Last night, trying to avoid the suffering of my hangover, I tried meditating in bed. The usual recurrent thoughts about pending tasks came up, “I should write the review for the gym I want to last week”. It wasn’t something important, and I’m quite adept at putting tasks aside to meditate (master procrastinator), but this time I thought: fuck that, I’ve had this thought pop-up randomly for a couple of days” so I reached for my phone and wrote the review.

Then I went back to mediation. “I should write V. that I’m back and available to run errands for her during weekdays because I’ll go to a retreat on the weekend”. Again, I reached for my phone and sent the message. Back to meditation. “I haven’t unpacked from the wedding and my trousers are in my backpack all crumpled up”, so I interrupted again and unpacked my luggage.

With each completed task, I felt a loop close. It was a relief knowing these thoughts would not come up again. How strange, I thought, I feel better by doing than by meditating. I inspected closer: sometimes we use meditation as a form of avoidance. I don’t want to feel hungover, so I meditate. I don’t want to be assaulted by pending tasks in the form of thoughts, so I meditate. I don’t want to be drilled by self-criticism, so I meditate. All forms of avoidance towards feeling and doing.

What would we think about the parent that is meditating to drown the cries of their children? And the boss who meditates to lessen the guilt he feels abusing his employees? Clearly meditation can be a tool for emotional regulation, but emotions have a reason and reducing negative affect for an accurate signal is placing tape over the “check engine” light.

I’ll keep on experimenting interrupting my meditation with action. They key is asking oneself “do I have control in the contents of this thought”, and “can I address it now?”. I hope that one day I will have nothing to do, and I will actually sit down to meditate without bypassing work. The caveat is: work expands to fill the available time. There will never not be work. At some point in the future, I’ll have to make the opposite decision: I’ll keep on meditating despite urges for action.