I'm grateful for all the inner and outer work I've been doing -- physically, medically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually -- for it helped me remain outwardly calm when my insides were a tempest of anger and fear. My emotions began to simmer and then nearly boil over, but I took a few breaths and a few dropperfuls of kava, and that brought me down to a point where I could retain control and keep my mouth shut, which was very important in that situation.
I've decided not to chew on it, because I can't control it. I will do my best to care for my Self and take care of myself. It gives me a vision of the future, and when I have that in mind, I am able to take action. I decided I would take the action within my control, and continue to do my best where I needed to I let myself feel the emotions and then went home and did things I enjoyed doing. As I prepared for sleep, I decided I would have a great weekend and get up and run on Saturday morning. And that's what is going to happen. I am grateful I can remain in harmony, in the middle, and regain equanimity. Perhaps I'm learning after all. Although I feel frustrated that there's a downturn so shortly after having an upturn, but at least now I am equipped to deal with it, without it crippling me emotionally and energetically. Acupuncture, yoga practice, QiGong, studying Tao, TCM Kidney tonic--these have all worked in concert to bring me back into balance on all levels. I am sooooooo grateful for this! I recognize that I need to prepare for these downturns and expect them, then the down won't be so damn far down and I won't have to work as hard to get back to the top (or middle). In fact, the "downs", the "bad" times, the troughs of these life waves are not experienced as so terribly awful if I step back, breathe, acknowledge what I can control and what I cannot control, and move from a place of self-care as the #1 priority and compassion to all as my second. I'll paraphrase Deng Ming-Dao meditation on perseverance from his book "365 Tao": The fisherman prepares and repairs his net in advance. Preparation is the main part of fishing; preparation of net, boat, and for foul weather. Then fishing is easy and the "fish fall into his hands" . Perseverance when there is drudgery, when goals have faded into distance. Keep moving, keep walking toward the goal. The Tao is movement and action at all times, so that that action becomes ease.
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I have experienced such a profound shift in emotional and psychic state, the calm feels near bliss. Changes at school have amplified this tenfold. I look forward to being in the classroom even on a day like today, when I feel rather terrible due to coughing and lack of sleep and tired feet from a long hike in inadequate shoes. I know I can care for my self while still providing a wonderful fun day of experiential-learning for my kiddos.
It's a wonderful feeling. It's not bliss in the sense of being high or out of balance in the "good" direction; rather, it's a lack of anxiety and a sense of calm. This calm feels nouveau to me and my life after these years of the opposite. It's a gift! I thought I would never turn that corner or find that light and both have finally reappeared! There is no bright flash or magnificent epiphany, but a slow, easeful movement, like the bow drawn slowly across one string of a cello, providing deepness and continuity rather than a shrill, sudden note of change. I kept hoping and praying and visualizing and hoping for change. I kept expecting a sudden transformation overnight. This is smoother and gentler and I am starting to feel the gratitude for this type of timing come forth within. I know that in the future I shall become even more grateful that this shift occured slowly. Perhaps the changes will become more permanent this way. I am grateful for school and friends and my kids and my co-peeps. I am grateful that I always have been -- and remain -- open to change and learning and possibilities. Sigh. :-) Continuation of thoughts from a previous post...
