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Monday - May 8th - Ho Ho Here we go. Another week to do better, be better, make a difference. This will likely be a really really long journal because I did have several ‘aha’ moments this weekend and want to get them all recorded. Read, don’t read, your option.
I’m in my shop two hours early waiting on the washer repairman who was supposed to have been here a half hour ago. Inhale and exhale … it’ll be fine … projecting image of neatly folded clean laundry versus that unholy pile of … inhale, hold it… exhale. Whew.
Veggie juice beside me and half finished within the half hour - this morning is beets, carrots, granny smith apple, pineapple, blueberry and all the knick-knacks (chia, flax, maca, coconut oil and ginger juice.) And I’m happy to report it’s ‘good’. Much improved over ‘drinkable’.
Experimenting this weekend yielded the realization that the ‘one step above lawn clippings taste’ only happens when spinach is one of the ingredients. So despite the gazillion juice videos online displaying spinach as the main ingredient I’m going to have to get that particular vegetable in a different method. As I love spinach slightly wilted in the skillet with peppers and onions that’s not an issue.
So now I think I’ll go pickup some broccoli, brussels sprouts, maybe green peas, green beans, other veggies to try to ‘get my green on’ in the juice. I’m even planning on taking the nutribullet to the cabin this weekend. Maybe for the juice; maybe for the frozen adult beverages. Hey, what happens in the cabin stays in the cabin.
Preparing for the trip I had the most delightful ‘aha’ ~ I was packing the knick-knacks and decided ‘instead of three different containers for the chia, flax & maca I’ll just combine equal parts and over the three days it’ll all work out”. And then I stood there and released a loud ‘well, Duh, of Course!’ that even startled Mushy.
I’m OCD. I can’t stand cluttered cabinets or surfaces even when it’s canisters full of healthy stuff waiting for the morning lab experiment. So the ‘duh’ was: “Well, Gee, Bells, if you can mix this up for the weekend, why not mix it up for the week?” Canisters on the surface reduced. Palm sweat decreasing.
Most of the weekend was moving just enough so people wouldn’t worry I’d died. I am going to try yet another Pinterest idea of mixing the oils lavender, magnesium and eucalyptus and spraying that on the soles of my feet at bedtime; it’s supposed to promote sleep (a commodity much needed!). I may even try the one about the sliced onion which is supposed to do the same on top of detox, heal, and I think repair bad credit. That one will be harder. I will instinctively kick socks off at night. That is too gross to contemplate finding onions on my sheets.
But that’s how desperate I am. All the sleep aides, luna, st John’s wort, melatonin, etc., you name it I’ve tried it. I have to find a way to get more than two hours a night. I know this is bad for my health.
The Sound Immersion Bath Friday night…? Well, it was a little challenging but I’m pleased that rather than running for the hills as I wanted to I stuck it out and managed to crawl away with a technique for ‘dealing’.
To begin with, the floor reeked of PineSol and not the new fresh scented flowery fruity modern smell but that old one bringing memories of hospitals flooding back to me. Yoga Girl swore she couldn’t smell it and suggested I was confusing it with the incense. I was not. I know this for a fact because once out of the ‘studio’ and back in the common area I no longer had difficulty breathing and my headache went away. It was a little uncomfortably warm at first but eventually cooled down.
But in effort to be mindful (and unlike the instructor I’m NOT going to bore you with mind numbing explanations of being mindful. If you’re new to planet earth and haven’t heard this phrase uttered in the past five seconds … well, just google it. I could barely contain myself from drumming on the floor and other fidgeting moves during this part.) I worked to block all of that out.
Finally the drums, bowls, sounds began. I put on my sleep mask and inserted my earplugs (to soften what Yoga Girl had warned could be really loud and thankfully she did because it was!) And began my own mindful exercise aka known as ‘quieting the monkey mind’. This is so challenging for me.. I feel like have a gorilla gourd.
