Tag: mindfulness

Maybe: In the Washing Machine of Life
fitness

Maybe: In the Washing Machine of Life

Mina2 Comments

Last month I wrote about healing rollercoasters. I had planned to write something less turbulent this month. Instead, I’ve gone from rollercoaster to washing machine.

As I write this, over the holiday weekend in Canada, I am surrounded by the Rockies in Canmore, Alberta. I’ve been looking forward to this sojourn for months. The gift of looking up from my computer to see mountains outside my window. And to get out on the trails every day, to trail run, hike and mountain bike.

My fourth day, finishing up a run, I sprained my ankle. Badly. I watched it swell as I hobbled home crying, as if my ankle was being inflated by a bike pump. The physical pain was eclipsed by my mental anguish. Really? Was I going to be imprisoned inside, when just out my door there were miles and miles of forested mountain trails?

What was the universe trying to tell me? What message was I supposed to receive?

I was devastated. Here I am, trying to rebuild my life and instead of three weeks of heavenly nature immersion, I was going to have three weeks of psychic torture and physical pain. Here’s the first message I received: You, Mina, are a detestable person who deserves to be knocked down, repeatedly. Your ongoing, excruciating divorce is not enough. Nor is your financial precariousness, nor the Addison’s Disease. You have still not been punished enough. Yes, even as I was hearing this particular voice in my head, I was fully aware that whether or not I was going to engage with this psychic torture was in my control. Or at least theoretically. It’s easy to say that our state of mind is a decision we make. It’s harder to actually exercise that control.

I have been trying hard to control my mental condition. And for those of you who have read previous posts from me, you know that I was already fully immersed in an effort to visualize my future health (I am actively exploring the potential to heal my Addison’s Disease with a functional medicine practitioner). In that context, injuring my ankle felt like the universe just being plain mean. Understanding that the universe is not personal was my first bit of mental jujitsu. This is not a punishment. I was trail running. And as my friend Kim reminded me, ankles get twisted. This did not happen because I am a bad person. I realigned expectations.

I put flat pedals on my mountain bike and imagined riding around very gently on the flattest ground I could find with the hard plastic sprain boot on my foot. I have some experience with sprained ankles. I’ve also broken my foot, cracked ribs and done quite a number of other things to myself. So, I’m familiar with the healing trajectories.  I was calm. Or resigned. It’s sometimes hard to discern the difference. I knew what to expect. A lot of streaming Pilates at home. A sore hip from wearing the hard boot, which makes one leg longer than the other. Enforced stillness. Restlessness.

At the same time, I redeployed the Gladiator Therapeutics far infrared wave device I’d been using to heal my adrenals, and am now wearing it night and day around my ankle. While I have no idea if it’s actually working for my adrenals, I know it’s been working for my ankle.  How? Because, as incredibly swollen, ugly and wildly-colored my whole foot is, including my toes and my lower leg, I have experienced little pain. Certainly, there’s discomfort when I walk, especially down stairs. My ankle is stiff when I get up from sitting or lying down. And, I can walk on it, progressively more each day. It’s only been 9 days, as I write this and I went out for a 30-minute walk today (wearing flip flops). And I can ride my bike. On anything. Wearing a small ankle compression support and regular running shoes.

On my bike with the Three Sisters in the background. Inspect before riding sign, which made me laugh and was also accurate. And a surprisingly gentle section of the Rundle Riverside Trail.

I have never experienced ankle healing this quickly before. So, now what is the universe trying to tell me? What message am I to receive?  

I feel like I’m living in a washing machine, being savagely bounced around from one emotion to another. I am realigning expectations almost daily.

At this very moment, I am not hiking in British Columbia with my work colleague and friend, Michelle, who I’d planned to meet in person for the first time this holiday weekend. I was so excited to be with her. Michelle was going to drive from Nelson, B.C and we were to meet up in the middle, in Invermere. Instead, I’m alone in Canmore, nursing the enormous disappointment of not connecting with her. And then the washing machine flips me around, and I’m simultaneously ridiculously grateful for the grace of being able to mountain bike and get outside in the mountains, when I thought that would be impossible. Every turn of the pedal, every technical trail section I walk my bike, every mud puddle I splash through, I’m filled to the brim with the sheer unexpected pleasure of communing with nature.

