Fucking hippy shit.

I realised I hadn’t fully understood the
core objectives- the ones underpinning the self-scribed methodology of my invented Wellness Camp- when I wanted to vomit.

I felt sick because after finishing a Pilates class I dashed to the store to pick up a new pencil case- hey! I like
pretty things!- arrived at the café two and half hours later than the optimum,
and then downed a cappuccino, orange juice and croissant so fast that I ended
up with the first sentence of this post because I dribbled down my front and knew I needed to tell the Internet about it.

My ‘wellness’ checklist for the morning
went something like this:

- Exercise. Check.

- Purchase fancy pencil case for fancy
writing pen. Check.

- Breakfast of caffeine, vitamin C, and
unadulterated Nutella pleasure. Check.

- Mind-enhancing literature. Check.

But did I enjoy any of those things? Nope.
Because I forgot, in undertaking my checklist of Good Things For My Soul, to
take the subscribed pleasure in any of them, so intent was I to tell myself I
had done them- like the doing was more pertinent than the feeling of
experiencing them, appreciating them.

Isn’t that fucked up?

I caught myself, mid-bite of the pastry. I
was struggling to chew and swallow and hold my pencil to make notes of all the
important bits in my book; I couldn’t quite manage Doing All The Things. I
wasn’t enjoying and feeling and being.  

I’d mentally concocted an itemised plan
that covered all the well being bases for the morning, but HELLO REVELATION.
That wasn’t the point. I wasn’t supposed to wizz my way through them to be able
to say I had done exactly that. I was supposed to relish them. And I’m forever
doing that: Always thinking, but never paying attention.

Naughty, naughty Laura.

Enter Teach
Us To Sit Still by Tim Parks, a man with exactly the same problem.

Blurbed as A Skeptic’s Search for Health and Healing it’s a book that a friend
bullied me into buying when he visited Rome, and has been on my bookshelf for
many months. I don’t know why I picked it up off of the shelf that evening- I
had committed myself to ignore its presence at the foot of my bed, and had
resigned to silently slip it into the books
to give away pile when I leave next month.

As I held it in my hand and remembered the
farce of that morning, I knew I was supposed to read it. And it’s funny- Parks
says at one point, ‘Any discoveries would
present themselves when they wanted,
when I was ripe for them.’ SNAP, TIM PARKS.

Teach
Us To Sit Still is about a seemingly incurable
urinary problem that Parks self-cures through meditation. He learns some Very
Important Things:

1.    
DOING cancels out BEING like
noise swamps silence. See also: Doing All The Things and Experiencing None Of
Them.

And:

2.    
The best experiences are not
when you find what you were looking for but when something quite different
finds you, takes you by surprise, and shifts your view to new territory. See
also: Passing A Year In A City You Hate.

To say this book Changed Everything is a
minor understatement.

Suddenly, I can see major things in my life
that need to be corrected. I walk with my head down, lost in thought, watching
my feet as a sort of meditation as I go places. I don’t look around and see the
journey.

I behave as though my body is only a vessel
for my mind- an inconvenience, a chore to maintain. I don’t recognise that body
is mind is soul and that I am the whole of these parts. I must take care of all
of these things- not out of necessity for one over the other, but for the good
of them all. It’s no good having a perfect engine in your car if the tyres have
no tread.

Or something.

I treat life as a task, first and foremost,
like Parks describes. I only take pleasure in it when I am striving for
something. We have do as the title suggests and learn simply how to sit still. And not to do it in order to relax, but just
to do it.

It’s pretty intense stuff, really. But
OHMYDEAR GOD IF I HAVE TO SAY THIS TO MYSELF ONE MORE TIME! I’m supposed to be
expanding my mind this year, aren’t I? The dreaded ‘p’ word. And so, I’ve tried
to let him teach me.

Which means, I’m afraid, more of this hippy
bullshit.