Archive for ‘Mindful Living’

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January 3, 2012

Looking forward to 2012

As many have probably come to realize, I do a lot of reflecting and self-examination.  It’s pretty much my MO, and not just during big events such as birthdays and the end of one year or the beginning of the next (although that does tend to cause me to reflect even further) but I think reflection, trying to figure out how things fit into the bigger picture is just a part of who I am. I once read that is in the nature of those of us who fall under the Sagittarius birth sign and for the most part, I’d have to agree with that.  Needless to say, I’ve done some reflecting on the past year, but honestly, I felt like I reflected so much while everything was taking place that I’d be beating a dead horse to continue, so I’m not going to.  At least not today.

I am, however, looking forward to 2012.  I realize today is technically the end of the 2nd day of 2012 from where I’m sitting, but I’m going to pretend for a moment that it hasn’t quite begun yet.

This year, I’m not doing traditional resolutions.  I decided that I usually end up with something similar to that of which I had the previous year and fell flat on my face about day 2, then beat myself up for about 2 weeks over how I can’t even keep my resolutions for 2 days then spend the rest of the year doing about what I did the year before.  So this year, I’m changing it up.

My goals for 2012 are this.  Reduce, reduce, reduce and have fun!  Sounds simple, right?  I know we all hear “Reduce, reuse, recycle” all the time – or at least that’s been ingrained in my brain for as long as I can remember, but that’s not entirely what I’m referring to.  Well, sort of.  What I mean is this: I have far too much stuff. My whole family does.  And stuff to me equals work.  Work to use it, work to maintain it, work to store it.  I’ll give you and example: clothes.  We have way too many clothes in our household than we really need.  I can’t tell you how many times I go to a closet that appears full with clothes on the hangers, drawers that are full, so full I couldn’t put another thing in them and say “I don’t have anything to wear.”  What?  Yes I do.  What I mean is I don’t have anything to wear that I a.) like b.) feel is even remotely “in style” anymore c.) makes me feel good when I wear it d.) that I’ve worn in the last 2 years.  So what happens?  I put on something that I don’t particularly like, is probably dating me, makes me feel frumpy/chunky/pale (doesn’t take much with my skin tone!) and out of touch.  At the end of the day I throw the clothes in the laundry basket so I can send them back down into the mountainous pile of laundry to be washed then to the mountainous pile of laundry to be folded and to the mountainous pile of laundry to be put away into a full closet and full drawers.  And here comes my vision for 2012… REDUCE the amount of clothes I have to only include clothes that I love, that make me feel good, that aren’t outdated that I will wear.  The rest are getting donated.  Then I’m going to REDUCE the clothes I buy.  They have to pass a test before they enter the house.  If they can’t prove that I love them, that they can make me look good or feel good in them they can’t come in the door.  Because, get this… if I have fewer clothes in general and I feel good about wearing all of them, I’ll feel good. And when I feel good, I’m more fun. Plus, there will be less to wash, dry and fold, less in my closet, less in my drawers, etc. meaning it will be easier to find the things I like because hypothetically I’ll like them all and easier to put things away.  And what does all of this do?  REDUCE wasted time: less time trying on a million things before I find one outfit I feel good in, fewer clothes means less time washing, drying and folding clothes (with the added bonus of REDUCING the amount of water, detergent and other resources used for doing laundry which also means REDUCING expenses and REDUCING consumption), less time spent “dealing” with clothes I never really liked to begin with equals more time for fun!  And that is just by reducing the amount of clothes in my closet.

The same goes for the rest of the house.  REDUCE what is in the house, paring it down to just the things I love means less time spent sifting through the rest of the stuff to find what I like.  And how about food?  REDUCE what I buy (only the good stuff), how much I buy (only what I need, when I need it) and how much I eat (everything in moderation) will REDUCE my spending, my waste and my waist!  Leaving more time, money and energy for fun!

So that’s my plan for 2012… reduce, reduce, reduce and have fun!