Daily, I spin through a cycle of emotions, from devastation to elation and back again. I keep hoping to be rinsed clean, to spin into stillness, to be hung out to dry in a gentle mountain breeze. I am searching for meaning in what’s happened, for a story of why.   I wonder, is the universe offering me evidence that I can heal? To shore up my faith for the steeper climb to health I’m facing with the Addison’s? Or is the message more straightforward, simple—be grateful for what you can do, it’s not nothing, in fact, it’s a lot of something pretty joyful.

Maybe that’s the story. Or maybe not.

Michelle, my Nelson friend, reminded me of this Taoist story: An old farmer’s horse ran away, so the farmer could not tend his crops. His neighbor said, how awful, to which the farmer replied, maybe. The next day the horse returned, with three wild horses. What good fortune, the neighbor said. Maybe, the farmer replied. The following day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses and was thrown off, breaking his leg. What misfortune, the chatty neighbor said. The farmer replied, as always, maybe. Not long after, war broke out and the army came around to the villages to draft the eligible young men. Not the farmer’s son, who was healing from his broken leg. The neighbor, always quick with his take on any situation, said, well aren’t you lucky. Guess what the farmer replied … Maybe.

The story isn’t over. There’s no clear message. Maybe. In the meantime, I can try to minimize the frustration and be grateful for my body’s (or is it my mind’s?) capacity to heal and move.

Meditation…now with dogs (ok, just 1 dog, really)
dogs · fitness · meditation · mindfulness

Meditation…now with dogs (ok, just 1 dog, really)

Christine Hennebury

Over the past week, I have been choosing to do longer guided meditations in my Insight Timer app.

So, that means that instead of just opening the app and starting the timer, I’ve been searching for new meditations to try.

On Sunday, a typo led to the happy accident of discovering that there are a whole bunch of dog-related meditations mixed in there with the chakra stuff and the nature sounds.

At first I thought it was kind of silly (in a good way!) but then there was something strangely appealing about the idea of doing a dog-related meditation.

After all, dogs are pretty damn good at being in the moment, aren’t they?

And haven’t I often posted a calm picture of Khalee as a good example for myself.

You know, like this one:

A photo of a sleepy dog
Image description: a photo of sleepy Khalee on the quilt on my bed. The photo only shows her head, shoulders, and front paws. Her head is resting slightly sideways one her front paws with one paw sticking out from under it.

So, I figure it’s worth a try.

I can’t seem to link to the meditations in my app but here are a couple from YouTube:

This is a guided meditation to do while petting your dog, to help you both calm down.

‘5 Minute Guided Meditation With Your Dog’ from Marissa Walch. Still image shows the instructor sitting on the floor with her dog in front of her, the dog’s back is to the camera.

And this is a walking meditation to do while, you guessed it, walking your dog:

‘Walking Your Dog Meditation’ from Marie Wilkinson still image shows a stock cartoon image of a brown dog with white paws walking on a leash.

I’m going to give these, and the ones from my app, a try and report back.

Have you tried dog meditation?

What did you think?

PS – Speaking of things that seem silly but are actually kind of cool, maybe your dog will like this calming music as much as Khalee does? I played it for her once when she was agitated because the smoke alarm was beeping (the battery needed changing, there was no peril!) and it really helped.

Going More Slowly
fitness · mindfulness · rest · self care

Going More Slowly

elan.paulson1 Comment

In some recent conversations, friends have remarked how busy the Christmas holiday season has felt this year. Although the Pandemic Times were awful, stressful, and difficult, with far fewer social events it was, for some, at least a quieter and slower time.

Lately I’ve also been noticing stories friends have shared about slowness: “slow living” ideas, a slow AF run club online community, a “monk class” where students live an ascetic life for 30 days.

Sam, Christine, and Susan have long been encouraging and celebrating slowness on the FIFI blog. They have described helpful strategies they have used to slow down, including journaling, drawing, practicing yoga, and doing things alone.

I am grateful for these ideas. I also think it is tough for me to “slow down” by adding to my life more activities that promote slowness. Do I need more slower things, or just fewer things?

Doing fewer things is hard for me. I was raised to value efficiency and productivity, and I’ve always wanted plenty of people and fun new challenges in my life. I have amazing ppl in my life who are active, and I want to keep up. Though I’ve had plenty of FOMO, I’ve never really experienced JOMO, the “joy of missing out.”

However, a recent series of calendar mistakes, being sick with a cold that won’t go away, and a fender bender accident I caused when I was rushing and stressed have all been reminders (in the case of my car, an expensive one) that I need to take slowing down more seriously. It’s affecting my life in ways I don’t want.

During the Pandemic Times, Susan wrote about acknowledging the privilege she has to be able to slow down (when others can’t), yet at the same time note, as she writes, “[i]t doesn’t slow anything down at all for me to shamefully, gratefully cling to my privilege and watch the world spiral.” I feel this way too.

As I look to the new calendar year, I see my world is set to wind back up into the constant busy-ness that I crave but can also get overwhelmed by. I intend to be more mindful about doing less, go more slowly, and think about doing so as a privilege rather than a loss.

fitness · mindfulness · walking

Walking Quiet, Walking Loud

Christine Hennebury

I usually like to listen to podcasts or audiobooks* to add some extra fun when I take Khalee for a walk. On challenging days, when my walk would be filled with unhelpful rumination, focusing on a different narrative is really helpful.

However, me being me, I end up overthinking everything, including the fact that I listen to stuff while I walk.

Would it be better to walk quietly and just observe?

Should I make an effort to do walking meditations more often?

Would walking mindfully serve the same brain-clearing purpose as immersing myself in a narrative does?

A top down photo of a dog next to a bush with large pink flowers on it.
Khalee doesn’t listen to podcasts while she walks and she also doesn’t worry about whether it’s the right thing to do.

image description: A fairly close-up, top-down photo of Khalee, my light-haired dog, walking on some grass right past a large pink flower on a short bush. She is facing to the right and her head and shoulders are in the frame. The bush with the link flowers is to her left at the top of the image.

I didn’t know the answer to these questions so I’ve been choosing to walk without my headphones**every so often lately, just to see how I feel about it.

It turns out that I like it…as an occasional thing.

It’s good to take a break from my usual routine and I enjoy choosing to let my mind wander as I walk.

And it was interesting to realize that while I’m obviously more mindful while walking without headphones, it turns out that I am generally pretty observant on all my walks.

Even with my headphones on, I notice changes in my neighbourhood. I see different flowers and trees growing. I stop to take pictures.

A bunch of white daisies growing in some grass.
For example, I had to stop and get a photo of these happy daisies when I saw them recently. Image description: at least a dozen daisies growing tall amidst some grass. The daisies have white petals and yellow middles.

That’s not the behaviour of someone who is zoned out or too caught up in her entertainment to notice the world around her.

Waking loud (i.e. with headphones) or walking quiet (i.e. without headphones) turns out to be one of those situations where I can have it both ways.

Either type of walk is enjoyable and they both do me some good.

So I guess I’ll just play it by ear (ha!) from now on.

PS – What do you do when you’re walking? Are your headphones on or off?

*I have been having a great time listening to Ghostly Thistle’s fiction podcast The Antique Shop lately and I recently enjoyed Kate Racculia’s book Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts narrated by Lauren Fortgang.

**Well, headphone, singular, I don’t use two headphones while walking so I can stay aware of my surroundings. I only use two when I am wearing my hatphones – they don’t block out noise the way my regular headphones do.

Christine’s Wrist-Spy Doesn’t Know Everything
meditation · mindfulness

Christine’s Wrist-Spy Doesn’t Know Everything

Christine Hennebury5 Comments

Please note: Despite my whimsical title, this post is about grief. Proceed with caution.

A friend of mine jokingly refers to smart watches as ‘wrist spies.’ Since she says it without malice or judgement, I find it hilarious and I’ve started using the term on a regular basis.

As spies go, though, it has been failing this past week. It might end up having to come in from the cold.

On Sunday, I received a notification that my ‘Mindfulness’ minutes are down this week and I immediately said, aloud, “Shows what you know, Wrist Spy!”

(By the way, if me talking to an inanimate object makes you concerned for my state of mind, rest easy. I do it all the time and, so far, my wrist spy is the only object that talks back to me. And that only happens when I say her name…or, let’s be honest here, anything that sounds like her name.)

Seriously though, I thought it was pretty funny that my wrist spy was calling my attention to my mindfulness because this past week has been one of the most mindful times of my life.

As you know from last week’s post, my Dad passed away on May 6th.

I’ve spent the last week thinking about him, about his life, about our lives, and about what the world looks like without my Dad in it.

I had lots to do but I was never trying to keep busy to avoid thinking. Yet, I didn’t end up ruminating either. I just sat (or stood, or walked) with whatever came up.

I’m not trying to cast myself as a perfect model of emotional maturity and mindfulness here, this was more by fluke than by design.

And, it helped that the tasks I took on – writing the obituary, writing and delivering the eulogy – not only gave me some good structures for my thinking, they were also the types of practices I do to help me process big emotions.

I didn’t consciously choose those tasks to serve that purpose but my subconscious was clearly on the case this time.

So, instead of spending my time thinking about the fact that my Dad is gone, I could spend my time thinking about how he lived and who he was, and how his spirit lives on in his family and friends.

All of that thinking felt very mindful, very in-the-moment to me.

And when I started to cry, I just let myself cry until the worst of the feeling had passed.

When I felt overwhelmed, I breathed through it. Sometimes I did that on my own, sometimes because my husband said, “You’re breathing fast, try to slow it down.”

And, I found myself noticing everything so sharply and clearly.

I saw crocuses on a lawn when I was out for a walk with the dog. I looked at them closely – the petals, the colours, the leaves – and I had a flash thought that my Dad won’t ever see flowers like that again. He wasn’t big into flowers or anything but the thought still welled up. Instead of getting carried off into grief about the things he would miss, I, luckily, was able to choose to notice them for him. I paid close attention to the colours, the contrasts, the petals and leaves, and how they stood out against the dull grass.

A cluster of crocuses on a yellowed lawn
Image Description: a cluster of crocuses ( a few yellow and a few each of three shades of purple) surrounded by winter-worn grass.

And I drank my (many, many) cups of tea slowly, letting the mug warm my hands and letting the scent and taste wash over me.

I turned my face to the sun when it came out, feeling warmed and hopeful and bright, despite the circumstances.

I talked with so many people who knew Dad and I paid attention to the details they shared with me and leaned into the connection to him.

And, I did a hundred other small things that felt mindful and kept me present.

On Friday, as I was waiting before the memorial service began, I played some songs from a playlist that I created – Songs that make me think of Pete *- and I sat and breathed slowly and felt like things would be ok.

Ever since listening so carefully on Friday, a few lines from Itchycoo Park by Small Faces have been floating up over and over in my brain, reminding me of the good things in the world even during this challenging time.

(What did you feel there?) well, I cried
(But why the tears there?) tell you why
It’s all too beautiful, it’s all too beautiful
It’s all too beautiful, it’s all too beautiful

Obviously, I’m having a very different kind experience than the main character in the song m. His ability to notice the beauty around him hinged on the substances he took. I am looking for and feeling the beauty around me because the intensity of my emotions is making everything very vivid right now.

While it isn’t always easy, this vivid sense of awareness means I have been very “present” from moment to moment for the past week or so.

I’m feeling all the difficult feelings, I am acutely aware of my experiences, and I am sharply attuned to the beautiful things around me like crocuses and hot cups of tea and my friends rallying to support me.

And all of that adds up to mindfulness even if it isn’t happening in a way that a wrist spy can track.

My watch may be spying on me but it doesn’t know everything.



*Please note, some of these songs are from my Dad’s youth and hence some of the lyrics are sketchy at best. Please don’t judge my Dad for the songs he liked then and please don’t assume that he held every value (or lack thereof) expressed in every song. I included them in my playlist because they make me think of Dad singing them.

Meaningful May! Are you in?
fitness · mindfulness · motivation

Meaningful May! Are you in?

Christine Hennebury

I may not have my own goals for this month quite figured out yet but I’m definitely going to be borrowing some ideas from this month’s Action for Happiness calendar.

Meaningful May!

Finding meaning in our tasks, actions, and plans is good for our brains and for our hearts.

A yellow rectangle featuring a quote that reads “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” - William James.
Image description: a quote from William James that reads ‘Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.’ The text is in pale yellow against a light orange background. On the right hand side is a cartoon drawing of a person marching while holding a sign with a heart drawn on it. The words ‘Action for Happiness’ are on the bottom on a small banner extending from the left side.

Here’s this month’s calendar:

The daily tips calendar for Meaningful May.
Image description: a calendar of daily tips for Meaningful May. Individual calendar blocks are either red, pink, light blue or dark blue and the edges of the calendar are decorated with cartoon drawings of someone drawing, two cups of tea or coffee, a tree, a sunrise, etc.

Here’s a video about Meaningful May from Vanessa King, Head of Psychology at Action for Happiness.

Obviously, you don’t have to take on another daily practice if you don’t want to.

However, it could be fun to pick a few things from the calendar to try this month.

Mindful March? Sounds Good To Me!
mindfulness

Mindful March? Sounds Good To Me!

Christine Hennebury3 Comments

I know, I know, everyone and their dog is tell you to be mindful these days.

Image description: Khalee, a light-haired dog in a green sweatshirt on a bright yellow leash is standing on some hard-packed snow​ and looking to the left of the camera.
For the record, Khalee is very mindful but she’s not going to boss you around about it. She trusts you to do what’s best for you. Image description: Khalee, a light-haired dog in a green sweatshirt on a bright yellow leash is standing on some hard-packed snow and looking to the left of the camera.

Mindfulness is touted as a cure-all, the answer to everything and that can definitely get annoying.

It’s especially annoying when people get pushy and holier-than-thou about mindfulness, acting as if the only key to true living is to follow in their saintly footsteps.

And, of course, they either have no actual advice for how to be more mindful OR they have an extremely expensive program to sell you.

However, despite those jerks, finding ways to be more mindful in your day to day can actually be good for you.

It’s not a cure-all, it’s just helpful, and for most people it will provide a little well-being boost.

Note: I say ‘most people’ because I’m sure that I have read somewhere that meditation/mindfulness can be detrimental for people suffering from some mental health issues. So, I don’t want to be one of those pushy jerks and declare that everyone needs more mindfulness. Just be kind to yourself, whatever that looks like for you.

If you feel like mindfulness would boost your well-being, this month’s calendar from Action for Happiness is a good place to start. It’s not pushy and it’s not selling you anything.

And it’s definitely not holier-than-thou.

Their ‘Mindful March’ tips are all just small things to try each day to add a little mindful moment or two to your routine. Totally doable, at least most days!

Sound inviting?

Check out their calendar below.

A Mindful March calendar from Action for Happiness with each block coloured either dark green, light green, orange, or yellow, with the tip for that day in a complementary colour. The edges of the calendar are decorated with cartoon drawings of people doing mindful activities like watering flowers or chatting with a friend.
A Mindful March calendar from Action for Happiness with each block coloured either dark green, light green, orange, or yellow, with the tip for that day in a complementary colour. The edges of the calendar are decorated with cartoon drawings of people doing mindful activities like watering flowers or chatting with a friend. You can download your own copy at the Action for Happiness website.
Re-positioning my team sports positions
fitness

Re-positioning my team sports positions

elan.paulson

As I have discussed in some of my other FIFI posts, learning to play sports in mid-life means slowly and awkwardly developing new skills as an adult. It also means managing my expectations because I lack some of the durable motor memory skills that other players may have already developed during their childhood play.

However, I’ve been thinking about how some “durable” learning from my own childhood sport, baseball, perhaps has not been entirely beneficial for me as an adult player today.

When I started to play softball at 9 years old, my coaches put me straight into right field for the season. I remember standing way, way outfield, watching the tiny players running around infield, and looking up at the sun shining down on me from the sky.

In following seasons I improved my catching and throwing skills. I was moved to other positions infield (eventually to pitcher). From this experience I took that infield position was where the power and glory was. Right field was where you put players with little skill or game know-how. You couldn’t mess up the game too much from way out there.

After changing up my playing positions in my two rec team sports over the past few months, I noticed that I have brought this childhood assumption—my “right fielder thinking”—that novices should play certain positions.

Now in my third year of curling, I tried skipping during a few “fun” nights. I have an interest in game strategy, but I realized I couldn’t easily adapt when rocks were thrown in ways I wasn’t expecting. I also tried playing the second position, thinking that because I was a better player than when I started I would contribute more. But without the rhythms I had established for myself in the lead position, as second I had the worst game in my 2.5 years!

In soccer, we’ve been short some players as the Christmas holiday season approaches, so I’ve tried playing midfield and striker. I still don’t have consistently strong cardio or ball-handling skills: I watch my own feet like a novice ballroom dancer. But overall, I have had more success shifting positions. It turns out I like running to get open and try to receive a ball rather than wait for opposing players to come to me, as I would in a defence position. My impatience helps me to want to find solutions to problems.

Playing in these new positions has allowed me to watch players in my old positions. In soccer, I see some defenders not as novices but as tough players and strong kickers. In curling, my skip tells me that while the least seasoned player is often put in the lead position, that position is critical for starting the ends, reading the ice, and calling the weights. I am slowly getting better at those key skills with practice.

New positions have brought into relief the errors of my old right-fielder thinking that tells me certain positions are my only option. That logic falls down in many ways. Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Roberto Clemente were all right fielders, and they were some of the best players in the game ever!

Another small but clear memory surfaces of 9 year-old me standing in own home field outfield. I remember how, when a ball did come, I was the only outfielder who had to make the catch with the sun directly in my eyes. I still managed the catch once in awhile, and that was something.

The Intense Challenge of No Workouts for a Week
fitness

The Intense Challenge of No Workouts for a Week

Mina2 Comments

Over the American Thanksgiving week, I was in Costa Rica on an 8-day retreat; an opportunity to radically slow down and look inward. As part of the retreat experience, I decided to challenge myself to not workout for the week either. 2022 has been an extremely challenging year for me, so far, up to and including my mother’s sudden and unexpected death a month ago. My body has been feeling the accumulation of exhaustion, even as my movement has also felt like my salvation at times. This retreat seemed like an opportune moment to make the choice to not elevate my heart rate.  

A bit of background—I’m addicted to moving my body in a vigorous fashion. I generally workout 6 days a week, with one day of rest. And rest still involves walking or biking around town for 30+ minutes. In weeks when I know I’m absolutely not going to be able to get in any exercise on a particular day that’s not my preassigned rest day, I’ll re-engineer my schedule to extend the number of workout days in row, so that the day I can’t exercise becomes my rest day.

A few sentences ago, when I used that word addiction, I decided to look it up and make sure I wasn’t being extravagant. Nope. The definition talks about occupying oneself with something habitually or compulsively. And workouts are, for me, always habitual and sometimes compulsive (which you may already be thinking from what I’ve said so far).

I didn’t 100% commit to the no-workout idea in advance. I wore my running shoes on the plane. Just in case I decided I wanted to hike or run or go for a walk that was longer or faster paced than my flip flops would support. Normally, even if I was planning on running somewhere, I would not wear my running shoes on the plane. I only wear running shoes when I’m actually running (or hiking) or on my way to or from the activity (I could go on for some time on this topic, but that’s a different rabbit hole). In this case, in the interests of packing as light as possible, I didn’t want to wear street shoes on the plane and add runners to my luggage. All to say that wearing my running shoes, as if they were street shoes, was my first opportunity of the retreat week to let go of my usual way of being.

As soon as I got to Sugar Beach and saw the setup, I understood that running was pretty much out of the question anyhow. We were asked not to leave the property (to maintain our inward focus and group container) and the beach is in a small cove, unconducive to a beach run. There was a gym with a treadmill. That didn’t appeal. And there was wifi, so I could have streamed workouts from my Peloton app. That didn’t appeal either. In the context of being on retreat, those options felt too much in the world. Whereas running outdoors has the potential to feel more unplugged. I have, for example, gone for runs at silent meditation retreats.

I put my running shoes at the back of my closet and didn’t touch them again until it came time to leave for my flight. 8 days later.

What did I do?

Short beach walks. Dips in the ocean. Playing in the waves. Walking from place to place on the relatively small property. And the 60-minute light movement class, which was offered to participants, on 7 of the 8 days. Plus, 5-10 sun salutations before three of those movement classes. The movement class focused on balance, posture, bilateral alignment, stretching, fluidity, and re-learning developmental movements (by which I mean things like learning to crawl). This video of a move called pinwheel (to increase fluidity in the hips, knees and ankles and strengthen the core), is an example of one of the more vigorous movements.

And this heel rocking (to relieve body tension, promote tranquility and activate the parasympathetic nervous system) is an example of the typical level of effort:

How did it go?

