We're approaching the two month mark in 2014, and I'm finding the need to revise and extend my new year's resolutions. How about you?
For starters, I think I prefer "Mindful" Mondays to Mindfulness Mondays. It's a little thing, but when you want to stay motivated, sometimes little things matter. Similarly, using the adjective rather than the noun as my word/theme for the year somehow feels less passive, even though the basic intent is unchanged.
As for my check in, it has been a thoroughly unimpressive week in terms of progress toward my goals. I haven't eaten well or slept enough. Although the weather has been quite nice, I've gotten very little exercise (with the exception of a nice walk yesterday). I haven't done much reading either. I spent the week in Asheville while most of the clutter is in Atlanta, so there's no progress to report on that front. I have started some new projects and finally tackled some things I had been procrastinating about, so I have at least managed to eliminate a few more energy drains.
I had an opportunity to meet an old high school friend of my husband's over the weekend. He and Bill hadn't seen each other in decades, so meeting him was very much in keeping with a focus on relationships--people over things.
The one resolution I have remained consistent about is sitting to mediate for at least 12 minutes each day, but I confess that I wish I felt better at it. I realize that cultivating non-judgmental awareness in the present moment means not getting bent out of shape that my mind wanders so much, but it often takes me a very long time to remember to even try to guide my attention back to the breath, where, of course, it doesn't stay.
I remind myself that these things are simply part of the process of meditating, but I'm growing weary of what starts to feel rather fruitless after a while with no noticeable improvement, so I've been experimenting with other ways of meditating, including guided meditations, chanting, meditating both with and without music of various kinds, and meditations which, instead of using the breath or a mantra as a focus, instead use a series of statements that progress in prescribed ways throughout the meditation. (I'll write more about this last method later this week, because I am finding lovingkindness meditation especially helpful.)
The other addition I want to make to my list of resolutions is to be sure I'm drinking enough water--at least eight 8 oz. glasses per day (a couple of which can be a beverage other than water, such as juice, milk, or a green smoothie). I don't mind drinking water, so it shouldn't be difficult, but if I'm not mindful of how much I have each day, I don't get enough. In the past, tracking my water intake has been an important part of weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight for me. So maybe this small step will help steer my weight loss efforts in a more positive direction.
Those are the adjustments that feel right at the moment, and I will very likely make additional changes along the way.
Maybe you are ready to make some adjustments as well? If you didn't declare any new year's resolutions, perhaps you've since begun to formulate some goals for the rest of the year. Whatever the case may be, I invite you to share some intentions and/or observations about how things are going for you, in these Mindful Monday check-ins.
My handy Insight Timer app (which I've been using to time meditation sessions) tells me that I have meditated for a total of 14 hours and 45 minutes since downloading the app last September. Most of those minutes have accrued since my new year's resolution on January 1. It's a conservative estimate, since I occasionally meditate without the app. Still, that's a noteworthy chunk of time.
I find myself wondering what would happen if we tracked the cumulative amount of time we spend on more things. We do see such statistics occasionally: the average time spent sleeping or watching TV or on social media. Of course, those are averages, so--in spite of knowing how averages are calculated--we tend to assume they don't really apply to us.
What if I could consult an app that tallied exactly how many minutes of the past week, month, or year I spent procrastinating or perhaps LOOKING FOR THINGS? (Pardon me for using all caps; I don't have the exasperated font.)
Better yet, what if there were an app that kept track of all the genuinely good stuff: how many times you smiled today, the number of good deeds done, the happy memories. I suspect we would make an effort to increase those numbers if we paid more attention to them.
My chosen word for 2014, mindfulness, is about paying attention. I want to be mindful of special moments--especially the little ones we can miss entirely when we aren't tuned in--the sweet fragrance of an early spring breeze, the flower growing from the crack in the sidewalk, the expression on a puppy's face. Even without an app for that, those moments add up if we take notice.
