My husband is away. The kids are at each other’s throats. I have PMT. Yesterday I spent a good hour stay listening with the girls (a wonderful Hand In Hand technique that I value deeply but that yesterday entailed my being kicked, punched, screamed at and sobbed on before the storm had passed). So today I get up when the alarm goes at 6.30 to meditate because, oh boy, I need it today. But no, the universe has other ideas. The dog – poor boy who had “the” op last week – has shat all over the kitchen floor. Joy of joys. The half an hour I assign to my daily meditation (on the days like today when I get up of course!) starts to slip away from me. The dog is shaking at the door and can’t be allowed off the lead.
So there I am. At 6.30 in the morning. In the half dark. In my dressing gown and wellies and my husband’s coat. With a dog with diarrhoea. I have a choice, to be sucked into the poor me scenario that my mind so desperately wants to buy into or to do something different. I choose different. So my meditation today was a mindfulness technique done standing in the garden in my nightclothes with a squatting dog.
First I brought my attention to my breath (being sure to be upwind!), then to each of my senses – stretching my eyes up to the sky and across the distant hills, breathing in the clear cold air, hearing the incredible cacophony of birds at this time of the morning. I appreciated in that moment the sheer pleasure of being outside at dawn. I felt peaceful, calm. And then I went back inside to clean the kitchen floor and play UN peacemaker with the children. Surprisingly, that sense of peace came with me. It just shows you (me!) there’s always time for meditation practice, even in the middle of an ordinary day!
Recent Comments