KateThoughts

Day 10

Happy Day 10.

I'm beginning to settle in to a routine. On the best mornings I'm up somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 or 6:00. On those mornings it's easy to get both meditation and Tai Chi done while the household is still asleep. I enjoy it more when I get the meditation portion done before the pups wake up. Even with a door closed, they can make their presence felt.  :)

And the Tai Chi has been easier to get into the day even when everyone is up. Once the dogs are fed and walked, and the 2nd cup is consumed, we all fall into our regular rhythms and just ignore one another for several hours. All good...

In the form today, I found my mind wandering rather a lot. I switched to a very fast pace for the next set, and then slowed it all way down to a molasses pace for the last one. The changes helped a lot. The slower one felt more relaxing today.

It's a good day... again. 

Days 7 ~ 8 ~ 9

Today is Day 9.

I didn't post anything, as you can see, for two days. Posting is not a part of the commitment. And the whole thing was feeling canned, fake, other-directed...or something still undefined, maybe.

On day 7 I might have done some form...don't really remember. I do know that I did not sit my butt down on anything for the sake of quiet meditation. That has been a HUGE frustration for me. Well, maybe not so Huge, as just 'normal' and therefore, disappointing. Not the performance I intended.

Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but, on Saturday it finally dawned on me that I could take a little help. Now, I've done so in the form of a meditation CD that I got a couple of years ago. There are a few minutes of spoken affirmation-type sentences, underscored by some very nice music composed to help one slow her breath to about 6 beats a minute. And most of each 15 minute segment is just that music, which give me an easy way to focus on breath and get (back) out of my head more quickly.

It was easy to sit with that for now. I'll let the deeper meditation, like those my Sifu describes, come as they will with the practice of my Practice.  

Yesterday, Day 8, was also the start-up for this Fall's Tai Chi classes. I used that as my form practice for Saturday.  And enjoyed about 30 minutes with the taped material.

Today - Day 9 was also very good. The TC practice went very well. The meditation portion I did with the CD again, and was able to do that while the household was still asleep.  That's best for me, but I don't always wake up in time these days with sunrise coming later each day.
I'm sure that, in time, this will all come more easily and will fall into its own kind of schedule.

Interestingly, the reading (from 365 Tao) at the start of the tc class yesterday was on Commitment. And it seems impossible to talk about commitment without talking about discipline: self-discipline. Had to smile at that.

I just LOVE how things are working out for me. 

And, just in case Laura checks in here... she wrote in a post of her own yesterday, "And it is amazing how much better things get when I surrender to reality. Honestly, the way the stress falls away when you accept what is actually before you is profound."
I've found that true, too, recently. I've been really resisting these canine children of mine. I'm not a good dog owner, yet. I am inconsistent, over-protective, indulgent, and compulsive, maybe even a tad OCD over them. And I've been wanting all of my emotional turbulence about them to be someone else's fault. Mostly Joel's, I'm afraid.

Over Friday and Saturday, I came to decide - that being the operative word - to accept the dogs as facts in my life that I do not really want to change, now. The time for doing so is LONG past. They are mine; I am alpha (however poorly I may play that roll right now). So, no more unnecessary drama about all that.
It will be interesting to see how we all grow up together.  ; )

And it is amazing how much better things get when I surrender to reality. Honestly, the way the stress falls away when you accept what is actually before you is profound. - See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/09/my-crazy-midnight-heaven.html#sthash.4YEIi1bH.dpuf

And it is amazing how much better things get when I surrender to reality. Honestly, the way the stress falls away when you accept what is actually before you is profound. - See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/09/my-crazy-midnight-heaven.html#sthash.4YEIi1bH.dpuf

And it is amazing how much better things get when I surrender to reality. Honestly, the way the stress falls away when you accept what is actually before you is profound. - See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/09/my-crazy-midnight-heaven.html#sthash.4YEIi1bH.dpuf

 

Day 6 ~ Yesterday...

OK. So one thing is clear.  ..clearer

I'm getting some bit of form and quiet time each day, except yesterday. But I'm doing it - right now, anyway - so that I can post it here and look like a good girl! Ha!
So, some things are harder to change than others.

Yesterday was a good day. But not as good as it might have been with better follow-thru on my commitment to myself. That may be even a bigger commitment than I realized. Self-discipline.
It will be interesting to see what happens later in THIS day, the real day 7... 

 

Days 4 & 5

I'm doing better at the Practice than I am at blogging about it.

Was feeling guilty about that, but really, for me NOT getting on the computer can be a very good thing.