For several years now I've made a daily practice of jotting down five things I'm grateful for. I don't have a lot of rules about it, and I miss a day now and then, but over time this simple practice has been transformative as it encourages me to watch for the good, even when I have to reach for it.
So... I invite you to join me, not in a mental tally of every single good thing you have ever encountered, but in intentionally heightened awareness of those touching experiences, examples of courage, and the kinds of everyday happenings that add value and joy to our lives. If there are practices you have incorporated which help you "accentuate the positive," I'd love to hear about them.
We're a little more than 6 weeks into 2014--enough time to get some things done and also to run into a few roadblocks. For quite a few of us, winter weather has posed challenges and interrupted schedules. How are things going for you?
Do any of your goals or resolutions need tweaking, at this point? Maybe you have long given up on New Year's Resolutions but still have particular things you'd like to concetrate on. President's Day may offer a lower-pressure opportunity for goal setting than January 1st did.
My results have been decidedly mixed. My 2014 list of things to be addressed is long enough that I occasionally lose track of some while focusing on others. The good news is that when letting go of perfectionism is one of your resolutions, almost any failure can be re-framed as progress toward being less perfectionistic. (How's that for making lemonade?)
I'm meditating regularly and including more salads and green smoothies in my diet. I'm not exercising enough, but since our cold weather shouldn't last much longer, I'm giving myself a bit of a pass until the end of the month. Beginning in March, I plan to get serious about walking.
My clutter clearing is slower than I'd prefer but still moving forward. I've started reading several books but not managed to finish any of them. I'm writing more--mostly in my journal--and continuing my longstanding practice of including 5 things I'm grateful for each day.
Let's see... what else? I'm feeling pretty good about things, in general. I still worry about my dad and get teary about losing mom sometimes, but that's not a surprise, under the circumstances. My last blog post felt important to me--things I wanted to express before moving on to new topics.
Most of my projects are taking longer than I had hoped, but they haven't entirely fallen by the wayside. I've at least managed to eliminate a few energy drains, which should allow me to better focus on my priorities.
So that's my check-in for the week. Oh, my husband downloaded the little Insight Timer iPhone app I've been using and seems to like it, which I was pleased to hear. I continue to find the stats surprisingly motivating.
Now, it's your turn. How are you feeling about things? What do you want to do more of? Less of? Are you making progress on existing goals or perhaps considering new ones? Maybe, like me, you chose a word or theme to focus on in 2014. (Mine was "mindfulness.") Are you on track with it? Do you feel alignment with your values and priorities?
I look forward to hearing from you.
In 2010, it looked very much like our marriage might be ending. I was nearly paralyzed with fear and depression. I had no idea what the future held.
Last night, I had a lovely Valentine's Day dinner with my beloved, and today I am gazing out the back door of our little vacation condominium in Asheville at snow-dusted mountains. We look forward to celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary in April.
I cannot overstate how miraculous this transformation is or how grateful I am for it.
We had not planned to invest in a vacation home--at least, not any time soon. We had talked about how nice it might be to retire in Asheville, NC one day, but those conversations had long ceased by 2010.
As we savored our lobster gnocchi together last night, Bill and I talked about how, in an odd way, our new little place in Asheville feels like part of mom's legacy to us.
You see, mom hadn't planned to die--at least, not any time soon. She was "the healthy one." It was dad, with his ever-growing list of serious health conditions, whom we worried about. Mom still had a long and fruitful life ahead of her, with many things yet to do. Until she didn't.
A rare and aggressive form of cancer claimed mom's life last June, after a difficult year. Somehow, I had imagined that if one had a year of life remaining, it would surely include long heartfelt talks about the meaning of life and final words of wisdom and guidance. But for mom, most days of that last year were spent just trying to get through them.
To be sure, we had some tender moments, and I will always cherish the final year we spent together. But mom wasn't checking off any items on a bucket list. Too often, it took every bit of concentration and energy she could muster to do things like eat or stand or, eventually, breathe.
