reflections

Moving Meditation

~ onehopefulyear ~ 3 Comments

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I’ve been washing dishes since I was old enough to reach the faucet at the kitchen sink.

Do you have any idea how many dishes a family of seven uses each meal?

I washed. My sister dried. Night after night after night.

And I never thought I’d say this, but today … I find dish-washing kinda calming.

Even comforting.

There’s something meditative about the predictable pattern of wash, rinse, repeat. I am almost thoughtless, really, purely in the moment and soothed by warm water and soap bubbles, mesmerized a bit by a cotton towel. Drying. Stacking. Back and forth.

Clean.

Maybe it’s about creating order in a chaotic world. Or maybe it’s about completing simple tasks in a complicated life.

Whatever.

This mindset,  this moving meditation brings me peace.

Slow your busy mind down with these household chores too:

  • chopping vegetables – the rhythm satisfies the ear
  • folding laundry – warm from the dryer
  • making the bed – snug the sheets, pile the pillows … tuck, fluff, smooth
  • baking – see my post on how baking centers me here

How do you slow your busy mind?

 

 

 

 

So Many Ways to Pray

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

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There are as many ways to pray as there are people who pray.

Head in your hands, knees on the floor.

Prayers repeated over and over like a mantra in the middle of the night.

Some prayers, like wishes, for dreams, hopes, and desires. Others, like insurance, place hope against evil, or illness, or pain, sorrow, and suffering.

Hands folded. Hands waving high. Hands to heart.

Beginnings. Endings. Births. Deaths. And every day in between.

Thousands of thoughts. Millions and billions of voices in hundreds of languages raised up in a single religion of hope.

Prayers for today and tomorrow, for what has been and what may be. Prayers for people and pets. Prayers over new jobs, crops, good health, friends in need, college applications, a way out of trouble, and money to pay the bills.

Prayers for our children. Our families.

Holding hands, we pray over dinner.

Some pray in a building and others find their quiet moments in nature, heads held high to the sky above.

Candles lit for love and life. In the memory of.

Prayers for the planet. For the world full of its people. For peace.

I spent my morning prayer today beside a lake just before sunrise. The horizon glowed tangerine and the clouds, purple. I watched the sky blue little by little in the company of five ducks and a lonely loon calling from somewhere across the water.

Fog rolled in, just as problems sometimes do, and I never witnessed the actual sunrise.

I didn’t have to see it to know it was there.

Some prayers rely on faith.

 

Do you hear the voice?

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

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I’m sitting, right here, right now, in the I won’t judge-me zone.

Pull up a chair. All are welcome.

Honestly, I’m a little sweaty from the workout I just did.

But I’m smiling from the inside out and what’s even better than that … I can feel it too.

Fun fact about me:

According to all who know me best, I’m just about the most stubborn person around. In a good way. (I think.) Once I make up my mind, I’m just about immovable.

And I’ve made up my mind to make my body feel better. (If it starts to look better too … well then, that’s an excellent outcome as well, but not the original goal.)

So I just spent 40 minutes or so up in my bedroom balancing on one foot or the other, with and without weights, bending – reaching – lifting – curling – sweating – and working muscles.

As an aside … are you left footed or right? I never realized before that I have better balance on my left foot. I’m all kinds of wobbly on my right.

But.

I sit here in the I won’t judge-me zone, so I care not about my wobbles. Or my fumbles. Or about how I could only do 12 reps – with no repeat. I don’t mind that I’m probably doing it all wrong. Or that my body doesn’t look – or behave – like the woman’s body does in the picture.

Because I’m doing it.

I do belong to Planet Fitness, famously home to the judgement-free zone. Funny thing is, I wouldn’t really think for a minute about judging someone else working out there. (I’m too busy judging myself.)

Do you ever hear the voice? The one that tells you … you’re not fast enough, strong enough, young enough, thin … pretty … smart … or fill-in-the-blank enough?

I wondered today if that’s what Planet Fitness means by the judgement-free zone. To stop judging … myself?

So from here on out, when working out or writing or cooking or public speaking or teaching or parenting, or living … you’ll find me in the I won’t judge-me zone.

You are welcome to join me.

The voice, however, is not.

 

 

 

 

19,710 days

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

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As of today, I’ve been out in the world for 19,710 days.

And I stood there in the shower this morning, head full of suds, contemplating the new year ahead of me as one does on such a day.  I thought about vitamins – of all things – and how I should start taking them. And I need to drink more water. I’ll get out of this shower, I thought, and weigh myself so today can be my starting weight date, my birthday, the day (and year)  I finally get in shape. Finally get myself all together.

Once and for all.

As promises go, the only ones I have a hard time keeping are the ones I make to myself.

So.

I have no reason to believe, based on all the days before today, that this day, this year will be any different than the last. Or that today’s promises will be kept. I’m likely to forget the vitamins, skip the water, and continue day after day to watch my body reflect whatever I’ve chosen to put in it the day before. I’ll count my pounds and wrinkles, along with all the other real and/or perceived shortcomings, and vow to change it all – to change me -one more time.

And I rinsed the soap from my hair and thought ever so quickly how good it felt to be clean.

In that instant, in that one grain of sand through the hourglass of today, I felt a split-second of happy. Happy to be clean. Happy for the hot water. Happy in that moment, in that shower, in that small second of my life.

And I realized – right there in the shower – how tired I am of the endless mental litany of my own  lacking. I’m not ever quite the wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, teacher, writer … person … I want to be, should be, or am supposed to be.

I’m not sure where I got the yardstick I measure myself by, but it’s time to put it away.

For the love of all things great and small, enough is enough.

It’s time – before any more sand slips through that hourglass – to think more self-lovingly and less self-critically.

To go looking for those small moments of happy.  Gather them up in my arms, hug and hold them close. To appreciate them.

And I’m quite sure … if I can manage to keep that one, single promise … all the wishes I’ve ever made on coins in a fountain, shooting stars, or birthday candles will finally come true.