If you are anything like me, you have a lot of trouble quieting your mind or slowing down enough to even hear yourself breathe. Maybe you’ve tried meditating, but every time you sit there with your eyes closed, desperately trying to not feel uncomfortable, all you can do is think about which errand you’re going to do next or how you’re going to get the house cleaned before the weekend. Maybe you’ve never tried meditation at all. Sometimes focusing on yourself and your own wellbeing can be, well, rather difficult.
It sounds silly, but taking care of ourselves often falls to the bottom of the “to do” list. It’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy of life, it becomes difficult to take a step back, heal ongoing problems, and re-center ourselves. So what can we do when traditional meditation isn’t working or maybe downward dog just isn’t enough. How can we find another way to quiet the gears of our ever-churning mind? This is the question I found myself faced with last year.
In an effort to find something to relax myself at night, I voraciously began solving logic puzzles. I was enjoying figuring out which person gave which gift on what day and how long it took them, but my mind was anything but quiet. While the logic problems were great as busy work and distraction, they kept my mind in a thinking mode, and when I stopped my mind would continue it’s cluttered churning. I’d go to bed at night and my mind would run wild, never resting enough to really sleep well. That’s when I discovered knitting. I’d always loved yarns—the colors, the patterns, the feel—but I never had a grandma who taught me to knit, so learning was a bit daunting.
After buying a knitting “how-to” book, some yarn, and a nice set of needles, I was off. From the first time I sat down to figure out the difference between knit and purl, I was hooked. It was soon after that when I realized that while knitting I had entered into a world all its own—a sort of quiet time where my intense focus allowed me to calm the rest of my mind. It was all about mindfulness—paying attention to the stitches, the way the yarn loops over one another, and the click-clack of the needles, a sort of joy for the ears.
That’s when I realized I was achieving something through knitting that I had failed to be able to do in previous attempts at meditation—I was in a state of conscious relaxation, and it was working! Through the repetitive motion my body came to a place of rest. Counting stitches, I left the confusion of life behind. And as the yarn slipped across the needles, my breath softened and I felt clear. This kind of daily mindfulness can bring us to a quiet state of being, an awareness and kindness toward ourselves and to the world around us. Like with traditional meditation, the more you practice meditative knitting, the more serenity and awareness you can achieve.
So give yourself a little attention. Allow yourself to experience the peace brought on by the act of knitting. And the best part—you may even get a new scarf out of it!
