How I finally found calm... but at a price
SO I have a practice now. I tell people that and they express surprise that I have become a country vet. But those in the know, will know that a practice is what those in the mindfulness game call the meditation. They will solemnly refer to “my practice”.
I was having a busy summer and I was finding it a bit stressy at times. And as we all know, it’s the stress that will kill us all in the end in some shape or form. So I was keen to keep a lid on it.
Then we were away and my wife had some guided meditations on her yoga app, and I tried a bit of square breathing. That’s in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Hence the square. I was actually doing five seconds. The lad guiding me was an Indian-sounding guy. Very soft, relaxing voice. Minimal direction. I liked him.
The thing about a practice though is that apparently it has to be a practice. It’s not good just doing it when you want to relax. You have to do it every day, and you get the cumulative benefits. So I decided to get my own app. I tried one called Calm. If there’s one thing I need, it’s calm. I was slow to commit at first, so I just used the free bits. This meant that I did Day One of the sevenday stress-reducing programme every day.
Sitting around breathing is boring enough without hearing the same stuff every day. So I jumped in and signed up for the free week of premium. As I write this, the reminder on the phone is telling me that I have to cancel my subscription today or the free week will automatically turn into a year’s subscription for 35 quid.
I’ll admit I have agonised more about this 35 quid than I ever agonised about 35 quid in my life. I’ll go out and spend 35 quid on food or drink all right, which does me no good, and possibly does harm in the long run — but will I spend 35 quid on Calm, potentially changing my whole life for the better? Not sure if it’s worth it. I actually do think I’m calmer and a bit more relaxed. And also, I’m actually doing it. Every day. If I didn’t have the app there’s no way I would sit down every day and meditate. So it does provide a framework to develop a habit, or, as I call it, a practice.
I’m not crazy about the woman who is guiding me. She’s quite a twee American type. She does all this really earnest chat about how I need to have compassion for myself, and breathe into this moment. I can switch to a man’s voice if I want but I feel doing something this intimate, for me, would be awkward with another man. I’d feel he was judging me.
I preferred the Indian. He was less happy-clappy and more blunt about the whole thing. But he’s not on Calm.
This woman sounds like a Jehovah’s Witness at the door, or maybe a Mormon in the 1970s. She not only congratulates me for completing another day of the seven days of stress reduction, she sometimes tells me to congratulate myself.
I feel she is vaguely treating me like a child. Like an American soccer mom saying, “Good job!” and doing a little hand clap as she leans over a four-year-old with her big whitened teeth in his face. But I think I can live with her for now. She whiles away the time nicely for the 10 or 12 minutes, and maybe all the positive stuff she drones on with is going in somewhere into my sub-conscious.
So I think I might go mad and spend the money and commit for the year. And I’ll use the app as a crutch to get me into a practice, and after a year I’ll be able to throw away the crutch and just sit in silence off my own bat, without somebody chatting to me.
Namaste. ‘Brendan O’Connor’s Time Out’ continues on Fridays on RTE 1 at 9.35pm. Next week’s guest is Michael Harding