I felt almost normal yesterday. I was "around people" almost all day yesterday, and I didn't feel depleted or like I needed to escape at any point. After the emotional and psychic trauma I experienced in 2015, along with physical trauma of injury and ill-health, and the resulting PTSD that combined with unemployment to leave me a fried-hot mess, I isolated myself from the world because it felt the most unsafe place to exist. Only in 2017 has some of that fear unraveled, and I have shifted back toward myself again; able to be in larger groups of people and enjoying "public affairs". I have regained so much of my sense of security that I don't feel I need to hide from the world any longer. During these 2 years, I have sweated and pushed and strained to work through the trauma and its imprint on my heart and soul. It seems to finally be paying off. My past has included a goal set, a push toward change, and immediate results. Therefore, I have been flabbergasted that nothing has changed for me in the course of two years, and that I have even backslid in areas. What was going on? Will I be like this forever? Is this what the rest of my life will look like? Those thoughts were depressing. Everything seems to be coming together again. I am re-made, and differently. It has not happened overnight and I still work not to work at it so hard--not struggle. That's the biggest struggle! I felt normal yesterday... Click "Read More" to the right... Once again, I reclaim my power and my truth. I do have friends who love me and care for me--I have distant family who are the same. I can accept reality and create my own happiness, even if it is alone. But I must even question that statement: is it true? I am grateful today for the people with whom I work, for the little people whom I serve, and for good freinds. I get to earn money doing something I love with people I love. I get to be around the buoyant energy of children every day, and they fill my heart and remind me to be resilient and present. I get the priveledge of imparting wisdom and knowledge to these little people, and help make our society a more positive and loving one. I have affordable housing in a city with little of that, I have an abundance of nutritious food (and I have Korean stores so I can cook the food I like!). Every day, if I choose, I can see bits of Korea. I have time to study what interests me and what guides me to become a great teacher. Their are no ligatures holding me to anything or anyone in life, and therefore, I have ultimate freedom to live my life as I choose and spend my time as I choose. I have a healthy, resilient body that serves me well. I have dependable transportation to get me around town. I have a surfeit of money that allows me choice and freedom. I have a good life. I am grateful for my good life.
I am grateful for my good health, my resilient body, and my life stamina. I keep learning more and more as I read Deng Ming-Dao's Scholar Warrior and oh, how I wish I had been raised with this philosophy of life. To unlearn all that I have learned, to undo a lifetime of thought-patterns and perspectives, to break down even a few years of repetitive actions--all are great challenges. I look at others who are role borders for both ways of being: how I would like to be and how I never want to become. I learn from both.
This first week of school has been fantastic to the point it feels like the best week I've had all year. As the irony of that plays out at the end of our school year, I am grateful for the changes I have made to accommodate and allow for these amendable class changes. Although most of it is inner work and physical health repair work I have been diligently carrying out. I feel better than I have in months; stronger, healthier, less exhausted! Yay! I keep visualizing my radiant health returning, my vibrant self, my strong body, positive energy, and strong energy...all of it. I am grateful to feel good again and be on the "road to recovery". I am grateful for reflection and awareness. Yes, these are repetitive themes in my 365 Days of Gratitude, for which I am grateful as well! Yesterday was such a great day at school; I want it repeated each day! However, that's not the flow of life: there will be good days, bad days, meh days... I can look upon that day and see the successes and how to repeat them. I can accept that quiet focus (ha haha QUIET) in the classroom is always temporary (hahaha), but I can increase those moments by establishing the circumstances that make them available.
I am also grateful to have the insight to delve into my Self and see what was different in my own behavior yesterday, and continue to establish different habits and protocol. I am grateful to be in this wonderful school, for it to be a learning situation for me, too! I am lucky to be in a flexible, supportive environment that helps me grow as a teacher--as a human. Yay! It's Monday and I'm ready! I'm grateful about what I accomplished for school, how the class looks, and the lesson plan I created for the unit! I always feel relaxed and anxiety-free when I prep in advance and have an organized space in which to work! I hope I have taken that lesson to heart: when I procrastinate, it just builds my stress level, forging a seam of stress that runs as an undercurrent in daily life. It's odd, because I never used to procrastinate; I always followed my lists and finished tasks early! Hmm. At any rate, I am grateful to wake up today feeling ready (on all levels), psyched, rested, and positively anticipating a great day, a great week, a great rest of the year! Yay! It's Monday!
