mindfulness – Creative Meanderings

Resilient, Adaptable, Flexible, and…

May 262022

temporarily selfless… these are today’s words.

It has been a somewhat emotional, slightly challenging, and a little numbing week. The currency market took the forex fund by surprise drastically decreasing our source of income over a 48-hour period. 😳

Luckily, we are not broke – yet. Luckily, we still have a roof over our heads – for now. Luckily, we still have each other – for sure and forever.

Strangely enough, it was just last weekend when I went on a rant to my partner in life about how I was starting to become numb to decisions being made on my behalf. Some of those decisions I have gone along with based on what I understood at the start, some of them I have had little or no say in because there is nothing I can actually do to offset or affect change to them. Therefore, I have to turn the dial on my emotion of caring toward the down or near ‘off’ side in order to not completely lose my mind or cool – well, at least not much of my cool. 😅

The fact is that I am resilient. Early childhood trauma and drama taught me that and gave me the skills to become so. The Grim Reaper hasn’t taken me yet despite shadows of his presence lurking behind corners at times, so I figure I still got time in this universe.

As part of becoming resilient, I also have learned to be adaptable. Moving from home to home, family to family, country to country, person to person, I can adjust my needs, wants, and focus as required. Learning not to become overly attached to things until proof of longevity is given, I am OK with whatever comes.

One cannot be adaptable without also being flexible. Although I am not flexible in my values or much of my personality 🤷🏽‍♀️, I can be flexible with my time, focus, and priorities. Yoga and meditation 🧘‍♀️ were tools that provided me with the true realization of this gift. Without them, I would not be writing this so confidently, or calmly.

As for the selfless aspect, well, I did put ‘temporarily’. 😬

It is not sustainable to be selfless forever, but when needed I can access it thanks to all of the above. My toolbox of crisis control and management in people and decision-making has its perks when it comes to living the kind of life we/I do. There is much in our world and lives that we cannot control, but there is also much that we can – starting within ourselves.

So, I choose to focus on what I can do. Once those actions are determined, it is just a matter of taking them to ensure that when the stormy waves subside, I am well placed to take advantage of being selfish – and trust me, I will! 😜

~T 🔥🐉 ♋️

Communication – Open and Honest

Going Mental No Responses »

Jul 012021

Communication is the thread that connects all of us together. It is when we cut the lines or allow them to get tangled up that almost every problem arises.

These days, I am one hundred percent convinced that too much is shared with the general public. We have confused the concept of “open communication” with “transparency”.

The truth is that no one really wants transparency as a two-way street ↔️. If we did, we would all live in glass houses and be content for everyone to be all up in our business. When people cry for transparency, it is almost always a one-way street ➡️.

Instead, I suggest that we have open communication.

Through a dialogue, we can work through our differences and come to an understanding, even if it is to respectfully “agree to disagree” 🤝.

With that said, I do draw the line in the sand when it comes to certain topics with people I barely know or when there is drink involved or when it is clear that the other party’s mind is sealed around their own point of view. It is in these instances that I tend to not take my own suggestion.

A few weeks ago, I watched and listened in awe as M had a lively discussion with someone regarding her vote for Brexit and conservative, patriotic view of the English empire and influence in the world. It was a respectful and open communication in every way.

On the other side of the table was her partner and another friend of theirs, who were mumbling their own drunken opinions that were more assumptive and presumptive of M as the debater against her views and further wanting to interject unhelpful comments. The man then turned to me asking why I was not participating in the discussion or engaging with them on the topic. I politely explained my steadfast rule of not talking about politics, money, or religion with people I don’t know very well especially when alcohol is involved.

He expressed frustration by saying, “Surely, you must have an opinion though on these topics.” To which I replied, “Of course, I do”. Then came the main point –

Him: “You might be able to change someone’s mind if you share your opinion.”

Me: “I do not need to change anyone’s mind and it really does not matter.”

Him: “But, why not?”

Me inside my head: “Because I do not care if you agree with me or not.” Instead, I just smiled and said, “I am happy to listen and respect the opinions that others want to share.”

He was not pleased with my answer and proceeded to stare at me in frustration and confusion that I would not engage with him or the discussion. Granted, he had had a few drinks 🍷 and I was completely drunk on water 💧. 😜

This exchange has given me a lot of contemplation, 🤔 though. Because, while I am absolutely an advocate for open and honest communication, I realized that I definitely have requirements on the conditions in which I feel this can happen.

As someone who doesn’t particularly like people in groups or en masse, I find that I struggle with allowing opportunities to connect with others if I do not see any future interaction or engagement with them. My jaded past and nomadic lifestyle has taught me to filter out the passing of people in and out of my life. Therefore, I have an inhospitable tendency to dismiss a chance to communicate openly and honestly with those I think it not worth the time and effort to have said open and honest discussions.