Well, the first few days my body felt great. Quiet. Rested. Limber. Easy. Alert. Dipping in the ocean and in movement class, I could feel the strength of my muscles in a new way, as if the noise of their usual fatigue and even soreness was out of the way, making it easier to hear their pleasure in the gentler exertions. By day 5, I was starting to feel restless. Caged. My physical energy didn’t quite know where to go.

I was in need of a steam valve.

And, well, I left out two blocks of movement (on days 6 and 7) in my list above. There was dancing. Once for about 20 minutes and a second time for 45 minutes. I danced my heart out, fueled by the steam energy of my days of rest.

Dancing

Is

Glorious

The dancing was all I needed to feel free again.

I haven’t talked about food yet. To be sure, food has some bearing on my relationship with exercise. Part of the compulsivity that sneaks into my workouts, at times, is the feeling that I need to counter balance my appetite for food. On the rare other occasions, when the counter balance of exercise has been eliminated from the equation, I have cut back radically on my eating. This time, I didn’t do that. If anything, I ate more for breakfast and lunch than is my norm. I didn’t bring any snack food with me. And there was none available. Plus, in keeping with the spirit of the retreat, there was no sugar, dairy or gluten in any of the food that was served. I have no idea if I consumed more or less calories than I usually do. What I know is that my body felt stable. Neither heavier nor lighter. Or maybe that was just my mind. I ate until I felt satiated and then I stopped. A level of simplicity I seem to have difficulty with in the swirl of daily life, in which I’m often either forbidding myself a next bite or groaning and stuffed. The opposite of last week’s simplicity.

All to say, it was an interesting pause for self-investigation and reflection (and I haven’t even talked about the retreat program). I’m glad to be back in the swing of my regular life. I’m back at my workouts and grateful for the sweat. And I’m taking my reintegration as slow as possible, given work and other responsibilities. So that I can stay connected with what I learned and what will emerge as the dust settles on the experience.    

A short list of things I learned (mostly again):

  1. My body loves to move. My movement is not just habitual and compulsive. It’s a joy.
  2. Be more mindful of where the balance lies between joy, habit and compulsion.
  3. Take such rest breaks more often. Then they can be shorter.
  4. No one but me noticed or cared that I was wearing running shoes on the plane.
  5. Dance. Dance more.
A short reflection on 22 days of meditation
ADHD · fitness · meditation · mindfulness

A short reflection on 22 days of meditation

Christine Hennebury2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I posted about finding ease by doing the easy thing and, at that point, I was on my 9th day of yoga and meditation.

As I write this (on Monday night) I am at Day 22 and I feel really good, really at ease.

A screen cap from a meditation app that shows a small round photo, text reading ‘22 Consecutive Days’, and a row of stars.
I chose this profile photo in Insight Timer ages ago, I didn’t realize until now that the teeny version looks either smug or disconcerted – I’m actually smirking of course. Meanwhile, I love that the app has given me gold stars. Image A screen capture from the ‘Insight Timer’ app that shows a small photo of me, text that reads ‘22 consecutive days’ and a row of 5 stars – 2 bronze and 3 gold.

Not every minute of every day but, at any given point, it’s a little easier to find that space, that breathing room, when I need it.

And, to be clear, I’m not saying that I am meditating here and there in search of that ease. I mean that, because of my short daily meditation sessions, there’s a little bit of extra room in between my thoughts – I just have to choose to look for it.

Given my galloping ADHD brain, sometimes it is a bit tricky to remember to make that choice but I am definitely making it more often than I ever have before.

An up-close view of evergreen needles.
Looking closely at these evergreen needles also makes me feel peaceful so I thought I’d share. 💚 image description: an up-close view of evergreen needles on a tree.

I know that I have tried to develop a meditation practice several times before and my results were mixed, to say the least.

This time, though, doing the easy thing, not making a plan, just taking it a day at a time has worked out marvellously for me.

It has become easy and straightforward to include meditation at the end of my day – sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for 2 minutes – and I feel great about it.

In case you were wondering, Khalee is also a fan of my quiet practice…

A light haired dog rests in a burgundy armchair.
When I finished my practice a couple of nights ago, I looked up from my mat to see Khalee looking off in the distance like this. I can only assume she was mindfully paying attention to her breath like I was. Image description: Khalee, my light-haired, medium-sized dog, is resting in a burgundy armchair. Her head is resting on the seat cushion and she is deeply relaxed while she looks forward but off somewhere to left of the camera.