Timed meditation 2/15/11

I didn't meditate yesterday. I intended to, but I ended up having anxiety most of the day, and then a pretty high-stress evening. Maybe this was the perfect opportunity to meditate, but what I needed at that time was comfort and just didn't feel comfortable alone with my thoughts at the end of that day. Instead, I played/wrote music. Music has been my meditative avenue throughout my life before I ever considered formal meditation - I've been working on another post on that.

So instead, I went to bed late and meditated when I woke up this morning.  Like my last meditation, I used the "Insight Timer" app, which I paid I think $2 for.  In this blog, I'll call these "timed" meditations, and what I mean by that is that I set a timer to go off after a certain amount of time.  I have not yet made it all the way through a timed meditation without opening my eyes at least once to look at the clock.

Time: 20 minutes
Place: On the frame at the foot of my bed
Focus: breath, self-guided body scan
Distractions: my phone's sound was off so the initial gong at the beginning of the meditation didn't make a sound - so I was worried that the end gong would also not make a sound.  There were also some howling dogs, and at one point, a big creak in my house.
Stray thoughts: some, but I am proud of myself that my mind did not try to plan any work or projects until the last few minutes - ideas and planning are the main stray thought that I would like to be able to distance myself from during my meditation time.
Attention span: I made it through 15 minutes without looking at the clock.  Then my house made a random loud noise and I was so startled that I literally jumped up.  I looked at the clock, saw there were 5 minutes remaining, and was a bit anxious because I suspected that my meditation bell would not go off because the sound wasn't off.  I meditated for a few more minutes and then opened my eyes again because I was not sure if the 20 minutes were up.  There was one minute left.  I closed my eyes for another maybe 1.5 minutes, then had to open them because indeed, the gong did not go off.
Other comments: I felt like I was breathing a little hard and loudly - but breathing loudly helps me pay more attention to the breath.  It gives a nice sense of breathing over my wild thoughts, like a massive rushing waterfall that drowns out all the noise around it with its constant, strong flow.