Now I’ll fast forward to today, January 2, 2012.  Project #1 of my reduce plan is in progress and nearly complete.  The front hall closet.  This has been a scary place for a LONG time.  If you were brave enough to open the closet door you may have regretted your decision.  Shoes would jump out and attack your feet nearly taking you down before you could get in the front door and as you regained your balance and composure you would realize it was all for not.  There was nary an empty hanger in the closet.  Well, folks that is not the case any more.  The coats and shoes and hats and gloves and scarves and gloves and coats and coats and shoes and… have been pared down and you are welcome to come over any time and I will gladly take your coat and hang it in the front hall closet.  And don’t worry.  The shoes can’t get you.  They’re kenneled now.

So welcome to 2012, I hope you have as much fun as I plan to!

Kate

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December 28, 2011

What does your Christmas tree say about you?

As the needles begin to drop and the scent of evergreen begins to fade, I sit and admire our Christmas tree.   For anyone to walk in off the street and look at it, our tree may appear a little curious.  Lights dangle from the bottom branches on one side of the tree where the dogs have run around to bark out the window at passersby.  And on the other side, a puddle of lights lies on the floor where my son squeezes through between the tree and the chair to play with the Christmas train whose tracks once went around the tree but now look like a bad collision took place.  The tree is also only half-decorated this year.  I don’t remember the exact details of what happened, but do vaguely remember that my son, being extremely anxious to decorate, started the project on his own while my husband was working late and I was making dinner.  For some reason we ran out of time and we never got around to finishing it.  So while one side of the tree is loaded with my son’s favorite ornaments the other side is adorned with just a few.  Eventually, we added a handful of candy canes here and there and he made sure that the star was proudly displayed on the top, but that’s about it.  You would think, with our tree being in the front window, it would bother me that it’s not perfect.  A couple of times my son even mentioned that we still needed to finish it, but honestly, it made me smile, so I never reminded him or pushed the issue.

So now that the major rush of the holiday is over and I’m finally able to sit and just reflect a little, I can’t help but to laugh a little to myself.  Although the lack of ornaments never bothered me, we’ve had our tree up since shortly after Thanksgiving and I can’t tell you how many times I put the bottom row of lights back on the tree, frustrated with the dogs for being dogs or my son for having fun.  What was I thinking?  They were all enjoying the tree.  Whether they saw it as a part of Christmas, a new hiding place or simply a new obstacle to swiftly maneuver around to get to the window, lights up or lights down, they loved it.

It wasn’t until tonight as I sat here relaxing that I realized that our tree reflects us perfectly.  We always have the best intentions.  We start out strong and then seem to get interrupted, run out of time, or run out of steam, but we do what we can and surround ourselves with the things that mean the most to us and let the rest go.  We have our quirks, our dangling lights or puddle on the floor, but that’s part of what makes us who we are.    And sometimes we (me especially) need the reminder that things don’t need to be perfect.  Having fun and being in the moment is far more important than perfection.

So tonight as I admire the dangling colored lights, the half-decorated tree with the dogs sleeping beneath, I can’t help but realize that tree is us.  In all its craziness, its incompleteness, its imperfection, it’s us. And it’s perfect just the way it is.

What does your Christmas tree say about you?

Kate

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December 22, 2011

Don’t forget to breathe! (a.k.a. – Surviving the Holidays)

Children singing, people laughing, bells ringing, people calling, emails flying, emotions soaring… the holidays are here!

In the midst of all of the flurry of the holidays it’s easy to get caught up in all of it and forget to take care of ourselves.  There’s so much energy swirling around you can practically feel it and if you close your eyes, you just might get dizzy.

It’s in this time, when I feel myself spinning, things moving so fast around me that everything becomes a blur.  I’m making my lists, all 240 of them, and checking them twice, and three times and four times, then transferring them to another list so I only need to focus on what’s left….  The house needs cleaning, cards need mailing, gifts need wrapping, menus need planning, cookies need baking… ribbon is twirling, lights are flashing… make it stop!

