My week didn't unfold as I expected. Somehow, "losing" an hour due to Daylight Saving Time felt like the icing on that cake, but ultimately everything turned out fine. One happy side-effect of my meditation practice is that I am beginning to hold things a bit more loosely and, in some cases, roll with the unexpected without the level of anxiety I once had.
I'm feeling excited about the coming of spring. This has been a challenging winter for much of the country, so I suspect I'm not alone in my sense of anticipation. I've loved noticing the tiny buds on trees and seeing the Lenten roses and early daffodils blooming. I even decided several days ago to become a member of the North Carolina Arboretum.
I've done more walking recently, which is one of my health goals, and I'm in the second week of Sharon Salzberg's 28-day program on meditation from her book, Real Happiness. Week 2 introduces walking meditations, so the timing was perfect. It's nice when priorities align in such a way that you can address two or more at the same time.
The tools I talked about last Monday are still helping me. In addition to the book mentioned above, the apps I use to track how much water I drink and to time my daily meditations continue to be surprisingly motivating and make it easy to do.
In the car, I've been listening to Pema Chödrön CDs which I checked out from the library. It's a recording of a winter workshop she led at the monastery in Nova Scotia where she lives and teaches, and I'm finding it quite interesting. Also, after a couple of years of thinking about taking a free course at Coursera.org, I finally signed up for one that starts in another week. So I'm definitely associating spring with new growth of more than one kind.
I'm a little stalled with the clutter clearing, so I'm going to try to do more of that this week. I'd also like to do more writing in the next few days. Much of the writing I did this week was note-taking, which is great, but doesn't take the place of writing from the heart.
That was my week. I can't wait to hear about yours and find out what you are looking forward to.
Wow, you're busy! Sounds like you have a lot of fun things unfolding in your life. Spring is a time of new growth for me too...just seeing the flowers emerging, the grass turning green, life springing up all around me--it motivates me to get up and going. Because I'm came into your blog world only a short time ago, I'm not too informed about the clutter you've mentioned. Is this one of the places where you're doing the work of self-seeking? There is a culture of extreme clutter in my immediate family, and it's been something with which I have mightily struggled my whole life. Although I don't have nearly the magnitude of clutter that my parents have, I have enough to give me pause and ask myself the question, "Why I am holding on to this? What does this represent to me. Can I let go of it?" It can be a very exhausting process, as each thing has tied to it a memory a feeling...but I have found that once I get started, I build momentum and am able to let go of things more easily. Sending you courage and best wishes for a deep spring cleaning on all levels!
ReplyDeleteYes, very much so, Lorien. There is a culture of clutter in my family, as well, and my dad in particular is a major pack-rat, eager to acquire all manner of things and very resistant to letting go of anything.
ReplyDeleteThe same tendency was far less pronounced in me and not terribly problematic until I started a home-based business a few years ago which necessitated storing and organizing inventory. Before long, I and our home were completely overwhelmed, and the scales were further tipped when it became evident that my parents could no longer manage their own considerable "stuff."
When my mom died last summer, dad, in his grief, found it harder than ever to let go of things, in part because mom was no longer around to help make decisions about what was important or needed to be kept.
The progress I had finally been making on my own clutter came to a screeching halt when mom was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, and I've yet to regain that momentum, but since the first of the year I've at least been inching in the right direction again.
Thanks so much for your good wishes, and I wish the same for you and your family as we usher in spring this month!