Mindfulness Meditation

For the past 3 months, I participated in a Mindful Meditation class.

It was lovely. I learned so much and I felt that I was able to control my stress, have better responses to things-instead of reactions, and overall, was more present.  I felt I could slow down time! And I learned a few very practical, easy, and effective tips around breathing and feeling deep gratitude. Also, for relaxing my body and mind after a long day.

At the end of the 3 months--- my instructor gave us some tips on how to make this a habit. I share these tips here.

How to make mindful meditation a habit!

1.  Connect with someone to email/text for daily practice

2.  Decide a technique you will do for the next 40 days and do that one consistently, anything else, just add on to it

3. Put meditation time into your calendar

4. Ride the momentum of the class

5. Recall the feeling of meditation à make the feeling your motivation

6. Make your practice practical (if you really need loving kindness meditation- do that)

7. Set an intention

8. Feel gratitude

9. Fill in the 6 questions at the back of the notebook to monitor progress

Important tips!

 * It takes 40 days to establish a habit

 * We never step in the same river twice

 * STOP: S: stop; T: take a breathe; O: observe; P: process

 * The antidote to slowing things down is to pause

* Make mindfulness as life style means…

o   Paying attention on purpose

o   In a non-judgmental way

o   In a relaxed way

o   Living the experience in a direct way

Time

Do you ever get that feeling that you're giving too much time away to things that you don't really care about ...or you feel like you aren't protecting your time enough from people who don't seem to appreciate it.

I feel that way these days.

I know people say time is money, but I think time is worth more than money.  As my sister says, you can always earn money, but you can't get back time.

The good thing is that for the most part, time allocation is something that I can control. Maybe this year, I'll practice the art of saying No.

October thoughts I can't let go of

1. Health
In the past week and a half, Chris has seen a doctor 3 times, I have seen my doctor/dentist 3 times. Chris has a severe herniated disc in his neck (his C6-C7 is protruding out 3/4 of his spine, pretty scary stuff), and is getting PT and steroid injections, on top of intense ice pack sessions on his neck at home and lying down on the floor while at work (LOL).  The doctor thinks it happened during weight lifting.  Hopefully, he will be able to play hockey again one day, and hopefully, we can solve this problem without him having to get surgery. Everyone--- please be careful.

My problems are less severe, but maybe only because I caught them now instead of later. I have many discs-in my jaw (extreme teeth grinding), in my lumbar spine (no idea why, but I've always had random lower back pain) , and I don't think I can call this a disc, but I sometimes feel a weakness and discomfort around my right wrist (bad posture at work).  I also discovered a small thingamajig on the bottom of my tongue- and my dentist thinks they have to surgically remove it- but not cancerous!

My problems are being solved with - a new mouth guard, PT and strengthening of lower back muscles, and an ergonomic assessment, and ultimately a changing of habits in posture, exercise, diet, and stress management.

Health is one of those things that you don't really pay attention to until you have to, and sometimes until it is too late. It's like money, when you have enough you don't think about it too much, when you don't have enough, or you are pain, it is a major and constant source of stress and unhappiness. My mom said it right- its the most important thing, but its the least urgent.

So needless to say, health is on our minds this month and its been a rather somber month for us.

2. Eating healthy
Related to health is food of course. Last month I considered taking on new eating habits--I chose the temple diet, and it lasted about a week, before we found ourselves eating KBBQ with friends from out of town and BBQ sandwiches in SLO. But during that week, I discovered the magic of mushrooms! (not the drug, but real mushrooms!) This is one of my favorite new recipes. We also learned that we feel better, lighter, and to some degree, happier when we don't eat meat.

Given our health problems- we are now being more conscious of our weight and diet. Weight- because we want to lessen the burden of our spine and all it needs to carry, and diet--cause we are feeling the age!! So, our new diet change (for life) is to eat as much vegetarian as possible, if we do have meat, eat primarily chicken, turkey and fish, and limit red meat to no more than once a week, better if once month.  Low sugar, low carbs.  I don't think we have a particularly bad diet now, but we do like to eat out a lot.

3. 2016 Presidential Elections
If you don't know already- I'm with her! and well, I've always been with her! But this election cycle has been troubling and demoralizing, and I feel it has really brought our nation to a new low. In the midst of that...there is so much good humor.

This made me LOL.
This also made me LOL.

I plan to go to Nevada to campaign for Hillary at the end of the month, stay tuned- it will be a new experience for me, but I suspect it will feel good to put action behind thoughts.

4. Voting on CA laws
This is more than the presidential election. There are so many different ballots to vote on and so much research to do. It is the first time I really feel invested in voting for someone I believe reflects my values at the state legislation level. The CA voting book and the ballots...its like the size of a mini dictionary, 200+ pages!  I am a little surprise to learn that LA Times endorsements are not always what I agree with.

5. Bougainvillea & Lotus flowers
I really love Bougainvilleas. They are so beautiful, and luckily they grow all over Southern California. Whenever I see overgrown bougainvilleas, I have to take a picture. I also love lotus flowers. After years of trying to grow lotus flowers in our pond at home in Korea, my dad FINALLY succeeded! One of the seven seeds he planted made it to flower status. It is breathtakingly awesome.

I have been thinking about this a lot, but I think I love these flowers so much because they remind me of my grandmother, my mom's mom. She passed away last December, and of course being away, I never got to say goodbye. I love my grandmother very very much, she helped raise me and my siblings when we were little and I was always so interested in her life story.  One day, I will write more about her and her passing.

What I remember most about my grandma's house in Korea- is her bougainvilleas. She had an amazing green thumb, and even though it was Seoul, South Korea, she was able to grow bushels of bougainvilleas on her veranda. She was also a devout Buddhist, and for most of her life, she practiced the Buddhist lifestyle, never trying to do any harm to anyone even at her discomfort. Lotus flowers feature prominently in Buddhist culture. I think that's why I love these flowers so much, and I'm lucky that here in California- I am able to see them almost at every turn, and as a result, am reminded of my grandma and her life as I go through my own life. If I had had more time, I would've somehow incorporated them into our wedding, but for another occasion.

In front of a restaurant in Northern Hollywood, before my podcast!

In Beverly Hills--- not looking too happy about posing with flowers.

I am seriously, so impressed with my dad! This is 10 cm in diameter. I always grew up with those beautiful orange flowers-- but the huge lotus leaves and lotus flowers are something else. I wish I could see it in person.  Is this not amazing?

6. Instagram
I have never used instagram because I thought it was like facebook but only pictures, and I never really got the appeal of it. But these days...whoa. I've taken facebook off my phone and instead spend time on instagram! I love following strangers.

This podcast about Instagram on NPR's How I built this was- insightful
I love National Geographic instagrams! - this one in particular gave me pause.
She is so thoughtful- this is my favorite one.

7. Living life meaningfully but also living my life.
How do I explain this? It's like the conflict of taking time to do things that are meaningful and important, like spending as much time with my grandma before she got sick, but also living my life. I didn't have words for this, until I heard Jonathan Safran Foer describe the premise of his new book, Here I Am, on Fresh Air.  I cannot wait to pick this book up.

8. How fast this year has gone by...
Okay, it is only mid-October. But I already know what I'm doing most of the weekends and weeks until Dec 31.  That to me, means its January. I have this crazy habit of going through my calendar incessantly- thinking about financial goals, family goals, and career goals and ideal, and realistic, achievement timelines, and before I know it, I'm already in 2020!! I am trying to embrace the day to day and stop this madness of goal achievements!