Category: A Day In the Life

• Staying Connected During Physical Distancing

  

  Though we’re separated physically, mentally and spiritually we can still stay connected to each other.

  Today, I took a Yin yoga class on Zoom and had the chance to engage with the instructors and the other students, who are also my dear friends. Honestly, the whole experience was a true delight.

  Of course, I’d rather practice in person, but the energy we created together, each in our own rooms, transcended the limitations of physical space.

  We connected on the imaginal plane, or the astral plane, as this concept is described in yogic philosophy.

  When I left the room after the session, my husband was at his computer working, and I was so relaxed that I couldn’t enter into a conversation with him, since the wavelengths of our energy were so different.

  He’s been working long hours because of the coronavirus. He’s a journalist who covers medical news, so it’s all hands on deck for him.

  My job has been to prepare healthy meals, clean, and maintain an upbeat attitude. It’s the least I can do as we ride out this storm. I’m so grateful to all the people who are working to provide yoga classes, food, and mail to all of us.

  If before this virus people didn’t realize how interconnected we all are, I hope more are now aware of our mutual dependence.

  April 3, 2020

  pandemic, social distancing, yoga

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• After Yoga Writing Circle: Sankalpa

  The writing that my fellow yogis produce after our Saturday yoga class with Sally continues to inspire me. 

  For our last session, we wrote about our sankalpa, a Sanskrit word that means “resolve, intention.” Before meditation, the practitioner visualizes herself having, doing, or being the sankalpa.

  Typically, this type of meditation is done before a yoga nidra practice, which involves lying down and mentally naming 54 body parts. 

  With the body and mind in a state of deep relaxation, yet still awake and conscious, the practioner’s intentions penetrate the deeper layers of consciousness, creating a greater potential for the goals to be realized.

  I wrote this intention about how I would like to wake in the morning. I wrote it in the present tense, as if this were my actual waking experience.

  I wake in the morning with the first light of day and take a deep breath. My heartspace feels open and soft, and I’m at peace. 

  Birds singing outside my window fill me with joy.

  I sit up in bed and meditate for a short time before I let the dogs out into the backyard.

  After a cup of chamomile, I roll out my yoga mat, full of energy and motivation to meet the day. 

  I’m excited about life and the possibilities this new day will bring.

  I suppose this is a kind of prayer I am asking of the cosmos, of God, and of my own inner self. It might sound like a sugarcoated version of reality, but as Tibetan Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman has said, “To create something, you have to imagine it first.”

  Why shouldn’t we desire the best for ourselves in terms of spiritual and psychic evolution? 

    

  February 15, 2016

  health, sankalpa, wellbeing, yoga and writing, yoga nidra

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• A Day In the Life, Thanksgiving 2015

  Yesterday I woke at 7:00 and, once again, stayed in bed until the anxiety passed. I meditated for twenty minutes, focusing on the breath and relaxation.

  I let the dogs out and made coffee. Coffee works its magic by returning my optimism to me, especially if I make it half decaffeinated. A little goes a long way.

  But the sink full of last night’s dirty dishes soured my mood. I had asked for help, but the men in my family see no problem with leaving the countertops dirty for a day or two. Since I’m the one with the problem, I end up cleaning, and I’m left with resentment.

  On top of the dirty dishes, I had to forgo working on my Camino travelogue so that I could drive my father to the hospital. He has a staph infection in one of his heart valves, but he refuses any more surgery.

  His only other option is to go to the hospital every day for six weeks to receive an infusion of antibiotics that go directly to his heart. His insurance won’t pay for in-home care because he is “ambulatory,” but he’s too weak to drive. My siblings and I are sharing the daily driving with my father’s wife (my parents divorced years ago) so that she doesn’t have to do it all.

  When my son Freeboarder saw my glum mood, he tried to lift my spirits. “I know you don’t want to sacrifice your day of work,” he said, “but think of the good karma you’re generating.”

  I know Freeboarder’s right. I know I have to help my father, in spite of our fraught relationship over the years. I have to help him because he is a part of me, because he is at the end of his life, and because underneath his stoicism he couldn’t help but be afraid. This is one of those moments in life when to help might create momentary resentment that in the long run contributes to overall happiness.

  So I brought Dad homemade tomato and roasted red pepper soup and made him a few grilled cheese sandwiches.

  On the way into the center, while I was parking the car, Dad almost fell. He walks with a cane and has arthritis in his spine and neck, so he might have stumbled, or he might have felt faint from weakness. But a male nurse happened to be walking right next to him as Dad started to go down, and the nurse caught him.

  After Dad and I left the cancer center where he’s receiving his treatments, the sun was still bluing the sky at 4:30, however faintly. We were both still alive. We marveled at the miracle of the nurse who caught his fall, a guardian angel who appeared at the right moment to spare Dad more pain.

