The happiest day of the year? Hell yeah! In keeping with my plan to engage life whistling Dixie and shooting sunshine I’m declaring my new found love of Valentine’s Day. While I may not have a boyfriend, I do have a Valentine – ME!
Today I’m sporting a 500 watt smile, my favorite pink pants and sweater, drinking my favorite coffee, and for lunch I’m declaring anything goes. If I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now, I love my life. Sure, it’s a little left of what I’d envisioned as a feisty seven year old in New Orleans, but who’s life isn’t? What it is, is a tapestry of colorful, dynamic, strong, and confident friends, a challenging and thoroughly rewarding career serving a population I admire and respect, and a hopeful and enticing future that is sure to surprise me.
For all my friends looking for a Valentine or if you’re a little disillusioned with the Valentine you’ve got, I offer today's meditation (see below).
Happy Valentine’s Day to all my loves!!!
½ Marathon Training Update
As week 2 comes to a close I’ve learned a couple of things:
· New Balance socks work wonders with my Asics (thanks Jennifer!)
· Running at a constant race pace is easier to establish on the road versus a treadmill
· Pilates is the lower back’s savior
· Running more miles = more poop
A question for my runners – When you use body glide between your chest and your heart monitor to reduce chaffing how you stop slippage?
Today’s meditation…
Ensure you won’t be disturbed – so the universe knows ‘this time is yours’. I suggest laying or sitting to start with, (but if it works for you a few times, try it walking or washing the dishes).
Have some ambient relaxation music in the background. This meditation will work best without a guide, as the journey will be unique to you.
Take a few full breaths and then find a natural and relaxed rhythm, slow and deep. Scan your body from tip to toe to let go of muscle tension and physical stress.
Say something similar to, “I use this time to appreciate the joy in my life. I give thanks for the people, places and things that make me smile.” Then, if you haven’t already, gently turn up the corners of your mouth.
It should feel natural. If it feels forced, back off and wait for thoughts and joyful feelings to energize it before you continue.
Don’t “hunt down” things you “think” should make you happy, or that you ‘should’ be thankful for. Relax, let go, sink into the intent you set, and see what comes. Let go of needing to have control.
Think of your thoughts as clouds. In a massive sky full of clouds, gently let your gaze focus on one. Look at it, feel it, draw from it, but don’t connect so much that the other clouds in the sky disappear. Don’t crave attachment to it. Just know that as one cloud passes, another will arrive, and another.
The arrival and departure of your thoughts in meditation should be effortless. No expectation – or hanging on.
And as these clouds continue to pass by, connect to the Energy of your Smile. Feel it. Experience it. Be it. And then see what happens.
10 to 15 minutes is enough for this meditation … The smile, scientists have proven, is chemically beneficial and I’m sure you can draw from experience of your own. Smiling is good for you.
Meditation by Nigel Coates of Explore Meditation
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