Week One

Day 5: Was, Friday? It must have been. I completed my meditation on a cushion in my bedroom and also practiced yoga. My routine was almost finished when the doorbell rang and two lovely gentlemen arrived with our new king sized mattresses! Holla!

Day 6: Today Deepak led us through a body scan, so I completed this act while lying across my previously mentioned brand spanking new mattresses. Since I have chronic sleep problems and issues, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce rest, relaxation, and positive associations with this new space that I will be spending a lot of my time on. We progressively relaxed our body from our feet to our head, then sent warmth and love to any tense areas. Is it something about listening to someone else's voice and following their suggestions that makes this so effective? Because it's not so effective if I try to just do it myself, with an inner direction.

Day 7: Yes! I successfully completed week one of the challenge: meditating every day. No, I do not enter a zen like trance free of distraction. Yes, my mind is busy. "Monkey mind" I believe this may be called? I'm reading this book, "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron (THE book, as my sister Bethany calls it) and I'm taking notes on passages that I find especially relevant to me. One that I keep coming back to is, "We do not meditate in order to become good at meditating." This was kind of a revelation for me. Every challenge I take on, everything that I DO... I want to be good at it. "Good". And I'm wrapping my mind around this new idea: Maybe that's not the point? It seems obvious, that's NOT the point. It's not the point of my life to be "Good". I need not be good all of the f*ing time. So, I'm slowly letting go of this ingrained path and learning to simply experience my life; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The beautiful. The heart wrenching. The painful. The joyous. The intense. The mundane. The whole spectrum.

It's a start.

3, 4, shut the door

Day 3 Meditation + yoga: check. Jude's in the other room watching vintage Goofy (pronounced "Cloofy") cartoons and laughing his head off. It feels so good to twist my spine, I can feel warmth & toxins releasing. I wonder what "Dosha" is dominant for me.

Day 4 RPM, rise, pee, meditate. No yoga yet. However, I am about to have lunch with my beautiful sister & her beautiful girlfriend.

21-Day Meditation Challenge "Perfect Health"

Thank you, Deepak, for coming back into my life! And you even brought Oprah this time. :)
The Chopra Institute has put out another 21 day meditation challenge, this time focusing on "perfect health". Whatever that means - it's different for everybody. I'm centering on the idea of seeking a balance of mind, body & spiritual health. The main areas that I believe I can improve my health is better sleep, consistent yoga, and practicing loving kindness. I'm excited to participate in my second Chopra challenge, and that some of my family members are also trying it out.

Day 1
Yesterday was day 1 of the challenge. Of course, I wanted to get up at 6:00 and meditate. In actuality, I couldn't sleep the night before because I was too busy mentally organizing my garage until 2:00 AM. (Come on, Becky!?) So, I slept in as late as I possibly could and consequently was grumpy and overtired all day. But, after I took a shower and had my little one in the bubble bath, I set a cushion in the bathroom doorway to do my meditation while keeping one eye open on the boy. Naturally, he saw me and said, "I want to meditate too!" I got him a pillow, dried off the bubbles, and we listened together. Not that he sat still for more than 30 seconds, but it was a pretty freakin adorable little 2 year old practice. I had my back against the wall in the hallway, which felt really good to have that support for my posture. It was a good first day. Then last night, I also went to my weekly yoga class - which was fantastic.

Day 2
Here it is, 8:30 AM, and I've successfully meditated and practiced yoga! Bonus: my baby boy is still asleep in bed. Okay, he's almost 3, he's not quite a baby, but as long as I'm living my baby he'll be.
I slept all night, and woke up at 6:40 feeling energetic. This is very unlike me. Especially since we "sprang forward" 2 days ago and it's really 7:30 right now.

Our mantra for today was literally:

"Yum Yum Yum"