However, there have been a number of instances (especially of late) proving that the world has become smaller and the chances of never seeing that person, or someone who knows that person, again are much less than they used to be. So, perhaps I do indeed need to recalibrate my tendency and give people more of a chance and be more open to the opportunities to have deep, thoughtful, and possibly mind-changing discussions.

It will likely take me some time to get the balance right, but that is the joy of life – continuing to learn how to grow as a person and keeping the threads aligned through open and honest communication.

~T 😀

Retreating

Going Mental No Responses »

Nov 092018

When the sun and moon align, people gather together to view the phenomenon with the promise of each time being the ~est in our lifetimes. Yet, it is this equilibrium and balance that awes us and, despite all the fanfare and build up, lasts mere moments.

Our life experiences are similar. Though we do not always see the build up or understand the fanfare (aka drama) that we go through, we do live for those mere moments. Yet, there are also times when our focus is so much on the build up and drama that we miss the brief moment that it was all meant for. It is only when we have the luxury of time and reflection that we sometimes find light in the shadows.

In 2017, I had high hopes for life and was on a path that I thought was taking me to a better version of myself and my life. In fact, contrary to my usual avoidance in making New Year’s Resolutions, I set out quite a list of them for that year. Unfortunately, other than managing to finish my RYT500 yoga teacher training, I did very little in terms of the goals I had laid out. (Lesson being I’m probably not going to do that again! 😛 )

However, with somewhat disbelief that nearly two years have passed since our lives were quite different from now, I have been given the luxury of time and reflection to see the light in the shadows of those darker days when it seemed that there was no way out.

When we moved to Japan again, I took some time away from the world of yoga and mindful meditation. I didn’t have time to focus any energy on that as we had to go into survival and rebuilding mode. It was what was needed at the time, and still is to some degree for the foreseeable future. Still, as the Universe and God continue to bless us, some potential possibilities were building up to the forefront of reality.

In an early conversation about possibly getting to the point in our life to again think about traveling or taking some time to decompress at a retreat, my BFF mentioned that she follows someone on Instagram who hosts yoga and meditation retreats in Japan. I took note for later, as we were nowhere near a place to be considering such a thing seriously. Then, proving that the Universe knows, she forwarded me an article that came out interviewing the host of the retreats with more details about it. I again saved it for a later date since the timing was in the summer and we were just starting to touch our feet to the ground again.

Over the months, with the help of some secret-ing, we avoided attracting too much drama and instead focused on the alignment of our lives in all areas, as much as possible. Through this, the Universe and God conspired together to align timing and funding; thus, creating the opportunity to be able to attend the Dairyuji Yoga and Mindfulness Retreat in the very local city of Oga located in Akita Prefecture.

Literally everything aligned.

I was able to leave work early and take the five-hour trip from Tokyo to Oga for a meaningful and refreshing weekend.

Meeting G & K, our hosts, was like reading an inspirational book that reignites a flame of hope in humanity. Their kindness and openness was as fresh as the country ocean air surrounding the Oga peninsula.

For a yoga/mindfulness retreat, this one was an easy way to get my feet wet as a first-time experience. I don’t know about others, but my image of some retreats is more hard-core yoga practice and inescapable focus on being “spiritual”.

Perhaps because of the environment of the temple itself, or perhaps because of the people themselves, there wasn’t a need to be pushy. If anything, they could perhaps have been pushier with a bit more yoga and meditation time. However, if the aim was to provide a relaxing retreat environment with an opportunity to explore mindfulness and try some yoga, this was a success.

As an added bonus, I made connections with people whom I may never see again, and yet I feel were purposeful interactions drawing a nearly full circle from past to present. I think I’ve said before that I believe all connections have meaning and though I may not fully know what they are now, I hold them close in anticipation for a later revelation.

So, I will let the pictures speak for themselves as I consider the next possible, perhaps more hard-core, retreat in the future! 😉

Dairyuji-Oga Yoga/Meditation Retreat_Oct2018 / Google Photos

~T 😀

Making Space

Going Mental 1 Response »

Oct 182018

Whenever there is a lot of clutter in my life, I feel out of sorts and confused. Perhaps this is why organizing is like a hobby for me as it makes me feel cool, calm, collected and in control. 😉

As a young child I had no say in who my family was, where I lived, where I went or what I possessed. My early movements were so frequent that I could never form an attachment to anything or anyone. This lack of control or say in my life contributed to a harmless, but significant need to keep every scrap of paper that represented a memory in my life – from manuals to devices/appliances I no longer own, to my first set of Valentine’s cards in the first elementary school that I actually stayed in, to contracts of employment for every important job I’ve had thus far, to notebook after notebook that might carry some random thought I had about whatever was happening in that moment.

