So I’ll confess — until today, it had been over a month since I’d meditated. And when I say meditate, I mean sit still for even just three breaths. I’m always doing something, and I’m frequently doing something while doing something else. Waiting online is a great time to clean out my inbox. A cab ride is the perfect moment to finally call my mother. Even peeing becomes an opportunity to file my nails. So meditating, taking a break from the constant jigsaw puzzle of matching moments to tasks, should be a welcome relief — but it takes practice.

I had a hard time getting started when I decided to try meditation last year. So I developed a technique for tricking myself into it. I’d wake in the morning with “monkey mind” as some call it. Lost in a jungle of thoughts, thinking of the to-dos for the day and perhaps dreams of the night and whatever else, I’d ask myself to sit and take just three breaths. Three breaths seemed feasible — I couldn’t say that I didn’t have time. Anyone has time for three breaths! Focusing on my breath for three breaths was the best I could do for a while. And then three became five. And then five turned to ten and that eventually became ten minutes.

In this process, I discovered that eliminating thought was impossible. So I imagined my thoughts like vines that the monkey in my mind would grab, taking him this way and that. When the “monkey mind” is in full swing (yes, pun intended), the monkey swings from one thought to the next without pause. In these moments, I see no separation between who I am and what I’m thinking. I can be as easily validated and trumped up by my thoughts as they can put me down and victimize me. They control my direction, my sense of self. But when the monkey is still, when he sits and simply observes the vines come and go without grabbing, I am no longer my thoughts — I’m a witness of my thoughts. They don’t control me — I can watch them come and let them go while I bring my focus back to my breath again and again. But naturally, a monkey likes to swing. Meditation trains the monkey.

And the monkey had been running wild this month, swinging around like crazy, bringing me up and down with every thought that passed through. I could not, for love or money, get myself to sit and train him. My monkey was multi-tasking a mile a minute, and I was giving him no direction. And I knew he was forgetting all his training, flailing around in my head, taking every thought and grabbing onto it for dear life. My stress level rose. I felt like I had no time to do anything. I was overwhelmed. Until finally today, I found myself in a huge quiet room with time to spare. Did I check my email? No. Did I review my planner? No. I decided to train the monkey. I counted ten breaths. And time slowed down, and I felt so much lighter, in fact transformed. Life became manageable again.

So my monkey and I, we’re working on it – but, you know, it takes practice. -Isabel Ezrati