Elsa curled up next to me last night. This was a first. It makes me think that she took the loss of Mike much worse than I did. She has been slowly letting go and accepting that I'm it.
I watched an ad for Dr. Marty's dog food. He talked about ingredients found in other dog foods that are bad for dogs. I have been feeding Elsa Science Diet for sensitive skin. I got out my magnifying glass and checked the ingredients. Yikes! Corn starch is listed first. Next is hydrolyzed chicken. After that, it is one chemical ingredient after another. No wonder it is called Science Diet. I have been giving Elsa half Science Diet and half Dr. Marty's, pouring hot water over the mixture, letting it sit until it cools, and stirring it to make a gravy. Elsa loves it. Once I finish with the Science Diet I have left, I'm not giving her any more of it. The ad says an improved diet may clear up her skin condition and make her medication unnecessary. If that's the case, I'll save money.
I got up at 7:30 this morning after a difficult patch during the night. While I was struggling to go back to sleep, I did some psoas stretches. This triggered nerve sensation down my legs, both my legs, not just my left one with the bad hip. Great! Had I given myself sciatica? Did I have a lifetime of pain to look forward to now? Despite my fears, I managed to get back to sleep. When I went on my morning walk, I made sure to take my phone if I needed Yvette to come to pick me up.
I was fine on my walk. I even got to push the psoas stretch on the right side more. I didn't see any of my usual morning acquaintances. But I ran into the ninety-year-old woman who moved here last year to live with her son. This lady takes on a half-mile walk up a fairly steep hill. We finally exchanged names. She is Virginia. I told her she was an inspiration for me. She quoted," Use it, or lose it." A lady after my own heart.
I called Kaiser to reschedule the two appointments with eye doctors that I had to cancel because of the shutdown. My name was placed on a waiting list. At first, I thought it was a waiting list in case there was a cancelation. But no. No appointments were being made at all. Everyone's name was just going on a waiting list. Once the shutdown is canceled, then it will be first-come, first-served.
I also called the bank to see if send someone could come to cash my checks. It was the central call center for the First Hawaiian bank. The agent told me I should write a letter designating this person to cash my checks, but it would be up to the local branch to deal with it.
Instead of napping when I felt tired, I meditated. What a great solution! When I got up, I washed my bedroom sliding door and screen and the screens on my bathroom windows. Ah! It feels so good to get those things done. They have been on my mental list for a while, lying in my mind like pebbles. I felt lighter.
I started weeding, but a light rain sent me inside. I listened to Terry Gross's Fresh Air before I took my shower. It was definitely time.
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Musings:
While I was lying on my love seat/antigravity chair resting, I focused on one of the trees within my view. When I first moved here, I didn't see great beauty in the palm trees. I loved the deciduous trees that I was familiar with from the east coast and Ohio. Palm trees are in the grass family. They are only big blades of grass. They are not solid like oaks, maples, birches. I loved to lie under the branches of one of those trees, watch the light flicker through the leaves as they danced with the breeze. Palm fronds wave back and forth like a crowd at a football game. It just wasn't the same thing. It's still not the same thing, but now it is satisfying in its own right. I always figured that a time would come when I would develop a greater appreciation for what Hawaii had to offer.
As I watched the fronds dance their dance in the island breeze, I observed that my mind was quiet. Quieting the mind is the objective of mediation practices. I started thinking about meditation from a neurological point of view.
From what I have read, the verbal mind is from the left side of the brain, and it is rarely silent. This does not mean that all thoughts come from the left side of the brain. The right brain generates nonverbal thoughts and relies on the left to accurately transmit that information through words.
While I've done a fair amount of reading on the subject of the brain hemispheres, I do not consider myself an expert. As I understood it, this is what is going on. The yakking mind is considered 'the social brain.' It is constantly negotiating or trying to figure out how to deal with or avoid problematic social situations. It is rarely just ruminating on something pleasant. That requires effort. That noisy brain is a problem solver. It's trying to figure out how to navigate the social world, so we don't get in trouble. Please remember that when our brains were being developed, social problems could spell death. We had to stay on the good side of the members of our community or face dangerous consequences. While we don't face those types of consequences now, our nonconscious minds haven't caught up with the 21st century. They're still living in those caves hunting for bears and picking wild berries. That social brain has a job to do.
I read about an experiment done at some university with college students, the usual subjects of these tests. They wired them so they could observe the activity of 'the social brain.' The subjects were given math problems to work on. While they were working on them, the social brain was silenced. Within seconds, the moment they stopped, the social brain was back at it, yakking away for all it was worth.
In meditation, we learn we can silence our brains. The methods I'm familiar with have to do with distracting the mind by giving it something else to focus on. Focusing on breathing is big these days. In the 70s, it was focusing on a mantra, some phrase that a guru assigned you, or just OM, or please, thank you. Any filler that we could focus on and successfully shut up the yakking mind.
Lying on my love seat/antigravity chair looking at the palm fronds waving in the breeze made me appreciate one other form of mediation, sharing into the flame of a candle or looking at a mandala. That means the attention is focused on the right brain. Pay attention to anything else, and the social brain will be silenced.
Only one problem: maintaining focus is hard work. Some try meditation and declare it's not for them because they couldn't silence their minds. That's up there with trying tennis once, and upon noticing that you don't play like a pro, declaring that you're not suited for the game. Mediation takes practice, practice, practice, even for the professionals, like the Tibetan monks.
Everyone enjoys a silenced mind. Ahh! What a relief, since that mind is always looking for problems. Unfortunately, there are other ways to quiet the mind that don't result in good health, like alcohol and drugs. Yes, that mind gets silenced, but so does your life.
There are less dangerous methods which give us relief, activities that allow us to deeply invest in: listening to any form of music that moves us, looking deeply at art and letting it carry us away, reading, doing some project ourselves. All these can work to give us some relief, but I found only one mediation that can be life-transforming. Caveat: It doesn't work for everyone. There are so many escape hatches from dealing honestly with ourselves. And even for those for whom it has made a significant difference, there is always more we are avoiding. The method which worked the best for me is called Vipassana, also known as mindful mediation. Well, that last is not entirely accurate. 'Mindfulness' has become a catchphrase, meaning observe your breath. Vipassana is more than that.
It teaches us to observe all sensations on our body without investing in them. Catch that? Without investing. That's the hard part. To the extent I have ever been able to do that, I have made significant changes in myself. Thank God for me and everyone else, I assure you.
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