Think On This: A Meditation for Today

"Start from now and make a brand new ending."

Thought for Wednesday

"Meditate on forgiveness for yourself: There are many ways that I have betrayed, harmed, or abandoned myself through thought, word, or deed, knowingly or unknowingly. For each of the ways I have hurt myself through action or inaction, out of my fear, pain, and confusion, I now extend a full and heartfelt forgiveness. I forgive myself." www.thingstobehappyabout.com

This was the first thing that I read this morning, and the idea of reflecting on self-forgiveness really struck me as important and liberating. I can imagine that we perhaps, more easily, extend forgiveness to others, but don't easily extend forgiveness to ourselves. I'm going to think on this one today, for sure. Enjoy your Wednesday!

Moving Past Limits

"A Tibetan method of meditation is called the method of exaggeration. Whatever you are feeling, exaggerate it. Exaggerate it because you have lived within a limit, a boundary that has become a routine for you and unless you go beyond it, you will never be aware of what that limit is. It is part of your habitual mind. Once you have learned to go beyond this limit, you will be in a totally different world. You will start knowing how to get out of it and get beyond it."

www.thingstobehappyabout.com

Just Walking

Every Morning for the past two weeks, as part of my "I've got to do something to help my healing" campaign, I would spend about 10 minutes upon waking, lying in bed, envisioning myself walking around our new neighborhood. I would see myself pain free, walking with a normal stride, just enjoying being able to be pain free again.

I went beyond just seeing myself walk in my mind's eye, though. I would see a detailed image of myself--putting my coat on, opening the front door, opening the gate, stepping onto the sidewalk, easily crossing the street, noticing the trees, the leaves, the beautiful weather. I could easily move my knee in all directions and lightly walk up and down the streets. Eventually, I would see myself walking all the way into town and back, absolutely pain free. Totally healed.

Just as important, I would also spend time imagining, in depth, how I felt during each detail of this envisioned walk. Happy, carefree, smiling, grateful, light, and unburdened. Free of pain and freedom in being healed. I didn't dare attempt this vision until I felt I had really internalized both the physical and emotional aspects of it.

Well, today turned out to be my day! Not only did I walk three blocks to The Kid's school, but instead of coming home the same route, I turned, crossed the street and took a long walk around the neighborhood!!! It truly felt like I was making my vision come true. It was just a great couple of simple moments. The sun was shining and it was beautiful weather for October. I'm not sure how far I walked and that alone is huge because it means that I wasn't counting the blocks wondering if I would be able to make it home. No! Instead, I was just walking.

Just walking. This is a sentiment I do not take for granted, anymore.

At The End of The Pier

After dropping The Kid off at school this morning, I drove straight to the river park and walking path to sneak in a quick walk before I went home to get some things done. I needed the stress relief, big time. This Friday will be a day which will give Aqua Man and I more information about whether we will be staying here, in this city, or whether we will be relocating to another state, all together. And if the latter is the case, that move could happen very, very fast. I am excited and nervous; he is excited and nervous.

In the midst of all of the reality, I've made the choice to hold off on pitching new freelance work until the end of the week, but no matter the outcome, whether we stay here, or we move, I'll have to pull in more work. Either way, though, my work will shift, but each place will require different ways in which this will happen, almost all of which, I have no idea what that will really mean until I'm in it. I fully support this move, and believe that equally exciting opportunities will open up for me as a result of it, but it still leaves a lot of big details to come together. It's just a lot of unknowns, maybes and possibilities, right now. All of which are equally exciting and scary. Also, The Kid is turning 5 years old this Sunday. 5 years old! This is just blowing my mind, and giving me plenty to reflect on, as well. Knowing that these "big days" are approaching at the end of the week makes for some interesting ups and downs.

So, with all of this on my mind, I walked until I was eventually able to loosen my grip on my thoughts, and to just enjoy the surroundings. I didn't plan it, but when I eventually tired of walking, I was drawn to the end of the pier. And once on the end of the pier, I was drawn to do some light yoga and stretching, which then led me to a 20-minute sitting meditation practice.