Have done short form each day, plus 5 E yesterday. No 10 min meditation today; yesterday didn't make quite 10..

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzsweet dreams.

Day 3

Good Morning.

On track.

I find it very hard to relax my mind when I'm doing tc in the house. May have to try a blindfold and ear plugs! Joking, of course; just takes practice. I do better inside with the 5 Elements and I really like that form - rather like a Sun Salutation in the morning. I did both forms - only one cycle each.

The Practice this morning included reading from 365 Tao, a daily meditation book. I made it thru the 10 minutes of meditation. Barely. My mind was chattering LOUDLY! It helped a lot to use a mantra: breathing in I am mountain; breathing out I am calm...

 

Day 2 ~ Whew...

It's 11:00 pm.
This has been a very good day though very little of it went as I expected. Nice flow to it...after some catch-up from sleeping in.

practice included 1 set of 5 Elements and 1 of Yang short. Discovered that after dark on the Skydeck is good for Tai Chi.
10 minutes of butt-in-the-chair time did not happen. Couldn't figure it out. Everyone got up within minutes of each other.
I did have some very good energy going with the floors in the living room and the process of getting them really clean...and later in putting together dinner. I was more present for the floors; by the time dinner was working the Bears game was on.  :)

interesting to be starting this 100 days and find this experience for day 2. I'm heading to the quiet end of the house now. There will be 10 minutes (and then some) for some focused breathing, at least.

 

Sweet Dreams

Day 1 ~ Turning a Page

Day 1 of 102...that's days to the end of this year (inclusive), and also the days in front of me that I have named for a ... I hesitate to call it a challenge, though it certainly feels like one. But, I prefer to think of it as a new class with a new teacher: me.

I don't know how much writing I will actually do. This new category on my blog is more about giving myself a place to report; to become and remain accountable to myself for how I spend the days. So there will be some sort of post every day...
I won't always be able to post online everyday - maybe. Joel's knee replacement surgery also comes up within these 102 days - October 21st to be precise. But I will journal something somewhere so that I can then record it here.

This class is/will be about teaching myself some self-discipline; about learning self-respect as opposed to ego gratification; about the body/mind connection in Tai Chi as I practice that art - and increase my Practice around that art and my spiritual evolution.

And so that I'm clear: small 'p' practice will be just practice; the repetition of an exercise whatever its nature. Large 'P' practice will refer to that overall picture of the things I do during a day that increase my awareness on any of several levels.

I am still framing my goals for this time. And rethinking that phrase already...  'goals' doesn't feel right, but it will do for now.

The Practice will include some version of a Tai Chi form: either or both of the Yang short form and the 5 Elements form, and some time alone with myself. It probably won't feel like meditation at the beginning; more a sort of exile to a chair! :) but by the end of these 102 days, I will be a regular meditator and will embody the Form in ways that I have not even touched upon or understood before.

I'm also not sure that writing is going to be particularly helpful to me, because I can get so caught up in Ego about the writing itself. I think that there will be some expanded writing because I really can think more clearly about some things as I watch words come out of my fingers. But Ego is easily triggered here, too.  Very easily.

So, I don't know yet, how this will look. I am looking forward to a conversation or two or three with valued heart friends who inspire and challenge me to be all that I can be - while NOT becoming a Marine.   : )

Thanks for the 100 Days idea, Laura.  And thanks, Source, for the fact that there are, indeed, 100 days left in this year.That feels significant, or at least, noteworthy.

Here's to integration and to soaring.

And now to report on Day One:
    The introspection began pre-dawn. I woke with new insights inspired by a conversation I had yesterday with Nadette over some mediocre Chinese food and by a question posed by my Tai Chi Sifu, Jim.
I got to look at - again - how easily I can slip into 'old habit energy' about stuff in my life. I can really enjoy creating or expanding drama for myself. Lately it has been my huge resistance to being an alpha dog, and my less than stellar performance in that area, and by a desire to appear like an overly generous and long-suffering wife. Ah, the drama!
Thankfully Joel waits for me when I go off on this sort of binge, and I pretend that most of our friends don't notice. And we communicate better than ever.

Energies are shifting there already. I'm happy to report that I am basically happy; and very happy to KNOW that happiness is largely a matter of decision. Cool.

As for Tai Chi, I spent time on my Skydeck doing two cycles thru the Yang form and one thru the 5 Elements.
I did manage to get up there before the roofer came. But I confess to huge mental distractions caused by my own ...wait for it.. EGO, and by the gazillions of motorcycles running up and down the main street that is only 1 block from my house!

It's a good first day. See you back here tomorrow...