Sit Down and Meditate. Here's Why, from the Hemisphere Perspective

So, you want to meditate? Here’s the raw deal, stripped down to the studs:

1. Plunk yourself in a chair—or on the floor if you’re one of those types—and shut your eyes.

2. Zero in on the air moving through your nose. Feel it, don’t think it.

3. When your brain starts yammering like a cable news pundit, tip your hat to the distraction and drag your focus back to the breath.

4. Keep at it ‘til the clock runs out.

That’s the whole racket. No chanting, no om, no overpriced yoga pants.

Five minutes’ll do if you’re a rookie or just lazy. An hour? That’s great (so I’m told . . . my rattled brain hasn’t gotten there yet). Word on the street is 12 minutes’ll sand down your jagged edges—less freakouts, more chill, maybe even keep your blood sugar from spiking like a Wall Street bubble. Could give you a jolt of juice.

Meditation: A Chokehold on Your Inner Bureaucrat

Me, I claw out 15 minutes a day to sit there and breathe, come hell or high water. It’s non-negotiable, even if it shoves the rosary, the Bible, and my dog-eared saints’ biographies right off the schedule. Even when the day ahead of me is a shitstorm and I’ve got no time for the fancy spiritual calisthenics, I still plant myself and do it.

Used to irritate me. I’d be perched there, legs kinda pretzeled, muttering under my breath, “What the hell am I doing observing my nostrils when I could be cracking open Matthew or Luke?”

Now? It doesn’t bother me.

In this overcooked, left-hemisphere dystopia we’re stewing in—where every jackass with a smartphone thinks they’ve got the world figured out—watching your breath is a lifeline. It’s a sledgehammer to the skull of that chattering left hemisphere, the one that’s always measuring, judging, and filing everything into neat little boxes.

Maybe that’s all meditation does—gags the inner bean counter. But that’s plenty.

And don’t kid yourself: when the left side goes quiet, your head doesn’t turn into a ghost town. The right hemisphere’s still kicking, doing its wild, wordless dance. That’s the part of you that can still feel the hum of something bigger. Call it God, the Tao, or the cosmic buzz.

It’s Dark, and That’s the Point

All those spiritual tools—scripture, prayer, the examen—they’re active, like a jog through the park. But knowing the divine? That’s a shadow game. The eggheads call it “apophatic”—fancy talk for groping around in the dark, figuring out what’s real by ruling out what ain’t.

That kind of thing drives the left hemisphere up the cranial wall. It’s too slippery, too messy. You can’t spreadsheet it. But it’s meat and potatoes for the right hemisphere, which doesn’t give a dang about flowcharts. It just drinks in the mystery.

Squashing the left hemisphere with a few minutes of breath-watching? That’s not just prep work for prayer—it’s the real deal. Like limbering up before you haul lumber, sure, but I’d go further: meditation’s the heavy lifting, the deadlift of the soul. Active devotion’s the treadmill chug after. You need both. Two sides, one precious mental coin.

So, should you ditch the breath and crack open the Gospels instead? Heck if I know. Your call. But I’d bet my last nickel that if you sit with your breath first, the Gospels will resonate more when you get to them later.

Less noise, more signal.