Thunder

P64

It's been nearly a week without drinking, and I'm getting even keeled. I think that has less to do with not drinking and more to do with the mindfulness practice I've been engaging in.

Yoga, meditation, and also just noticing.

Things are still a little topsy turvy, to be frank. Relationships are always a little bit strained when change is on the loose. The thunderstorm we're having right now is teaching me that change can be like that.

I go to this yoga studio called the Bhaktishop in SE Portland. It's a great place, with kind and open hearted teachers. What I really love about it, though, is the devotional practice. There's lots of chanting, there's time for meditation, the whole space just bleeds out beauty, poise, practice. Neither too serious nor too "sporty" nor too random. Everything fits together, and yet there is room for disorder and newness.

So, it bends me, and I bend. And in that bending, everything gets softer. I don't want to shout at my dog. I smile at people as they walk on my lawn. I don't panic when the words don't come on the blank screen. I eat a cookie and don't stress it. I laugh.

And I can feel my body healing. I can feel the telomeres rewinding. I can feel my hormone levels normalize. I feel harmonious qi flow reestablish itself in my back, along the shoulders. My sleep comes into alignment. No pain.

And so, as I expand into this unfolding awareness, I notice how things are falling together. I get even more excited about the falconry deal. It no longer seems scary or unlikely that those parts of my life that I no longer need actually could be transformed.

The important thing, now, is to maintain it.

To that end, I have a few tools in my belt. One is a timer on my phone that rings a little bell at completely random times during the day. It puts a little message up that reminds me to be mindful. Sounds totally stupid, and totally, totally works. Snapped me out of a few errant thought paths, for sure.

I have yoga, of course. And I have a spoken and felt commitment to continue that practice, one way or another. Without excuses, but with gentleness.

I have the awareness that if I continue on with this level of stress and lack of awareness, the things that stress does to the body will happen to me. My arteries will become clogged. The harmony of my organs will become disrupted. Ticking time bombs will lie throughout me, waiting, waiting.

I have wonderful work and a very patient family.

I have friends, one friend in particular, who is traveling a similar path and who needs my help as much as I need his. We prop eachother up when needed.

I've never had those supports before, or have never noticed them. I have no doubt it's still one day at a time. But those days feel less like work towards some distant future, and more like relaxing into what is already, and maybe has always been, right there. Easier.

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo