Willing To Wonder

 

 

I do not at all understand

the mystery of grace --

only that it meets us

where we are

but does not leave us

where it found us.

 

          ~ Anne Lamott

Personal Growth

Take some time for quiet thought today.

 

Your inner person deserves it!

When you get free from certain fixed

 

concepts of the way the world is, you find

 

it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous

 

than you thought it was.

 

                           ~ Alan Watts

A Buddhist Rice Bowl

It's Something To Think About. . . .

"In Zen Buddhism, there's a concept called 'zen mind,' or beginner's mind.'  They say that the mind should be like an empty rice bowl.

If it's already full, then the universe can't fill it.

If it's empty, it has room to receive.

This means that when we think we have things figured out, we're not teachable.  Genuine insight can't dawn on a mind that's not open to receive it.

Surrender is a process of emptying the mind."

                                  ~ By Marianne Williamson, "A Return To Love,

Reflections on the Principles of A Course In Miracles

 

Photo Courtesy of Josh Bulriss



Truly Breathing

Breathing, centering, finding my inner peace.  That is what today is about.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, author, poet and peace activist.

Just typing the combination of those words makes me feel calmer.

I know that somewhere, under all the rushing and running around and multi-tasking is a peaceful inner core, and I want to find it.

But first I have to create the conditions to get to it.

What is the hurry?

With the help of Thich Nhat Hanh's quote below, I will decrease the speed with which I am living my life.  I will do one thing.  Slowly.

So that I may reach a peaceful place.

Photo Courtesy of Wuestenhagen Imagery

"Breathing in, I calm my body.

 

Breathing out, I smile.

 

Dwelling in the present moment I know

 

this is a wonderful moment."

 

                         ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Sea of Turquoise

Today is about tranquility,

 

the quality of being calm.

 

Enter a sea of turquoise. . .

 

And take a deep breath

 

And exhale. . .

 

You could do it all here: cry, laugh and heal!



Photo Courtesy of House of Turquoise

Breathing

 

 

 

 

"Breathing in,

I calm my body,

Breathing out,

I smile.

Dwelling in the

present moment

I know this is a

wonderful

moment."

 

~Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

Getting Into The Zen Groove

 

 

"Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset."
- St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers

Courtesy of Bethany Fine Arts Gallery

From my core being, I am trying so very hard to attain a zen state of mind.

 

This year is the year when I am trying to learn to meditate and think about serene things and scenes of nature that bring to mind a balance of calm and beauty.

 

It is a matter of trial and error for me to get my Western mind into an Eastern place of mindfulness where deep breathing and relaxation can lead to healing.

 

It is harder for me than I thought it would be because once I close my eyes and try to start to focus on one place, less than a minute later my mind wants to start thinking about something that happening in my life that needs solving.

 

I am slowly learning how to put the brakes on my busy thoughts and I'm going to keep working on this because the end results are so worth it.

 

Meditation helps control pain and promotes general health, according to the American Holistic Medical Association.  A series of studies published in prestigious medical journals over the past decade found that people who regularly practice meditation reported a significant decrease in pain, anxiety, depression, blood pressure and other physical symptoms.

 

The breathing is the first thing that I have been consciously working on.  Breathing, you say?  Don't you just do that naturally?  True, we all breathe to stay alive but most of the time we don't realize that we are breathing in short breaths instead of slower, deeper breaths.  Okay, maybe you realize it but I'm just becoming aware of it.

 

For instance, the other day, I caught myself when I was in the middle of trying to finish something at work on deadline. I was trying to work faster and I wasn't paying any attention to the way I was breathing. I realized that if I stopped, took some deep breaths and slowly continued to take deep breaths that my pace of work was more focused and I finished with a better state of mind.

Instead of being all frazzled, I felt calmer.

 

It's going to be awhile before I really feel I am on the road to true mediation but I am making the effort to be more aware and I feel that's progress.

 

The journey towards mindfulness and a calm, focused inner being continues. . .

 

My groovy readers, please share. . . What do you know about meditation that could help others? 

Zen Me



Zen Garden Number One

"I wait for time to heal the pain and

 

 raise me to my feet once again --

 

so that I can start a new path,

my own path,
 

the one that will make me whole again."

