Week Eight: Your Wild and Precious Life

"If you can practice cultivating a sense of completeness - even a glimmer, right now, in this moment, with the little things in life - there is a chance that you would be better able to cope with those aspects of mind that keep telling you that you are not there yet; not yet happy, not yet fulfilled.  You might learn that you are complete, whole, just as you are." - pg 240

I love to sing the lyrics of Bruno Mars "you're amazing, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE!" at the top of my lungs to my kids.  We judge so much of our days - we judge others, and most of all, we judge ourselves.  What would it be like to accept and be amazed at the people we are?  I imagine my shoulders relaxing and a deep breath coming.  I don't have to try so hard and I can enjoy life a little more.  Acceptance doesn't mean I don't think and try hard and work for things, it just means I do it without an extra sense of criticism.  I recognize with open eyes where I'd like to be and work towards it, falling and picking myself back up along the way.

At the end of the book, the authors encourage you to look at how you can incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine.  This doesn't necessarily mean meditating 45 minutes a day.  Their suggestions:

1. When you wake up, take five deliberate breaths, check in with yourself mentally, emotionally and physically.  Acknowledge and accept what is there with compassion.  Spend another moment in silence or doing some gentle stretches and start your day deliberately.

2. Use Breathing Spaces to punctuate your day.  (If you forgot, listen here).  This allows you to respond with wisdom and compassion to thoughts, feelings and sensations.

3. Maintain your formal Mindfulness practice no matter what that looks like - 5 minutes or 2 hours.

4. Befriend your feelings with open and kindhearted awareness. Welcome all your feelings!

5. When you feel tired, frustrated, anxious, angry or any other powerful emotion, take a Breathing Space.

6. Try to do as many activities as possible during your day as mindfully as possible.

7. Increase your level of exercise.

8. Remember the breath.  It is like a good friend.  It reminds you that you are OK just as you are.

This is a portion of the poem that end the book.  I wish you well.  Keep me posted on your progress.