The other day as I was feeling the pressure from every direction a friend reminded me… “in the storm, create your own centered space, Zen, if you will”.  Then everything came to a stop.  Calm and peacefulness came over me.  I was feeling the storm and needed to revert back to my centered space. I had gotten caught up in the undertow.  My friend threw me a life-preserver.  When I “go inside”, meditate and ground myself, I’m a much happier and calm person.  I smile at the chaos.  It’s like having a magnetic force field protecting me from the noise.  And by noise, I mean everything: the music, the commercials, the reminders, the emails, the registers, the intense emotions, the intoxicating scents, all of it.

Raisin

If I go to my centered space (envision the raisin exercise), I can watch it all take place (much like watching a movie), take it all in, and then choose whether or not to get involved.  I get to choose my action versus just reacting to the situations at hand.

So as the days wind down to just hours until we celebrate Jesus’ birth, I thought it would be a good time to pay it forward.  Just as my friend reminded me to go within, I’ll remind you as well.  When things get hectic, when emotions are running high or low, when things feel like they are getting out of control and everyone is losing sight of the true meaning of Christmas, remember to go to your centered space and breathe.

Just… breathe.

Kate

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December 19, 2011

How much is “enough”?

Yesterday my husband and I were reviewing the Christmas gifts we’ve gotten for our son.  In the past we’ve gotten him one “big” gift and a few smaller gifts.  This year there really isn’t a “big” gift, but there are a few smaller things he’s really been wanting.  As we were checking the last item off the list I said, “Is it enough?”.  We came to the conclusion that yes, it is.  In the back of my mind I continued questioning for a little while.  That was, until this afternoon.

Today I had lunch with my mom.  My mom is retired from her full-time job and now spends much of her time helping elementary school students learn to read as a tutor in one of the public schools.  This afternoon, at our lunch, she was talking about some of the children she tutors, telling stories about some of the successes and some of the struggles.  At one point she started talking about a little girl who had a really hard time focusing and was getting to the point of being nasty with her instead of reading.  Finally, my mom closed the book and asked the little girl how she was doing, what was going on with her.  The little girl confessed she was hungry.  My mom asked if she’d had breakfast before school.  She had not.  She asked her why she hadn’t eaten.  The little girl started to answer, then stopped herself.  After talking to the little girl’s teacher, she was brought down to the school nurse where she was given breakfast.  This bothered me.  Does this really happen?  I tried to recall whether there has ever been a day that my son hadn’t had something to eat before school.  Even though he has had a couple of breakfasts as he was flying out the door to catch the bus, he has never gone to school hungry.  It must have been evident by the look on my face that I was concerned about what I was hearing and questioning how this could happen, because my mom started to explain that a large percentage of kids in the school eat at school because they literally don’t have anything to eat at home.

She went on to tell me that many of these kids can’t go outside for recess either because they don’t have warm coats or snow pants or boots.  She struggles to help them with reading because many of these kids don’t have books to read at home. My heart ached.  She continued to tell stories about kids living in broken homes, parents being evicted so they are forced to move to a different community and start a new school in the middle of the school year and her concern that other schools will lose these kids in the system if the school program isn’t set-up as well as the one she’s in.  Would their records go with them?  Will they help them? Or will these kids she’s been working so hard to help learn to read, slip through the cracks?

It’s not right.  It’s not their choice.  These kids don’t have a choice as to where they came from, who their parents are, whether they have a good home, clean clothes, a coat and boots, books to read or food on the table.  These kids, some of whom are the sweetest my mom has ever worked with, have nothing and it’s not their choice.  It’s not their fault.  They’re just kids.

As my mind raced, trying to figure out what I could do to help, my mom began to tell me about a coat rack in the hallway of the school.  Early on she couldn’t figure out why it was there.  Then she realized that the coat rack is for these kids.  The kids without.  These are coats, snow pant, boots, etc. that have been donated to the school so these kids stay warm.  That’s when I realized there is something I can do.  I can donate to the school.  I can give coats and snow pants and hats and maybe even boots and definitely books.  I could make mittens.  I’m making recycled sweater mittens, maybe I could give some to the school.

And then I thought back to the conversation yesterday.   Will my son be getting “enough” for Christmas?  He has a warm home, warm clothes, a warm coat, hats, mittens, boots, snow pants, books, games and food on the table.  Yes, he’s getting enough.  More than enough.

Kate

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