Last night, as I was having trouble sleeping during my first night on board a Viking River Cruise, Icame up with a new mindfulness exercise of sending love to everyone. Sending love to everyone, including people I have trouble loving because of past hurts, was very healing and helped me get a good enough sleep, which makes it even easier to be sending love to everyone.
Now, I am sending love to everyone with these photos from Amsterdam.
Sending love to everyone, including the Daily Bitch (who always seems to be on point) and YOU!
Yesterday, in both of my Coping and Healing groups, I asked people to doodle during the mindfulness exercise, either on a drawing surface or in their heads.
Here’s a definition of doodle:
I’m doodling in my mind, right now, about how I asked people to be mindful and absentminded at the same time. Nobody seemed to mind that in the groups yesterday, including someone who likes to call mindfulness “mindlessness.”
For me, mindfulness is about being in the moment, taking a break from fears about the future and regrets about the past. When I was in school, I used to take a break from those by doodling octagons in my notebooks, like these:
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Last night, after a long day of work, I asked this question about doodles on Twitter:
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Do you see any doodles (or things you doodle) in my other images for today?
The focus of today’s blog post comes from the Daily Bitch Calendar.
Now my focus is on wondering what would make a kick-ass obituary. I’m working on it.
Lately, my focus has been on radical acceptance and appreciating each moment for what it is. What’s been helping me with this focus is a question suggested by Michael Singer in “The Untethered Soul.” When I am overthinking something, I ask myself, “What part of me is disturbed by this?”
The focus of my answer to that question is usually “the part of me that is afraid to trust others and myself.”
Now, let’s focus on my images for today (which I hope are in focus).
The focus of the National Day Calendar for today is eating and drinking.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “focus.”
Now I’m going to focus on gratitude for all who help me blog every day, including YOU!
Last week, when I was sitting at my laptop conducting an online therapy session, I gave somebody the assignment of sitting with the discomfort. When that person had some discomfort figuring out the details of the assignment, I said, “Sit for ten minutes every day, get in touch with the discomfort, and see what happens.” My belief was that it would not be difficult to get in touch with discomfort, because we are all feeling some discomfort these days.
Because I feel discomfort asking somebody to do something I am not willing to do, I committed to doing the same assignment of sitting with the discomfort daily for ten minutes until our next therapy session.
I have been sitting with the discomfort since then and, as I sit here with some discomfort (the aches and pains of early rising), I am comforted to tell you that I am finding that assignment helpful.
Too often, we deal with our discomfort with distraction, addictions, avoidance, and disconnection. It helps to just BE with the discomfort for ten minutes a day, noticing and observing without judgment.
Here are some images I captured yesterday when I was not sitting with the discomfort:
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There is some sitting, some discomfort, but mostly joy in “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain.
I won’t be sitting with discomfort waiting for comments on this sitting-with-discomfort blog post.
I am grateful and comforted to be sitting, standing, walking, and blogging for you!
Two nights ago, when my very busy brain woke me up and prevented me from getting back to sleep, I tweeted this …
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I received very many helpful responses about very busy brains.
My very busy brain did come up with this mantra a month ago: “I am at peace. We are all one, connected.“ However, when my very busy brain is interfering with my sleep, I have trouble remembering it! This reminds me of the very first time I ever noticed the very busy Jeff Goldblum.
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Do you see evidence of very busy brains in my other images for today?
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Just like Scorpio Rising …
… I calm my very busy brain by spending time in nature and photographing it. Here are some photos I took within 20 busy miles from where I grew up:
Very busy brains tend to go into the future, often with worry about what will be. We need to refocus, over and over again, on the precious present moment.
My very-busy-brained husband, Michael, suggested yesterday that we calm our very busy brains by committing, once again, to no worry for a year. We tried that once before, starting in April 2019, and, unfortunately, our brains got very busy with worry in March of 2020, when I and very many other people came down with COVID.
Do any other very busy brains want to join me and Michael in committing to no worry for a year?
My very busy brain goes into the future and the past, so here’s one of my very favorite TV show theme songs from the distant past:
My very busy brain looks forward to some very busy activity in the comments section, below.
Finally, here’s some very busy gratitude for all who help me create these very busy posts, including YOU!
