"A photograph I took some years ago. It shows a picture of the room I know. I sit and wait alone in my room. The walls are white and in the night The room is lit by electric light." -- Yaz, lyrics to "In My Room."
The first time I envisioned my dream room was when my college English professor asked the class to read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Woolf wished for us -- all ladies in full tilt -- to have a place to call our own where we could be who we are meant to be without interruption. Once our class read the text and discussed it amongst ourselves, we were given the assignment to create a room of our own in our minds. Our own place of solace and soul.
My room story began with a distinct picture in my mind. An attic room. A lot of light. A view of the sky and large leaves turning color on very old trees outside the opened windows. It's always September in my room, my favorite month. My desk is pushed up against the main window and I have to be mindful of my head hitting the sloping sides of the walls. There's a jar of pens and a stack of paper. A chandelier hanging mid-room, and a little lamp on my large rose wood carved desk. I see a chaise and table featuring my favorite books yet to be read and a stack of books I've already consumed on the floor in the corner.
It happened in a moment, this glimpse of my space. I'm tucked into my thoughts and my words here. I'm free to create stories, real and otherwise. I can hear my people down below in the house. I am alone, but not lonely. A wide planked floor gives me separation until I've had just enough solitude and the words stop showing up on the page.
I use this type of exercise with my clients. Encouraging them to create a picture of their ideal future for themselves -- houses, smells, rooms, conversations, and more. They're always surprised what their imagination conjures up as their ideal. They're never regretful of the picture their beautiful, insightful minds create.
But it hasn't always come so easily to me.
A decade ago, I started sneaking off on Tuesday nights to attend meditation classes. In my circle at the time this was considered voodoo-like behavior, so I lied and told everyone I was going to cooking class. But I wasn't cooking. I was trying to learn to sit still with my thoughts. Be calm. Add a little Om to my life.
But during class time rather than productively meditate, I wandered for weeks in my mind through the aisles of the grocery store, thinking about what I was going to pick up on my way home. Rather than just be, I was shopping for peas! I burned sage. I honored all my guides and the guardian angels, but nothing worked. Please show up, I would beg, so I can just meditate, dammit.
My teacher Nancy was patient. Very patient. And loving. Then it happened one day. Like a first long awaited orgasm. The oh my word, I get it moment. The bliss. The knowing. I fell in love that moment, with me, with everyone, and I felt free to be. Finally.
We all shared our experience at the conclusion of class each week. Everyone else had these grand ah-ha! Oprah moments. One gal saw herself running with wolves across the plains. Another felt the tribal drums of their people in dance thousands of years ago. On and on and on the cool, deep stories of discovery went. I passed on sharing each week, for I had just seen the deli section, that was it.
The week I finally broke through I went last, everyone waiting, knowing I had struggled to "get it" week after week. I never admitted to the grocery list distractions (wish I had now fore I know I wasn't the only one struggling - what to do with our egos, eh?).
This time, I had the courage to tell the truth. That I went up to my room, the Virginia Woolf room of my college days. I imaged a little patio above my attic space. In the meditation, we were asked to leap - so I leapt. I took flight. I left my "body" and soared. I used to do this sort of thing in my sleep when I was a child and it came back to me once I actually breathed in and out and calmed the hell down. Using magic fairy dust and a wand as my navigation system, Harry Potter style (only my wand was much prettier and sparkly like a Disney Princess wand), I soared. I shared most of the story except the Tinker Bell part with my classmates - and they cheered for me!
In private, long after the class was over I shared the magic fairy dust part of my mediation story to Nancy. She tucked me in for a hug and shared with me that she loved my sparkly land and admired my ability to conjure such a beautiful vision for meditation. She seemed authentically in awe of me at that moment. I wasn't ashamed anymore that my mediations didn't yield serious, intense scenes on the plains with wolves and drums and such. It yielded what I truly needed -- a room of my own with a bit of magic fairy dust.
For the last class we created a poster of our journey in meditation. I bought a black poster board and I pinned a photo of myself wearing a vintage, all gold, shimmering dress and headband in the center. That's it. Me in the middle of a spot of light in the darkness. The class bought me light. The class brought me hope. The room and the guidance to be in the light changed me, and now I am feeling Om most of the time.
May you find your own room and om of your own.