It became apparent that mom's legacy would not be left in an outpouring of culminating insight delivered as we gathered around her bedside, but rather stretched across each of her 79 amazingly active years of life. For mom, it was always more a matter of how she lived than what she said, and that way of being didn't change once she was no longer able to do all the things she used to.
Mom never told me how to live. She rolled up her sleeves and showed me.
Among the many indelible lessons and reminders mom wordlessly left us was this one: If there is something you need to do, don't wait. If you need to make music, make it. If you need to write, write. If you need to try something, try it. If you need to make amends, make them. Time waits for no one.
Mom was proactive by nature and willing to take risks. It's how a talented young college sophomore from San Diego State found herself on a long Greyhound bus ride to a city she knew nothing about to play in the symphony and attend what was the Atlanta Division of the University of Georgia in the early 50s.
Toward the end of her life, it was clear that mom's proactivity had been a great gift, because it turned out that she didn't have as much time here as she had hoped.
I took mom and dad to the Biltmore Estate two years ago, and mom and I had made a couple of other brief visits to Western North Carolina together, so she knew how much I love the area. On one of those trips, as I was showing her some of my favorite places in town, she said to me, "Asheville has become your home away from home." I had never thought of the city in quite that way until she spoke those words. The thought filled me with joy.
Bill has always loved the mountains. They seem to calm him and re-charge his batteries. Early in our marriage, we would periodically rent a cabin in the mountains someplace for a night or two and talk about the future and what was important to us. I have such warm memories of those fireside chats.
Before I met Bill, if you had asked me if I preferred beach or mountain vacations, I might have chosen the beach. I don't mind hot weather the way Bill does, and I hadn't really spent much time in the mountains. I still love strolling on the sand beside the ocean, but there is also something magical about looking out across rolling hills. I quickly came to share my husband's appreciation of higher ground.
And so it was that we found ourselves thinking of Asheville again, not long after mom's passing. Visiting the North Carolina mountains felt healing, and gradually it dawned on us that the little home in Asheville which we planned to consider one day might be possible sooner, rather than later.
It was a stretch for us. A pretty big stretch, in fact. And there have already been unanticipated challenges. But we are both extremely happy about the decision. Our little condo in Asheville feels like a miracle--one that would never have unfolded in this way had mom not planted a seed with her comment to me years ago and also stood by me in 2010, when hope was hard to hang on to.
Perhaps most of all, mom's last year inspired us not to wait for a someday that may never come.
I am writing again. I journal almost every day. I now meditate daily, rather than just telling myself that I ought to meditate. I actively practice gratitude. I am focusing on relationships. And I am thinking in new ways about calling, vocation, and avocation.
This morning, I awoke to a long hug from the love of my life. He had found the valentine I left him by the coffee maker (because I forgot to give it to him at dinner yesterday). We stood together and looked across our little screened porch and the lingering snow, beyond the other condos and local businesses, to the beautiful green and white mountains in the distance.
I believe in miracles.
Thanks, mom.
I've been somewhat preoccupied by weather-related preparations and almost forgot Monday is check in day! I realize preoccupation isn't a very good advertisement for mindfulness, but we are expecting an ice storm in the next couple of days, and power outages are likely. I'm particularly concerned about my father, who is in poor health.
I'm finding the Insight Timer app that I've been using during meditation to be more valuable than I anticipated. Not only does it let me know when my 12 minutes are up, but it tracks a few statistics for me, like how many days in a row I've meditated and my total meditation time accrued.
At first, I wasn't very interested in those features, but now that I've spent over 12 hours meditating with the app since downloading it, I'm finding the stats a useful and concrete reminder that little things really do add up. Besides, as silly as it sounds, even the small reward of seeing my progress charted over time somehow affirms my inner tortoise and makes my slow-and-steady efforts feel more worthwhile.
