’s harder for me to sit still than it is for other people. I’ve never been inside their brains or bodies. I just know that today, at least, I can’t sit still.

But I sit anyway. I sit and allow myself to be any bit of quiet I can be and remember what I read in a post about Dan Harris on mindful.org – “Every single time we come out from being lost in a thought, we wake up from being lost, we are having an experience of awareness, of clarity.” And I aim to appreciate my moments of clarity, when I realize I’m thinking about the characters on Downton Abbey. And to be gentle with myself for not being able to sit and be, and try to sit and be some more.

I will most likely more “formally” meditate later. Maybe it will be easier; maybe it will be hard. For now my choices are to appreciate that fact that I was quiet and still for at least some part of my twenty-or-so minutes of quiet time, or to let it count for nothing because it wasn’t perfect sitting still.

I’m going to appreciate. I’m going to try again later. I’m going to let whatever stillness and clarity I found – or created – be enough.

But man, it was hard to sit still today!

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you!