  

   

   

  November 26, 2015

  anxiety, family, love, old age, sickness, spirituality

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• A Day In the Life November 20

  The walk today was so refreshing. I find more and more that, through meditation and mindful walking,  I’m paying attention to the changing leaves, the quality of the air, the blue sky. 

  I felt so grateful just to be alive and breathing. I thought about the recent victims of violence in Paris, Beirut, and elsewhere, and how they are no longer able to walk the way I do, breathing the fresh air. Today I walked for them. 

    

  November 20, 2015

  graditude, mindfullness

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• A Day In the Life, November 13

  I forgot that today was Friday the Thirteenth until I hit the retaining wall with the back of the car while pulling out of the driveway. I don’t believe that Friday the 13th is an inherently unlucky day, but of course there’s the power of suggestion at work on our susceptible unconscious minds.

  The wood retaining wall is now askew until S.A. bangs at it a few times with a sledge hammer. That was our proposed solution after he came out to assess the damage this evening when I came home from teaching. Part of the reason why I hit it, I think, is because it hurts to turn my head very far to the right because of the surgery I had on Tuesday.

  I snuck in a quick three-mile walk today before leaving the house to teach. The air was crisp, the sky blue, the leaves still yellow and red in places. I could feel the tugging of the stitches from the skin cancer surgery as my arms moved with my pace, so I slowed down a bit.

  Walking across campus on the way to class I passed a beautiful young woman who was carrying a vase of yellow roses to her car.

  A man wearing a suit stopped me and said, “Would you like a Bible to add to the glory of the day?” I’m now in possession of a green, pocket-sized Gideon Bible that contains psalms and proverbs.

  I thought of Michelle Castleberry’s poem “The Gideons” from her book Dissecting the Angel, where she writes about wanting to pass out Bibles for the Gideons but not  being allowed since she was a girl.  I also thought about the Angry Preachers I would encounter at the university where I used to work. They would plant themselves in the middle of the quad and tell just about everyone they were going to hell. Those preachers were filled with anger and fear.  At least the man I met today was kind.

  Because of the stitches, I skipped the swim I usually take after my Friday afternoon class. After teaching for almost three hours, swimming laps renews and relaxes me. Instead, tonight I’l do a lying down meditation, one of the guided meditations from Jack Kornfield’s audiobook,  Guided Meditations for Self Healing.

  ***

  Update: I couldn’t lie still for the mediation because I was just too anxious, so I took a very hot bath with sea salts and soaked for twenty minutes. I continued to focus on the breath, and eventually the salts and the hot water drew the nervous energy out of my body. This is a trick I learned from my therapist, and for me it works like a charm.

  November 13, 2015

  anxiety, health

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• A Day In the Life

  I just read an article titled “So You Think You’re Happy” that suggests certain activities that might promote a sense of wellbeing or contentedness with one’s life. 

  One of the suggestions is to write a “day in the life” blog post as a series, which strikes me as just the thing. My life is fairly ho hum, so I have plenty of material for slice of life posts. Maybe I’ll learn to appreciate my quiet existence if I write about my days.

  Lately I’ve been staying in bed until around 8:30 or 9:00 am, long enough for mediation and breathing to ease the anxiety. I lie on my side and look out the window for a while, and then I sit up and meditate in bed. I feel grateful for working part-time, which gives me the flexibility to work on my mental health at my leisure. 

  The next step is to let the dogs out into our wooded, fenced backyard. Today S.A. did that job, which was nice for a change. I made coffee, sat in a chair near the sunny living room window, and read news articles for an hour.

  In the afternoon I took Red for a six-mile hike at a local park. It was fun at first, but he kept tugging on the leash and wanting to sniff every single dog we passed. 

  I suppose it wouldn’t have been too draining except I just had minor surgery yesterday for a skin cancer lesion, and I was in some pain still from the incision. Next time I’ll probably leave Red at home and do my usual hike with trekking poles. Today when we were going down some rocks, he pulled on the leash and I landed on my rump. Plus, I scraped my hand.

  S.A. has been making dinner every Wednesday night, which I so appreciate. Tonight it was cod with spinach and lemon sauce served with zucchini and tomatoes baked in the oven with avocado oil. It was doubly delicious because he made it AND cleaned up.

  While he was cooking, I headed to my office and wrote 500 words of the travelogue I’m working on. Usually, I try to write more, but I was wiped out from the hike up the mountain, even after resting for a half an hour. 

  So, those were the highlights of my day, besides the ever-enlightening conversations I had with my sons and the books I’ve been reading. My daily wish is to gain insights and to better understand the people I love.

     
   

  November 11, 2015

  dogs, family, hiking

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