It dawned on me a few days ago that I had forgotten about the "do more reading" part of my new year's resolutions. I read a small non-fiction book at the beginning of the year and then started a novel, only to become side-tracked. I picked up Pema Chodron's latest book last week at the library and was about 25 pages in to it, when I remembered the abandoned novel.
Once again, hardly a picture of mindfulness.
I'm still only six weeks into this little experiment of mine, so I am far from ready to draw any conclusions, but I continue to believe that meditation is beneficial for me--if not in some of the ways I expected. I say this as someone who has meditated in the past, so I had at least some basis for my assumptions about the practice. But the landscape of my life has changed in the meantime, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that my meditation experience would be different, as well.
I still feel as "absent-minded" as ever: I forget things. I publish obvious typos. I get frustrated. And yet, in a hard-to-describe way, I continue to feel less reactive and at the mercy of other people and circumstances than I did even two months ago. Maybe that's just the difference between December and February. But I think it's more than that.
I also feel surprisingly neutral about the new year's resolutions I made that are coming along even more slowly, like reading more and losing weight. (To be clear, I never claimed weightloss as a resolution for 2014, but it was my hope and expectation that more mindful eating would have that beneficial side effect.) I haven't given up on those goals, but I don't feel as all-or-nothing about the things I want to accomplish as I used to. That alone is progress! I am more willing to shift my priorities without apology, when it feels appropriate.
How much credit to give to mindfulness meditation for these shifts, I still don't know, but after months of trying unsuccessfully to make myself meditate regularly, I am now quite motivated about it. While it is an understatement to say I don't feel at all accomplished as a practitioner, after months of unexplained resistance, I'm relieved to report that meditating now feels much less like a "should" and has become something I usually look forward to.
I'm curious to know about your experience with meditation. Do you meditate? (Or have you in the past?) What is/was your experience of it? Do you find it valuable for you, personally? How has your experience of meditation changed over time?
It's Monday again - accountability time.
I'm sticking with to the meditation practice I revived on January 1 after a LONG hiatus by sitting quietly every day for 12 minutes, at least once a day. Sometimes I add a guided meditation or another session later in the day, sometimes not.
Is it making a difference? I think so, although I sure don't feel very good at it. The idea is to set aside a few minutes to gently and quietly rest in the present moment, mindful of each breath--a brief respite from constantly focusing on the past or future. As Jon Kabat-Zinn might say, "Be here now."
Of course, that isn't what happens. My mind habitually heads off in whatever direction it pleases, and I coax it back to the present, only to have it dart away again and again, in defiance of my expressed intention. It's like trying to teach an enormous energetic dog to sit and stay. As soon as you drop the leash and relax your guard, the dog wastes no time in doing exactly what dogs do.
Still, the practice feels more comfortable today than it did a month ago. I feel more grounded, if not during the practice, throughout the day. I still don't find myself being what anyone would call mindful. In fact, all week long I've been making really careless typos--far more than usual. But maybe I have stepped up to a low rung on the mindfulness ladder, because it feels like I'm noticing more and reacting less. To put it another way: I'm becoming more mindful of my mindfulness. Maybe that is progress.
I'm finding the free Insight Timer app on my iPhone to be helpful in staying with my meditation practice, so I'm thinking of using the free SparkPeople app to track my exercise and water intake to see if it helps me do a better job with that. I had a great experience with Weight Watchers some years ago and may eventually go back, but I'm not ready to do that just yet, as my budget is rather tight at the moment. Besides, I'd really like to make mindfulness the basis of my health and fitness program.
I'm continuing to tortoise may way through a little more clutter each week. I have a long road ahead of me, but I feel more hopeful about it than I did six weeks ago. At this rate, it may take a year to get back to what feels like a normal level of clutter again. But I'll be a year older either way, and I suspect I'll be happier (in addition to older) if I have gotten the clutterbug back under control by then.
How are you? Have you made progress on any goals or resolutions? Have you thought of intentions you'd like to set and work toward? I appreciate your company on this journey. I invite you to share a little about your 2014 thus far in the comments.
