Is It Really Meditation If It’s Sweaty?

I chase sweat. I love activities that make my heart beat strong and fast and provoke sweat. I have long felt that many of my sweaty activities were akin to a meditation-running outdoors, dancing, the flow of mountain biking on a trail, cross country skiing. They are activities that can simultaneously focus the mind and unhook the mind from its usual patterns.

Back in May, when I lost my meditation streak (which I wrote about here), I counted my 5Rhythms dance group as a meditation the first day I forgot to meditate. At the time, I felt like I was playing fast and loose with the definition of meditation. So, it seemed appropriate when a few days later I forgot to meditate again and ended my streak. As if the universe was catching my fast-loose-ness and correcting the error.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was in a training about how to use Internal Family Systems in psychedelic-assisted therapy, and the trainer mentioned that traditional seated meditation worked less well for her than moving meditations, like dancing, because she felt more in touch with her body and the feminine flow of movement. Oh, I thought. As if she had given me permission to approach meditation more expansively.

In the same week, I went to a three-day, silent-ish meditation retreat. Silent, because we were not allowed to speak to each other. Silent-ish…