Today was the first day I’d say I successfully meditated. I’ve tried meditating in the past, but would often be too uncomfortable to face my mind, and instead feed into the escapist tendency I have by stopping and doing something else.

Today, I stuck with it, and here’s what I’ve realized so far.

Starting the day off with some simple meditation allowed me to channel a level of focus and clarity I haven’t experienced recently. I meditated for just around 16 minutes and yet felt very “in the now”, both during and afterwards.

I was in control.

Subtle differences I noticed included things like noises appearing louder, more vivid, and sharper.

Movements felt more intentional, and all that I was doing felt real.

I felt as though how I was observing and seeing things were differently, more clearly – like in high-definition.

I’m almost certain my vision didn’t change – what I do propose happened was the level of focus I was allocating to seeing was greater than normal.

Under normal circumstance, I frequently enter and exit these vision hazes, where staring at something for more than a few seconds becomes a passive task. Here, I could stare at an object, and it would remain in my focus for much larger periods of time. It was intriguing.

While I recognize I might have been operating under a confirmation bias, I do feel like the experience brought some additional level of clarity.

Small tasks like twisting a door handle, or flicking a light switch, normally tasks that I perform without realizing, now seemed intentional – and it felt better that way.

An interesting observation was that the 16 minutes of meditation felt substantially longer then what I normally perceive to be 16 minutes.

To illustrate better, let’s take the example of watching a 16 minute YouTube video. I feel like I’m able to watch these consistently, and don’t feel at all like the time goes by slowly.

It’s interesting how activities that appeal to mental diversion and escaping often feel faster – time is perceived differently.

I’ve enjoyed my experiences so far, and intend on making it a daily thing. I’ll be using my blog to share some of the insights acquired through meditation – they’ll all be tagged under meditation.