I’m pretty evangelistic when it comes to meditation. Not just for healing, but for unleashing your creative potential. I’ve written before about my meditation mind-palace for ironing out plot issues.
Recently, however, I’ve been meditating for a slightly different reason.
You see, I’ve been killing people this week.
Thankfully they’re not technically real, they just live inside my head and on the screen of my laptop. But still, those imaginary people are very, very dead.
The odd thing about writing murder scenes is that you (or at least, I) have to get kind of angry to write them. Lots of drama is required, lots of tension and emotion and you undoubtedly get pulled in along with it.
And I am now having the weirdest sense of déjà vu that I have written this entire blog post before.
Nope. Just checked, and I haven’t. Maybe I dreamed it.
ANYWAY…
The problem is that, when you spend three hours being super angry and emotional, it can potentially be quite difficult to turn those feelings off and crack on with the real world in a suitable state of calm.
I have two methods of dealing with this problem.
The first is that I have two young children. Anyone who has dealings with children on a regular basis will know how amazing they are at bringing you straight back down to earth. (“I’ve written a book!” I said to my daughter. “Just one?” She said, “What took you so long? I’ve written four books and I’m only five.” Oh, hello earth, there you are. I was floating above you for a while. Not anymore.)
The second method, for when my children are otherwise occupied, is meditation. I have a three-minute guided meditation that is ace for levelling emotions and bringing me back from the world of make-believe and into the present moment. It has been used quite extensively this week, as you can imagine.
And thankfully it works. I have not gone postal, just yet. (Sorry to disappoint!)
Rebecca Tinnelly 