I heard this term for the first time recently: "manufactured gratitude". It makes sense, but I am grateful for this type of gratitude as well. On days when I don't wake up grateful because I'm stressed, or feeling some sort of emotional or physical turmoil, I really have to sit and think of reasons to be grateful. Sometimes it is very difficult, so I start with the basics of food and shelter. From there I can move on to school (non-work work), because no matter the goings-on there, I am always grateful to be part of my school. Then comes income, transportation, andfriends. It gets easier and easier as I build a list. So even on days when I have to "manufacture" gratitude, it ends up bringing me back to the inherent sense of gratitude that fills me and fulfills me when I allow it, and when I stop letting my mind rule my attitude (which has become new issue, of recent times, aaargh). But gratitude overcomes thought-patterns, too!
I am grateful to feel grateful, even when I have to create it from nothingness! I am grateful for lessons that come to me at the right time--just in time. I know of many teachers of various wisdom traditions and spiritual paths; there is not time to study them all at once! When the time is right, the teachers appear before my eyes somehow, whether it's my acupuncturist mentioning offering advice, or a random email mention the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn just as I need some focus on stress-reduction.
Curiously, my anxiety has increased recently, even as I have increased my practice and awareness. I feel as though my mind is on some sort of anxiety-producing auto-pilot and it has taken over my body. I find my heart racing and my breathing shallow as my diaphragm constricts inward like a band around my chest. This physical awareness has its benefits as it draws me immediately inward to the sensations in my body and I start taking deep, slow breaths. This increase in awareness has led to to research the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction techniques to complement the practices I am currently doing in pranayama and QiGong. I know that the anxiety is directly related to performance-based fear surrounding school: feelings of inadequacy, not doing enough, feelings of lack of competence due to peer-comparison, and self-criticism. There has also been the fear surrounding my health and depleted energy levels and how this has affected my Being overall and my Being at school; will I recover or is this forever? I am learning that the conditions are "not forever" and are part of ebb and flow of life and life-span. In self-studies of Taoism, awareness, ontology, TCM, energy, archetypes, acupuncture, and the like, I am once again reviewing my Life Intention and Direction. I am learning to change my perspective from "achieve now" to more of a long-term outlook... Click "Read More" on the right I am grateful for knowledge that leads to wisdom and personal evolution. I am grateful that I have enough insight to regret unwise and immature actions. I am grateful to have people that care for me and help me when I need help. I am grateful that I am moving toward balance in the areas of health, energy, and teaching. I am grateful to have mentors in my field who sincerely wish me to expand and succeed; their desires are based on their own inner knowing and wisdom rather than greed or personal gain. I am grateful to have flexible and forgiving people in my life, that can withstand these emotional transitions I am experiencing - who can bear it, deal with it, ignore it, forgive it, or support me through it. I am grateful to be reminded that "when the sun sets, the moon rises"; light cannot exist without darkness and one defines the other. Good moments lead to challenges and down times; conversely, the darkness is the path back to light and perhaps even makes the light brighter. It all sounds pithy until it actually applies to my life, then it begins to make sense. Out of challenges come success, and at the top of success I should immediately begin to prepare for the next challenge. I'm grateful for the awareness that I'm "in my head" too much, because I have the tools to get the hell out of that misery-creating place of my thoughts and re-create reality with intention and visualization. That perfect piece of pottery that I built, allegorical to my life, continually shatters and is refired into a new and imperfect piece. Yet now, perhaps, I am starting to appreciate the minor imperfections. I continue my practices that bring me toward my Highest self, rather, that reveal what is already there. Like the Japanese art of mending the shatter with gold, there is perfection already present in the wholeness of before and after; I have the gold and I am the gold. I am grateful that this knowledge comes to me as I need it. From Wikipedia: Kintsugi (金継ぎ?, きんつぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い?, きんつくろい, "golden repair"),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquerdusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-etechnique.[2][3][4] As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise... As a philosophy, kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[9] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage...[10] Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of "no mind" (無心? mushin), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change and fate as aspects of human life.[11] Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
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iGallivant......is practicing gratitude every day for 365 days. Began on April 22, 2016, let's see how life changes over the course of this next year! Archives
December 2017
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