and then there was one...

Apparently, habits die hard.  Truth be told, I've been consistent with only one of the three goals of the month.  I have been able to sit and meditate for at least 15 minutes a day, but I have gotten a little slack on the working out and no processed foods.  I'm probably stretching/exercising about 4-5 nights a week...one night turned into mandolin night, so not a total loss.  I have been pretty good with no preservatives, but twice I caved and went with the burrito over the bowl at Chipotle.  And we also HAD to go to Dairy Queen for a celebratory treat after we bought a new (to us) car.  Other than that Nicki has been making some really good meals, and we have started back on juicing here and there.  The juicing continues to surprise me with its deliciousness, although tonight's was pretty awful. 

I have decided to focus a little more on the meditating this month, but will continue to do my best to avoid preservatives and exercise everyday.  I am still trying to make getting up early a habit, unfortunately my bed is really cozy in the morning.   Most of my sitting has been happening at night, but I would rather sit first thing in the morning.  Its not only a nice way to start my day, but I find myself more mindful throughout the rest of the day.  Before the new year I was sporadic with sitting, in both consistency and length of time.  Now I sit for 15 minutes, which used to seem like forever, and find myself thinking about the time much less.  There have actually been a few times in the past week when I sat the full 15 minutes without thinking about checking on the timer. 

In the past, I have played around with different types of meditation, but have currently settled on zazen, specifically susokukan (counting meditation).   In a nutshell, I count from 1 to 10 with each in and out breath.  Originally I thought the purpose was to just sit and not think, but the more I tried to not think, the opposite happened. (I had read this many times before, but guess needed to find out for myself).  Now I just sit, breath and count.  When something comes up that I don't need to think about, I try to go back to the breath and start counting again.  I will tell you when I get in the groove, the counting works really well at keeping myself from getting distracted...but the moments in the groove are few and far between.

Now that I have decided to focus more on sitting this month, I am going to start increasing the time I sit each day, and branch out and try a few other kinds of meditation.  For the rest of this week I plan on dabbling in some guided meditation.  I have tried this once or twice before, but I thought it was a little corny...maybe this time will be different. 

For anyone interested in Zazen...google that spiat, you might find it a good read.

Nice to meet you 2014

Looking back, 2013 was a pretty excellent year.  The joys of family, along with the addition of miss Emmersyn, and other happy times far outweighed the stressful ones.  Last year I thought I would continue the blogging, but it wasn't in the cards.  I also planned to continue the monthly resolutions, but lost the urge after the first month.  With a new year comes new learning opportunities, so this year I'm going to make an effort to keep at it for the year.  And my hopes is that blogging about it helps me to keep it up. 

Like a lot of people, I go pretty nuts at the holidays with stuffing my face with delicious and not-so-great-for-me foods.  In addition to that, I pretty much stopped most of my regular stretching exercises. Now add in a bit more soda and booze than I usually partake in (thank you Mrs. Clause for the Blantons!) and you can understand why its time to get back on track in the health department.  Unfortunately, my family doesn't get back into town until tomorrow or Friday so there is no rush to start today,  but I've decided to eat only "real food" again.  Meaning no preservatives, artificial nonsense, or other genetically modified shenanigans allowed this month. 

Since my insides are going to be taken care of this month I thought it unwise to neglect the rest of the body, so this month I will also be trying to do at least 30 minutes of stretching/exercise/vigorous activity (I'm looking at you Mrs. Shelton) a day.  I have also been doing a little meditation in the past year, and I feel like now is a great time to try to make it apart of my daily routine.  I generally feel more relaxed right after sitting meditation but I never take the step to get up early and sit.  So why not go for the trifecta and sit 15 minutes everyday to start my morning?  I'm hoping 15 minutes leads to upwards of 30 minutes, but as a rule for the month I will meditate at least once a day.

It's an ambitious start to the year, time to create some new positive habits and keep the needle pointing in the right direction.