Michael: A Hacker at Hacks

Cloud free, cool and crisp;
The morning gives no promise
Of afternoon sun.

Sunday, July 27, 2017

A ‘hack’ has had several meanings during the course of my life. When I was young a hack was someone who wasn’t very good at something they claimed to be good at. Now it means finding a shortcut to save time doing something that you thought would take considerably longer.

I prefer the old meaning. I cringe whenever I hear someone suggesting an exercise or other type of hack. To me it has the denotation of cutting something short because you really don’t want to do it and would rather spend your time on youtube looking for other hacks for things you don’t want to do.

With that being said, I’m going to charge myself with being guilty of doing a meditation hack.

Before we went to the states I was trying to meditate for at least 5 minutes everyday. Then one morning I had an epiphany; why not combine lying still with lying on a plastic spine inversion gizmo that we had recently dug out of storage? And my first hack was born.

But I suppose like many hacks, it didn’t work. And after returning to the states after a 5 week visit I haven’t gone back to using the gizmo or doing meditation either.

That’s where hack #2 comes in. I’ve just finished a book on Foundation therapy that claims many of our aches and pains are caused by our bad posture and lack of deep breathing. It claims that starting with a 15 minute routine 6 days a week we can reset our skeletal structure and reduce all or most of any pain related to our posture and lack of utilizing our full lung capacity.

I’m going to give it a try and I’m also going to close my eyes throughout and consider it as a meditation. I know it’s a hack, and as much as I hate that term, I guess I’ll live with this small hypocrisy, particularly if it works.