At first I held back a little-a bit self-conscious of who might be looking at me-but slowly I got over that, and it was awesome to be outside practicing. The birds were flying and diving into the water, a rowing crew rowed by, the wind was steadily blowing, leaves were swirling at the end of the pier, and I could hear metal chimes ringing from across the other side of the river. And I felt intimately a part of it all. I was in my own little space, breathing my own mantra in and out, while connected to every ripple of the river, every bird, and every gust of wind. It was just a divine moment of unexpected peace.

The hardest part was coming out of meditation and leaving the outdoors. I truly felt like I could have stayed in meditation for the rest of the day, just breathing and sitting in stillness at the end of that pier. On my walk back to my car, the serenity and peace I had felt was quickly followed by a bit of sadness at leaving that space. I didn't want to go back home, be by myself, sitting inside, and face my work, my tasks, my to-do list.

I'm taking this feeling of being psychically separated from my serenity as a challenge and a lesson. The challenge, I think, is to find this serenity even when I'm not at the end of that pier-even in the face of to-do lists, and things that I might not want to do. I know this serenity always lies within me-as I believe it's in each one of us.

Sitting in my home office right now, typing this post, I can suddenly hear my neighbor's wind chimes ringing, birds chirping, and the blowing leaves, and I am transported back to the end of that pier, when I felt at peace and a part of everything. I wonder, was that chime ringing the whole time I was writing?

And there in lies my lesson, I think: I choose my focus. I can focus on the chitta in my mind, or I can just acknowledge it, and let it go. I can choose to bring myself to calming thoughts. Over, and over, and over, again, (yup, sometimes, its just like that), I can come back to the calm that already lies within.

Resistance

It comes in many forms in my life, but resistance is one of the most present issues that I have to be mindful of, and more often than not, I feel as if I'm trying really hard to overcome it. Which, of course, is counterproductive because even trying to overcome resistance can become its own form of resistance. *jeez*

Learning to observe and just let go of resistance rather than engaging its essence, is really where its at, me thinks. Much easier said than done though, for sure.

Earlier this week, while flipping through books and on-line journals, I found an article at Yoga Journal about overcoming resistance. A few ideas in this piece resonated with me, so I thought I'd pass it on (I have a "Take what you like and leave the rest" attitude when it comes to reading articles, books, etc.). Perhaps someone else may find something interesting, useful, or helpful in this article, as well.
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Wishing all a happy Friday, free of (negative) resistance!

Wee-Morning Hour Meditation

I couldn't sleep last night, which is very unusual for me. Those who know me, so know that I can ALWAYS sleep at night. I'm a morning person who pretty much has consistent energy all day until around 7 p.m. That's when my brain starts to shut down, and by 9 p.m., I'm done. I'm tired. And when I'm tired, I can't fake it. I try, though. I smile, I nod, I listen. But...sooner, rather than later, I go down like a ton of bricks. I pretty much have to go to sleep right away. At the extreme of it, I've been known to fall asleep in the middle of conversations with Aqua Man (and that was when we were first dating, way before parenthood, and for some reason he said "that's the gal for me!" go figure.); while talking on the phone with one of my closest friends (post-motherhood on maternity leave); and generally every night on the couch (just regular life. yea, I'm exciting like that). So to not be able to fall asleep is a very strange experience.

To pass the time, I decided to text message a friend in a different time zone to see if she had made it out of her snowy city and had arrived safely at her sunny vacation destination. We texted back and forth for a few minutes, but then our texts stalled. When I realized that I was still wide awake at about 1:30 a.m., I decided to embrace my lack of sleepiness and make it meditation time. I knew that the tension from my day was still coursing through my body, so I decided to stop avoiding it and to just acknowledge it. In the dark, lit only by faint moonlight streaming in through the blinds, I began some light yoga stretching and asanas. When my body calmed, I put a blanket down on the couch, settled in and focused on deep breathing. Eventually I was able to calm both my mind and body while repeating a favorite mantra.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but I awoke to the sound of my cell phone signaling that I had received a new text message. I sat up, totally disoriented, and realized...Joy! I had been asleep. My wee-morning hour mediation had done the trick. Happily, I was able to go back to sleep and stay asleep until this morning at my regular wake up time.

Although, I also realized that, now I would have to officially add falling asleep in the middle of text messaging to my list of rude sleep behaviors. Bummer.