Last week, in a Coping and Healing group, I did a mindfulness exercise where I invited people to go to a calm place — remembered, imagined, or where they actually were in the moment. Most of the calm places involved water.
My calm place was exactly where I was: my son’s old room, in front of a computer screen filled with group members. Using mindfulness — focusing on your breath and doing your best to be in the moment, accepting all your thoughts and constantly redirecting your attention to the here and now, letting go of judgment — your calm place can be exactly where you are.
I’m in my calm place here and now, creating this blog post for you and me. Do you see calm places in today’s images?
I’m in my calm place whenever I’m watching British competition shows like “The Great British Bake Off” and “The Great Pottery Throw Down”. Those shows, despite the constant possibility of disastrous results for the contestants, are so much more calming than American competition shows.
Here‘s what I find when I search YouTube for “your calm place.”
It’s challenging to get to your calm place when there is so much to be vigilant about, these days. Please help make this blog a calm place by leaving a comment about your calm place, below.
Gratitude helps make every place a calm place, so thanks to all who help me create this daily blogging place, including YOU.
When I was driving to work the other day, my attention was attracted by a story on the radio about how Christmas lights on a vehicle are illegal because they distract and attract too much attention. The reporter said, “The animal in us notices everything that moves.”
Yesterday, when I was distracted by all the activity in the hall outside the group room (which I could see through the glass door), I invited the group members to do a mindfulness exercise where we noticed what attracted our attention and then stayed with that. What attracted my attention was not the activity outside the room, but rather the little ripples in my water bottle that was standing on the table and reflecting the movements in the room. Those ripples totally kept my attention throughout the mindfulness exercise.
What attracts my attention these days includes:
movement,
danger,
anger,
loud noises,
mysteries,
stress,
trauma,
pain,
politics,
faces,
the unexpected,
color,
light, and
the things in these photos:
That giant Santa cookie might have attracted my attention, but I didn’t buy it. However, I did buy some black and white chocolate drizzled popcorn, which attracted my attention way too much last night.
Hi, my fringe show has been accepted. There are shows from the 20th to the 24th.
Since Aaron and I both applied many months ago to perform our own shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (which starts in August), we’ve accepted the ever-growing possibility that neither of our shows would be accepted.
My son and I accepted the process of waiting to hear about our shows very differently — I kept holding out hope (until very recently) that we would both be accepted and Aaron very quickly accepted the stance of assuming that both of our shows would not go on.
I hope Aaron accepted both of my responses to his wonderful news:
Great!
What can we learn from this?
I hope you’ve accepted my intent there: to invite Aaron to hold on to hope in the future.
Personally, because I’ve accepted years of uncertainty dealing with medical issues from birth, it helps me to hold onto hope. I’ve accepted that other people deal with uncertainty very differently. (It’s accepted that I sometimes say this in my Coping and Healing groups: “Different strokes for different folks.”)
I’ve also accepted that I probably will not get a Fringe show, which was titled Group “Therapy” with Ann. However, if I do get accepted, I’m ready!
Aaron was accepted to teach English in Jordan this month, so when he gets back here on July 20th, we’ll make sure that YouTube accepts a longer version of that.
Also, I applied yesterday to join a panel in September for my 45th reunion at Harvard on “Picking up the Pieces: How Did You Embrace Life and Find Happiness Again?” In my application, I offered to talk about dealing with conflicting medical advice and finally getting a mechanical heart valve in 2016 (a process well documented and accepted on this blog). I wonder if my application will be accepted, especially since I offered to perform my original song “Shameless Appeals for Applause.”
Five years ago, I applied to be on a “Voices of Our Class” panel at my college reunion, and my application was not accepted. I’ve accepted that often you have to try, try again.
Most people dealing with a raging wild fire wouldn’t tweet “Most people are wonderful,” but Joel Engel did.
I liked that wonderful tweet and retweeted it.
Do you believe, like Joel Engel, that most people are wonderful? For the past two years, I’ve been having more trouble believing that most people are wonderful, but wonderful people like Joel Engel help me believe that, over and over again.
Are any of the photos I took yesterday wonderful?
I am full of wonder about how few people there are in those photos. However, the one I can see is wonderful, so ALL the people in this post are wonderful.
Here‘s “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” from the wonderful Jimmy Cliff.
As always, I give thanks for the wonderful people who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — for wonderful you.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 