                                                      ~ Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II



Zen Garden Number Two

Hope and Healing

Courtesy of The Magic Onions

I love this picture!

Serene and peaceful, can't you feel the healing power of the flowers?  The first time I saw it, I mentally slipped into the photograph and felt the aura of  its calming vibe.  I could practically smell the beautiful flowers in the shape of a majestic sun surrounding the Nature Girl.  

 

Ommmmmmmm.  The healing is starting and it can happen for all of us but we need to be patient.  Healing takes time.  The most important thing about restoring your mental and emotional health after the loss of a loved one is to think positively: if you want to heal then it will happen for you.  Even if you don't have the energy right now to feel positive, try to keep a small positive thought in the back of your memory.  It will help to carry you through the pain.

 

Healing is defined as restoring to health or soundness, to repair or go through a process to cure your inner self.  In a sense, you are seeking to come to grips with the reality of what has happened to you.  The numbness you feel is your body's way of giving you time to catch up with your loss and the new changes in your life.

I found that the first step towards healing from the loss of a loved one is to allow yourself to feel your feelings. You may want to ignore the feelings because they are so painful but trust me, if you are patient with yourself, you can work through or process the waves of emotions coming at you.

 

Someone you cared about A LOT, someone you loved A LOT is no longer with you physically or emotionally.  It takes a long time to really deal with the shock of your loss but eventually time will help you get control of your emotions and give you the courage to continue to move forward with your life.  It has been almost nine years since my husband died and I still have setbacks.  Sometimes I will read something that reminds me of him or I see something that reminds me of him or of our life together.

I try to talk about it or I try to embrace the memory.  Ignoring or denying what has happened only makes it makes it more painful and more overwhelming.  Grief is a process and in expressing your grief you are allowing yourself to heal and to be hopeful.

It's not that you will never be happy again.  It's more that your life has changed and you won't be exactly the person that you were before your loved one died.  You must rebuild and find a way to move forward.

We each have different resources but here are some suggestions to help in your healing:

-- spend time in nature

-- listen to music

-- find a quiet place, breathe deeply and relax

-- reach out to a friend

-- join a group such as a church group or a community group

-- strengthen a family tie

-- or lie in the grass, feel the warmth of the sun and smell the flowers!

 

The Night of The Cicada

 

I am happy for the arrival of today, for yesterday was a day when I was trying to follow my own advice about staying positive, breaking down a problem and letting it go when you can't do anything more.

 

For me, I get stressed when I am thrown into a situation at work and expected to solve it quickly.  I can work under pressure but I don't really like it.  I prefer to see the problem ahead of time and work on it in increments.

 

But that isn't what life is always about.  Untangling the problem takes time and sometimes I just don't have the luxury of time to figure something out.

 

It's BOOM and then I'm on deadline and that's it.

 

I did what I could to fix the problem and then because it was Friday afternoon and since others who could helped me had already left for the weekend, I had to leave the problem where it was.  Getting on the elevator to leave work and even while I was driving home, I really made a concerted effort not to bring the stress home with me.

 

I took deep breaths, I went down a mental check list of what else I could have done to solve the problem before I left work and there wasn't anything more.  I didn't play music on the car radio because I really wanted to calm myself.

 

I wanted to stop at the grocery store and buy myself a huge container of Ben & Jerry's Chocoloate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream but I didn't.  Instead, I tried to remain zen about my stress and and not let it the better of me.  I really wanted to have a really ugly cry and I was ready to let myself do it when I realized I left my cell phone out in the car. 

 

I went out to get it and when I came back into the house I accidentally let a cicada fly in.  OMG, OMG.  If you have never seen or heard a cicada then please take my word for it that they make a really weird awful buzzing sound when they are flying.  They are rather large, similiar to locusts, and they are just tooooo gross.

 

Now the thing is in my dining room, flying around inside the light fixture and trying to find it's way out.  All I could do is stand there and watch the cicada flying around in a panic.  I  couldn't touch it and if it flew out of the fixture I was going to open the front door and try to get back outside but that never happened.  It just flew around in circles until it tired itself out and through the glass of the light fixture I could see that it was laying on its back.

 

OMG what is a girl to do?  At least my work stress was gone but I couldn't take the cicada anymore.  I called it a night and quickly fell asleep.

Fortunately or unfortunately, so did the cicada!