If you have ever run in a relay race, as I did nearly every recess of my fifth-grade year in school, you know, your competition may not be the person you are lined up against. If the first runner on your team gets nearly a lap ahead of the opponent’s first runner, you, as the third runner may be running alongside the opponent’s second runner.

Rarely am I speechless, but one day, I stood dumbstruck when I finished my lap, feeling victorious, only to hear LizAnn Lagreca yell- “You run like molasses!” at me. Apparently, I was lapped by the other team’s second runner and maybe even the third. I didn’t know what molasses was and thus wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Since LizAnn was on my team and sounded angry, I was ready to conclude it was a bad thing.

This is just one of the many memories that popped into my mind yesterday as I was doing the most grueling exercise I have ever done in my life, which is meditation. This activity is shown to increase your attention, focus, creativity, calm, resilience and compassion. Who doesn’t want that?

Even better, it only takes 12 minutes a day of meditation to change your brain. Twelve minutes! Who doesn’t have 12 minutes? It isn’t physically taxing. It requires sitting, following your breath and letting thoughts drift in and out, like clouds moving across the sky. How hard can it be?

Anyone starting a meditation practice will probably learn about “monkey mind.” This is when you learn just how jumbled and disorganized and nonsensical your thoughts might be. Monkey mind is such a cute term, but when I actually sit with the thoughts, memories and worries that exist in my mind it takes everything in me to stay sitting.

Yesterday, I was tormented by pants. A couple of weeks ago, I saw some pants I wanted to order. I forgot about them until I sat with my not so quiet mind yesterday. Initially, I just remembered I wanted to order those pants and then forgot. Then I remembered those pants sell out. Then I wondered if the colors and size I wanted might be sold out.

Everything in me told me they would be sold out in the next 12 minutes if I didn’t stop meditating and order them. I didn’t stop. They weren’t sold out. But that was the stupid thought that was passing through my brain, not like fluffy white clouds but more like brooding dark storm clouds, during my meditation yesterday.

Childhood memories pop up. I remember I should buy more cinnamon. I need to clean out my closet. I have to warn the boys about the latest credit card scam. Is it time to look for another car? So many unrelated and unimportant thoughts arise, and those thoughts kick my butt. They scream at me to get up and stop this meditating.

They don’t win. I muscle through. That is, I muscle through once I finally sit down to do it. It’s been my experience that if you want a clean and organized house, you should start meditating. I am so desperate to avoid meditating that I clean out my pantry, organize a junk drawer, make a grocery list, clean the refrigerator, make the bed and wipe down the bathroom counters.

Why is my aversion to something so beneficial so powerful? Those 12 minutes a day have really helped me. The number one thing it has done for me is expand time. Everything feels slower. Prior to meditating, if you asked me what I had to do, I would imagine my to do list as a jumbled-up and knotted ball of yarn. I had things to do but in no real order. Everything had to be done quickly. I created urgency when there was no need for it.

Meditation has allowed me to slow down and untangle that knotted ball of yarn and stretch it out, be deliberate, feel calm. I have sat sometimes and felt absolute contentment. Maybe that is being fully present. I am not sure if I could identify presence, but I know I felt a complete mental and physical calm. “Everything is going to be okay” is my vibe in those sessions. I come out of meditating and feel stillness. It is magic.

Then there are the days when LizAnn shows up or an old boss or maybe a neighbor from when I was young. I took the Mindfulness Base Stress Reduction class which teaches you different forms of meditation. When I have this crazy active monkey mind going, I tend to do Metta or Loving Kindness meditation.

Metta is when you actually give your mind a job. Instead of following your breath, you send thoughts, prayers, intentions, well wishes, whatever you want to call them to the people in your life. You begin with your innermost circle and then continue out until you are sending them to people who you may not like.

I begin with my family – May Dale have love. May he have peace. May he have joy. May he have health. May he have safety. Then I say it (all in my mind) for Ethan and Thad and then continue the circle outwards. I do it at the airport for strangers, and I can’t even begin to tell you the good feeling it cultivates within you towards your fellow man. It’s really remarkable.

I can already feel today is a monkey mind day. I’m in my avoidance phase now. I have walked the dog, made a to do list, straightened up the house and am now writing to you. I am doing all this to avoid sitting with the drama of my mind for 12 minutes.

Clearly, it’s going to be a metta meditation day. I’ll have to include LizAnn as I move to my outer circles of sending prayers.  Maybe it will help me process, resolve and pack away that comment from 46 years ago. I did eventually learn running like molasses is not a good thing, but give me 12 minutes, and I know it’s all still okay.