So I would start at the top of my head and take a full ‘in the moment’ inventory head to toe. How did I feel right then, etc. Hot, nauseas, aggravated, uncomfortable. But eventually I’d work through the list up and down concentrating especially hard when the noises were louder. I know the ‘explosive’ parts were intended to be energizing but all I wanted to do was yell ‘knock it off!’
But I finally realized I was not so aware of the sounds. I’d began meditating so deeply that for a brief time (maybe only a few minutes) I was no longer hot, nauseas, etc., I was just ‘out there’. I was no longer aggravated by the noise. I was mentally flatlined beyond imagining my body, breathing and space. It was actually relaxing.
Eventually I did return to the ‘now’ and was most relieved when it ended before I turned over on my stomach and started reading news off my phone or something. I feel a half hour of that would have been enough for newbies. But the technique did stay with me even to the point that when we were having dinner later I didn’t even notice the crying baby in the restaurant. Yoga Girl pointed it out and I had to think and acknowledge the sound.
Point? I guess when it seems the TV or music in the next room is too loud, neighbor mowing the yard at 6am on a Saturday morning, etc., this practice in mindful meditation could be used to keep the blood pressure low and screaming at bay. So another positive ‘aha’.
Well, the repair guys have been here and gone. I think for a bit I looked like a desperate lonely old gal crying wolf… in other words the washer was working again. I was told ‘oh, we believe you… it is mostly likely the bearings going out and sometimes they catch ( the ‘tub’ wouldn’t spin out and wring the clothes ) and sometimes they don’t until it goes out eventually. So I have a new set coming tomorrow. As the washer is nearly 20 years old and the dryer at least half that, I’d been wondering when this would happen. Now, Bella, now. I’d half expected the dryer to go out first. It worked, but was making horrible screeching noises. I guess it’s time.
So the final ‘aha’ moment came up with Yoga Girl. Over the past year I’ve been acutely aware of an unpleasant increase in her refusal to ‘not sweat the small stuff’ and that was bleeding into finding fault in everything we experienced.
Lest you leap to the response ‘kettle kettle, black black Bella’ based on Grace’s recent unsolicited lecture on ‘my’ negativity over the San Antonio trip, not to worry. I acknowledged that fully during my discussion with Yoga.
We’re trying to form a ‘routine’. I don’t have any of those ala ‘we have a poker group that meets the third Tuesday of the month’ etc. I generally ‘HATE’ scheduled events as evidenced by the way I try to weasel out of them as the date approaches. But we decided the random spur of the moment just wasn’t good enough and wanted to do better.
So a couple of months ago we made an agreement to have Breakfast out the first Saturday of the Month. However, second month of this and we’d had two bad restaurant's (service, food) in a row and we were casting about for ideas on managing this. We discussed becoming amateur food critics and writing a blog.
But I could tell, especially based on her comment ‘we could do this every time, I can always find something to bitch about’ followed up with her suggestion to tag the Chamber of Commerce that my plan to download a few restaurant critique forms in effort to make us focus on what went ‘right’ had gone right over her head. I told her the blog sounded interesting as long as it was fair but I wasn’t going to approach it mean spirited.
That conversation morphed into about a four hour phone session (she phoned me later with her latest rant on something that I considered ‘small’) and I finally said (prefacing with the kettle/black comment and asking if she really wanted my opinion or just let her vent to which she replied she did want feedback) that I’d noticed a constant state of chewing away and allowing herself to be upset over every small detail that crossed her path.
I suggested some techniques for dealing with two situations that had her most aggravated and she phoned yesterday to tell me both had worked and she felt so much better. So I guess the ‘aha’ was … well, I’m not sure ‘what’ the aha was. Maybe it was a refusal to write a mean blog about a local restaurant no matter how much they needed it, LOL. Maybe it was helping my friend find a way recover some peace and grace in her life. Maybe it was finally getting to share my observation ‘of her’‘with her at a time when she was willing to hear it (after having bit my tongue repeatedly the past year…) - I’m sure there’s an aha about patience and timing in there. Maybe it was a reinforcement to me that I would now need to ‘walk the talk’ and keep my own negativity in check.
Maybe it’s time I put an end to this journal today.
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