jillsalahub

After drinking my coffee, watching the Daily Dharma Gathering talk from last night and writing my morning pages, Eric and I took a long walk with the dogs. As we got to the park, the sun was rising and turning some of the sky pink. When we got back home, I realized I was too late to go to yoga, but I’d taught both Friday and Saturday and have a class tomorrow morning, so felt totally okay about having a day without yoga. I showered and ate breakfast. After goofing around on the internet for a bit, I went to the Shambhala Meditation Center.

I hadn’t been to Sunday morning meditation, or to the Center for any other reason, for over a year. It wasn’t something I’d planned. It just happened. I started practicing more and more with the Open Heart Project. Dexter was diagnosed with cancer and died. My meditation instructor unexpectedly moved away. I started yoga teacher training and we got Ringo. I got distracted and busy and fell out of touch. Ever since I took refuge vows in November, I’ve wanted to make my way back. As today was the last day of Spring Break and the first weekend of Spring, it seemed like a good time.

As soon as I sat on a cushion in the main shrine room, my whole body and my mind relaxed. I have spent many, many hours in that space practicing and it’s precious to me. We shifted between sitting and walking meditation, heard a short talk and had a discussion, sat and walked some more, and ended with closing chants. There were people I didn’t recognize, but others I’ve known for more than eight years. I’m glad I went.

When I got home, Eric was still gone, so I let the dogs out in the yard to play for a bit. Then we all came back into the kitchen and I started cooking: lemon zucchini bread and seasoned potatoes for the sweet potato and black bean quesadillas we are having for dinner. While I cooked, I finished listening to health coach Isabel Foxen Duke talk about emotional eating, weight bias, the Health At Every Size movement, her own eating disorder recovery, and Nutella on the Food Psych podcast. Once I was done, Eric was home and it was time to walk the dogs again.

It was a deliciously sane day, full of practice, rest, ease, and connection. I feel nourished — fed and cherished. Just three short years ago, I didn’t think it was possible. I’m so glad I didn’t give up.

1. Practice. I struggle so much with my mind — its constant freaking out over every little thing, how it won’t let me rest, its speed and noise, its confusion, how it spends so much time obsessing over every potential risk and choice, the stories it tells that have almost nothing to do with what is really happening, how it won’t let go or relax — and practice is one of the only things that allows me some freedom, some ease, some peace.

2. Community. I was listening to an interview yesterday taped for the Feast program I’m in with Rachel Cole, and there was a discussion about the importance of community, how support from a community can help us resist some of the distraction, confusion, insanity, and dysfunction that occurs in our world. As an introvert, community is a complicated situation for me, and yet I find myself supported by so many. I’m so grateful for Feast, the Open Heart Project, the Daily Dharma Gathering, Om Ananda Yoga studio, my friends, my online tribe, my family, and my CSU people. My suffering and confusion are eased by those connections.

3. Sam and Ringo, my tiny family. I try so hard to do my best to take care of them, generate so much anxiety and suffering for myself trying to make the right decisions, so afraid I’ll make a mistake. Thankfully their experience is mostly free of any such worry, their lives full of ease and joy.

Sweet Sam on Spring Break

Ringo Blue on Spring Break, all smiles

4. Eric, who is so patient with me, such a loving witness to my struggle.

5. Breakfast burritos, from La Luz with love.

Bonus joy: Skyping with Justine, teaching yoga, bird song in the early morning, getting shit done, being able to rest, sympathetic joy, talking to my mom on the phone, getting en eye exam and finding out my distance vision hadn’t gotten any worse in the past two years, cooking, listening to podcasts, new music, blue sky, a new piece of art, receiving and sending mail, good advice from Andrea, making plans to see friends I’m missing, the way Ringo rolls on his back and lets you pet his belly, the tiny little ball Sam can curl into when he’s sleeping, full minute hugs, a nurse good at drawing blood fast and painless, good test results, naps, the episode of Friends where Joey tries to learn French.