Study and teaching materials, monthly bills, movie tickets, travel brochures and receipts from trips all filled boxes that have moved with me throughout my adult life – nine years in Japan, nearly nine years in the UAE and now back to Japan.

Since our things finally arrived after a year in storage in the desert, we have been trying to sort out how to make what seemed like a minimalist lifestyle there fit into our new truly limited space – which is spacious by any standard here for just two people.

Additionally, life now has different meaning and purpose than it used to.

Before, I was all about the papers – articles I have read, articles I have written, articles I want to write and any (and every) article that represented my ‘wealth of knowledge’. Meaning and purpose was founded in the status of what these papers represented. I felt control and satisfaction over the fact that I have a record of my life and events in the myriad of boxes that have traveled with me.

My husband likes to give me grief about the fact that many of my papers have come full circle. 😛 Some of the papers were useful to me, but the truth is that I wasn’t ready to let go of the life these papers represented.

After a number of pivotal moments, my life has greatly changed in the last few years. At last, it is time for the papers to go into the circular file – letting go of the past.

So, as I filled nearly 30 45L trash bags with that which no longer serves me, I felt not a loss of control, but rather a sense of freedom. The weight of all those papers was being lifted as my sweet partner encouraged me to get rid of the meaningless and unnecessary scraps of the past. At the same time, he supported me in keeping the items that represent important memories knowing how they can anchor me in remembering transitional periods of life back then. Still, I joked, my entire adult life (and some of my childhood) was boiled down to these 30 garbage bags.

Although I have not left a paper-trail-friendly profession completely, my home is now a safe space that I only want to fill with memories of travels, pictures of those I love, and items of a shared life with my partner. Each thing will now have meaning and purpose to represent all that I cherish rather than all that I could not let go of.

For the first time in my adult life, I have pictures and things up on my walls with plans to put up more. For the first time in my adult life, I am willing to establish a place to call home. For the first time in my adult life, I am not concerned about collecting everything just in case something is forgotten.

This process is far from being complete – I have collected a lot of stuff, so it will take a bit more time! However, the major boxes are emptied and many items have been discarded.

Now, we have more space to fill, carefully, with that which represents our life together serving us with love and joy.

~T 😀

TWWs

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 162017

Well, this week turned out a little bit better than last. I can definitely feel the difference, so that is good news! 😀

Tuesday (Oct 10)

Meditation for 30minutes
Vjnana Manual Sunday practice (40mins)

Wednesday (Oct 11)

Mindfulness Reading for 20minutes

Thursday (Oct 12)

Meditation for 12minutes
Free practice (20mins)

Friday (Oct 13)

Meditation for 26minutes
Vjnana Manual Friday practice (34mins)

~T 😀

Still Writing….

Writing No Responses »

Oct 042017

Although I have been quiet here with my up and down pattern of writing or promising to write regularly again, I did manage to get an article written last month for April Magazine.

This is the beginning of a series that I will be writing on Spiritual Wellbeing.

In some ways it is rather ironic given my life has gone topsy-turvy lately, but then again perhaps it is just the perspective I need to be able to write something worthwhile for readers. It also seems to be a good catalyst for getting me back on track so that I am not a writing hypocrite. 😛

In any case, it’s a new month. Fall has arrived and I am coming to terms with the concept of ‘cool’ and ‘cold’ that does not involve a blasting AC system. 😉

Still much ahead and the wheels continue to turn in my head with ideas and more ideas and more ideas!!!

~T 😀

Stilling the Mind

Going Mental No Responses »

Apr 172017

Yesterday I decided to try to get myself back into the practice of meditation and yoga since I had taken a break from my own practice outside of lessons. However, when I came home on Saturday with a bit of a sore back from doing poses without warming up with my client, I decided I needed to work on my own. So with a seemingly lofty goal of sitting first for 30 minutes and then a practice, I set my mind to it.

Well, 30 minutes went by very quickly and just as I was starting to notice the numbness of my bum and legs, the bell rang noting that my time was over if I chose it to be. I felt quite pleased with this as I am trying to get myself up to 90 minutes for a 10-day silent meditation retreat at the end of June. My practice was good, though somewhat boring and also revealing that I need to work on upping my game a bit. I am not sure how to do this on my own – I may need to get on to YouTube….

In any case, stilling the mind was good. It also worked to bring about an immediate need that I had asked for by the end of the day. I am also looking for more signs from the universe/God about our direction for the future, but think I may need a bit more sitting time.

This morning I did not sit as my emotions have taken over today – perhaps as a result of yesterday’s session. So, I need to take a day to let everything process and see where I might need to be careful in my next sitting session. I know they say that part of the discipline is to sit through everything and so most likely I should be sitting through the emotions as well, but that next step is still in the works.

As I do learn to still my mind, I become acutely aware of how much we do not sit still. In our last yoga training weekend we had a brief discussion about the use of music in yoga classes. For me, I really dislike it because it distracts me from my practice as all I hear are lyrics or strand of music that come from pop songs. Due to my hypersensitivity to sound it invades my thoughts and keeps me from awareness of my body and mind in union together through the movements. For others, they crave the sounds and noise for the very purpose of distraction. They seem to almost be afraid of their own thoughts and allow frustrations of their minds to control the movements of their body claiming that the music helps them to focus. Yet to me, the music helps them to be distracted from their minds which defeats the true depth and purpose of yoga. (Think I found a good topic for the business blog!) It is not a stilling of the mind, but rather a distraction of the mind – which are indeed very different things.

So, as I process the waves of emotions that arose from my sitting and stilling yesterday, I also acknowledge that I, too, need to push through even that to further still the body. Practice makes perfect, right?! 😛

~T 😀

Meditating

Going Mental No Responses »

Sep 262016

After a barely successful attempt at staying sane last week, I decided that I needed to refocus on ensuring that I get myself sitting each day to meditate. The truth is that I have been out of practice and a little bit lax on the meditating scene lately. While I do try to keep my positive mantras each day, I have not quite been working on centering and freeing my mind.

Therefore, this week I have decided to get myself up at 5am to meditate before we go to the gym at 6am. I managed to get up this morning, but it was a bit of hard work given that I had gone out last night for networking and was rather tired. Unfortunately, I found it quite difficult to get my mind to clear. Although I was not yet quite awake and it was a good time to meditate before all the day’s thoughts drifted in, I felt somehow tense and lacking the ability to clear my mind. Perhaps it is just a matter to getting back into the habit.

I have noticed that with the extra stress of life these days, changes in my daily patterns and the new activities for the business I am dangerously balancing my mind in the sane side of the world. However, it is also very possible that I could slip and fall into a depression or manic state if I am not careful. So, my mind needs to become a bit more a priority so that I can remain calm, cool and collected. 😛

We shall see how the 5am starts go. We ended up not going to the gym, so I went back to sleep for another hour instead, which was good since I had mall walking anyway for my exercise today. 😉 More on that later!

~T 😀

Humanism

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 132015

These past almost two weeks have really given me a sense of peace and calm. I have also discovered a new direction for my life as long as I keep working my energies towards that path.

One thing that has really come out of this mindfulness training is the discovery of other people who believe in the power of humans. I’ve never been able to buy into a religion and have always just tried to explain myself as ‘spiritual’, but as Sam Harris’s talk points out, it’s a lame statement.

The truth is that I am a humanist. I believe in the power of human beings and that we are amazing beings on this earth, but do not live up to our greatest potential as a whole nor as individuals. The greatest realization of mindfulness has been the spreading and believing in compassion and love starting within the self and then passing it on to others. With love and compassion, we can achieve just about anything we set our minds to on this earth.

Now, there is a lot of talk of Buddhism and even some sprinkles of Christianity or Islam, but for me none of these connections are important. Rather, I want to focus in on what can we learn about human potential and how can we develop our individual potential in order to contribute to the development of potential as a society on a local, national and global scale?

So, as I delve into these thoughts, my new path reveals itself more clearly! It’s all very exciting!!! 😀

-T

Hooked!

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 062015

So, I’m six days in to the Mindfulness Summit and I’m totally hooked!

Ages ago a friend or friends talked to me about my thoughts on meditation and yoga. I thought I wasn’t into it and although I have a belief in a higher being, I wasn’t really going to embrace a new-agey kind of trend.

Now…I’m a yoga lover and am becoming a HUGE fan of mindfulness. It’s working already to keep me calm and focused.

For example, I had a bit of a problem with my power and paying the bill – without too much detail of the frustration, I managed to sit and listen to the day’s interview after everything had been taken care of. Instead of feeling stressed and frustrated I found myself calm and actually smiling/laughing about the whole situation. Some might call it maturity or acceptance for where I live, but without having the moment to breath and let it all go, I would definitely have had a good long rant to my friend when we met up! 😀

So, I really recommend this. It has also propelled me down a new path of exciting possibilities – on which I will elaborate in a future post.

Until next time,

-T

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