my cat eats while i meditate
crunch, crunch, crunch. i’m about four minutes into my meditation when the cat goes over to her bowl, deciding to have breakfast. not in the whole hour before when i put her biscuits in the bowl - no, when i start meditating.
it’s right around the point where i’ve settled in, having already focused on the breath and now following the daily guide - sensations in the body, sounds on the street, etc.
i don’t know why my cat chooses this moment to eat. i know she’s skittish, even for a cat, but does she think i’m in some deep trance, unable to lunge for a cuddle while she’s at her most vulnerable?
my tolerance for repetitive sounds has improved vastly over the past year, ironically because of meditation, finding that inner peace/center/whatever.
when i was an adolescent, my schizophrenic brother would knock on doors for literally twenty minutes, demanding entrance - not taking the hint. or pace up and down the carpeted hallway outside our bedrooms.
these early repetitive sounds, though not scary on their own, were ominous. they often signaled a violent episode, so i became naturally on edge, pavlov’s dog style.
as an adult, dripping faucets, open-fridge alarms or anything else repetitive would make me manic - i’d have to find the source and stop it, any way i could.
meditation - especially sound-led - has helped me come to terms with the doom that used to pound along with tap-tap-taps and beep-beep-beeps.
and, you know, i’m kind of relieved when i hear my cat finding peace enough in the house to eat safely.
maybe she’s found some center too.