MacPinkFlamingo
Well-known member
Here's my existential spin on this topic...
I have always been jealous/envious/awe-struck by monks and other highly evolved folks who can meditate. Now, while I fully appreciate the discipline it takes to be able meditate, I lack it thoroughly. I start out great and then I start thinking of how much I'd like a cinnamon bun or why Pam Anderson ever married Kid Rock...For years I have felt guilt about this shortcoming in my psyche. HOWEVER, recently I have had some majorly gut-wrenching events occur in quick succession over the last 18 months which truly shook me to my very core. (I have said this before here, but I think it deserves repeating.)
I gave up on my life and myself, I literally did not leave my bed from the beginning of February until mid-April of this year. One day I had this idea to pull out my makeup (which had been all but abandoned during the turmoil). I decided to just put some on, just for old times' sake. (I grew up morbidly obese and during my teen years, when I dropped out of high school, would sit in my room on Friday and Saturday nights and play in my makeup. I have since had a gastric bypass, and lost 193 lbs.) So I sat up in my bed and let all the other shiznit of life fade and I put MAC to therapeutic use.
I did not consciously know it at the time but I think it is an indisputable fact that Instant Gold Lustreglass and depression repel each other like magnets with the same polarity. After a week or so of usage, IG (and her faithful complimentary products in the MAC army) had me feeling alive enough to leave my house.
It is August now, and I have put makeup on nearly everyday since (this is very rare for my fickle personality). So how does meditation/depression resuscitation relate to waking in the morning with the enthusiam of a puppy to put on makeup? Well, I get up an hour early to do my makeup everyday. During that hour, I let everything go. I do not think about money, or work, or that lovely gentleman who ripped out my heart, or even Pam and her men. From what I have read about meditation, this state I find myself in during my morning makeup application is eerily similar to the description of how it feels when one is in a meditative state. I am convinced it is one in the same. I feel more at peace and more enthusiastic throughout my day. I have shared this epiphany with some co-workers, friends, and family with varying responses of bewilderment and comments about how only a blonde would equate makeup with monk-like pursuits. I laugh with them because I know what I have never understood before--I define spirit, truth, and personality for me and me alone. Just because I prefer my spiritual practice dunked in Reflects Transparent Teal Glitter, does not mean I am shallow or even unenlightened. In fact, if I am remembering correctly the Dalai Lama himself once suggested that a great state of being requires one to have a transparent self. So HA! I busted out my Dalai Lama defense, laugh at THAT, doubters/haters/un-MACminded critics!
arty2 :
**I must make a slight confession, seeing as this post is spiritual in content. I do occasionally think of cinnamon buns while doing my makeup...I guess some things will never change!**
I have always been jealous/envious/awe-struck by monks and other highly evolved folks who can meditate. Now, while I fully appreciate the discipline it takes to be able meditate, I lack it thoroughly. I start out great and then I start thinking of how much I'd like a cinnamon bun or why Pam Anderson ever married Kid Rock...For years I have felt guilt about this shortcoming in my psyche. HOWEVER, recently I have had some majorly gut-wrenching events occur in quick succession over the last 18 months which truly shook me to my very core. (I have said this before here, but I think it deserves repeating.)
I gave up on my life and myself, I literally did not leave my bed from the beginning of February until mid-April of this year. One day I had this idea to pull out my makeup (which had been all but abandoned during the turmoil). I decided to just put some on, just for old times' sake. (I grew up morbidly obese and during my teen years, when I dropped out of high school, would sit in my room on Friday and Saturday nights and play in my makeup. I have since had a gastric bypass, and lost 193 lbs.) So I sat up in my bed and let all the other shiznit of life fade and I put MAC to therapeutic use.
I did not consciously know it at the time but I think it is an indisputable fact that Instant Gold Lustreglass and depression repel each other like magnets with the same polarity. After a week or so of usage, IG (and her faithful complimentary products in the MAC army) had me feeling alive enough to leave my house.
It is August now, and I have put makeup on nearly everyday since (this is very rare for my fickle personality). So how does meditation/depression resuscitation relate to waking in the morning with the enthusiam of a puppy to put on makeup? Well, I get up an hour early to do my makeup everyday. During that hour, I let everything go. I do not think about money, or work, or that lovely gentleman who ripped out my heart, or even Pam and her men. From what I have read about meditation, this state I find myself in during my morning makeup application is eerily similar to the description of how it feels when one is in a meditative state. I am convinced it is one in the same. I feel more at peace and more enthusiastic throughout my day. I have shared this epiphany with some co-workers, friends, and family with varying responses of bewilderment and comments about how only a blonde would equate makeup with monk-like pursuits. I laugh with them because I know what I have never understood before--I define spirit, truth, and personality for me and me alone. Just because I prefer my spiritual practice dunked in Reflects Transparent Teal Glitter, does not mean I am shallow or even unenlightened. In fact, if I am remembering correctly the Dalai Lama himself once suggested that a great state of being requires one to have a transparent self. So HA! I busted out my Dalai Lama defense, laugh at THAT, doubters/haters/un-MACminded critics!
