Being mindful is the absolute last thing I want to be when I have the flu. I want popsicles, crappy TV, symptom dulling over the counter meds, and pretty much anything else that can distract me from my feverish aching bones stupor. Forget being in the present moment, I want to be in next week where this flu is history. When I get sick, the first thing I do is beat myself up for being sick. How did I let…
“The practice of mindfulness begins in the small, remote cave of your unconscious mind and blossoms with the sunlight of your conscious life, reaching far beyond the people and places you can see.” ~Earon Davis New habits are born from small, consistent steps. Each month of my mindfulness project will have a focus, a small daily task or project designed to get me out of my head and more into the present moment. The first month’s goal was to work…
Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day. ~Glen Cook It’s official. I am a morning person. It only took 6 weeks of practice followed by 4 weeks of commitment, but today I woke up naturally 4 minutes before my 5am alarm and had time to enjoy my morning coffee while journaling before heading up the canyon for a sunrise run. Seriously, who is this person? For the past few years…
What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? ~Henry David Thoreau I tell my trail companion this morning that I’m going to need some sort of reward if I’m going to accomplish the goal I’ve set for myself this morning, two laps up this mountain. She stops, looks at me, and says, “Isn’t simply being out on this mountain the reward?” Funny how I am actually in the place that I…
January is nearly half over and I am happy to report that I am making some progress with this waking earlier in the morning and trying to be mindful about it thing albeit inch by inch. I love the following quote by Wendell Berry, which reassures me that every journey should be measured in small and most likely laborious steps: “And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual…
What does it mean to be wild? In Jack Turner’s collection of passionate wilderness rants, The Abstract Wild, he states, “We can spend a lifetime in parks and wilderness areas and on adventure-travel trips and remain starved for wild country and wild people.” Time in wilderness does not equate wildness. Perhaps wildness is a state of mine or a way of living as Robert Bly so exquisitely states, “True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a…
Thanks to a the whole neighbor dragging his garbage cans out to the road and past my bedroom window at 5am, I am now morning writing. My reward for waking early besides stealing Fritz’s blanket because it is about 55 degrees in the living room is a morning cup of coffee unrushed and delightful not to mention total darkness, peacefulness, and a curled up sleeping puppy who grabbed his squeaky Freddie did a few twirly butts when he saw me…
The Happiness Project didn’t work for me. The very wise Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn once said, “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” Happiness surrounds us. I believe the real project is learning to notice it. I’ve spent the last few years overwhelmed with information, desiring to be anywhere than where I am in this moment, walking around in a daze, mindless, unable to focus, and…
I just started reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Essentially the author has done a lot of research on happiness revealing that what makes an experience deeply gratifying is a particular state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people are totally involved in a task that nothing else seems to matter since the activity itself is so enjoyable – think a musician totally lost in song or an artist completely absorbed in a project. “It is by being…