Meditative Epiphanies

I was late to mediation class this morning.

It was my own fault for procrastinating and attempting to fit too much into too short a time period leading up to class.

Class was a bit overwhelming for me today because it brought up unhealed “stuff” that has been triggering me a lot and bringing up anger, fear and frustration for quite some time.

That in turn, raised issues for others in the class, and deep conversations ensued.

I left feeling fragile and vulnerable, but with a plan to set in motion upon my return home.

I spent some quality time soaking up the beauty of the river on this first day of spring.

After chatting with Adoring Husband and BGWLBH, working on my patchwork jeans for about an hour, I made myself a cup of soursop tea which I took to my room with the raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake treat that I bought myself so that I could get comfy on my bed and commence my healing plan.

I found this journal in Tinkerbells Mystical and Fantasy almost a year ago and I’ve been holding on to it and waiting for just the right purpose. 

 

What does ‘self love’ look like for me?

I responded with five written pages and included:

• Using traffic control - stopping frequently during the day and checking my thoughts and actions while reminding myself that I am a peaceful soul.
• Recognising my triggers before they make me react in anger and frustration.
• Feeling grateful, not just for all that I have now, but for all the lessons, struggles, obstacles, difficulties and challenges that I have faced, overcome and worked through to become who I am today.
• Remembering that I am a soul, caretaking and driving this physical body.
• Independently providing my own love, acceptance, tolerance, strength, kindness, peace etc., and not expecting others to provide those things for me.
• Forgiving myself for being angry about how Parkinson’s has affected my life and remembering that I am still loved by Adoring Husband, myself and The Divine.
• Removing self-doubt, self-judgement and self-criticism from my inner dialogue.

That’s just a select few ‘self love’ actions that I wrote in my journal. It will be an ongoing project and I already feel lighter for it. The test will be putting it all into practise on a daily basis and not fall back into bad habits, which I know is easily done.

I played with Harley around the pool and felt gratitude for this little oasis in my own back yard.

Tonight’s dinner was a creamy, lemony sauce over chicken breast for BGWLBH and a pork loin chop for AH. I served it with roasted pumpkin, spinach and pine nut salad and boiled buttery potatoes.

Now it’s after 11pm and I need to get up early for a day in the Bay.

Nite all.

Golf to Tennis

I’ve been awake since 3am because I set my alarm to watch the final round of the FedEx cup.

Scheffler proved exactly why he is number one in the world and truly deserved the win.

I was hoping for better performances from Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee and Rory McIlroy.

I switched it straight over to the tennis before the golfing celebrations began.

At first I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see Djokovic play because they were televising the Australians playing. They announced that we could only watch the Djokovic game on Stan Sport and I cancelled my subscription to Stan Sport last year.

At the beginning of his match, it started to rain and the outer court matches were cancelled! Because he was playing on the Arthur Ash arena, which has a roof, they switched the telecast to his match!

I was so happy.

Until, early in the match, Djokovic began to fade, and he struggled through the entire five setter. I’ve never seen him so bad and while he had a slight recovery in the 2nd and 3rd sets, he just couldn’t get to the end.

There are no players remaining in the draw that I would sacrifice my sleep to watch play, but the time difference between New York and Australia means that play continues until after lunch here, so I may get to watch some good matches anyway.

Tonight’s dinner was crumbed chicken, wombok salad, garden salad and boiled potatoes with sour cream.

I also read a book today …

It was a quick, but interesting and insightful read.

Now I’m going to sleep because tomorrow is both the first day of spring and meditation day.

Nite all.

Sleep or Sports?

I left the tv on so that if I woke up during the night, I could catch up with the golf results, so this meant that my sleep was broken and interrupted.

Yes. Self inflicted.

I woke up properly at 6am and watched it til the last hole was played.

At 9am, I took Harley out to play and requested a coffee from Adoring Husband so he went for a drive and returned with our Sunday morning caffeine injection.

I made myself a prawn omelette for breakfast, which was delicious, but a couple of hours later, my belly objected strongly. My body simply doesn’t like eggs and it’s about time I accepted that fact.

My first choice for the day was to watch a Netflix movie called “Unsung Hero” which was based on a true story about the singer Rebecca St James and her family. It was a decent movie. A bit slow to get going, but a nice ending.

Most of the afternoon was spent in bed watching the football and nursing my sore belly.

I made a huge batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce to feed the team tonight and to freeze for a future five nights.

I watched The Voice tonight and I’m ready to sleep because I want to wake up at 3am to watch the final round of the golf.

Also, the US Open tennis starts tonight, but the only match that I’m keen to watch on day one is Djokovic and it starts at 9am, so that’s handy.

Nite all.

Celebrating Life

Friday was a quiet day at home and I tested out the new slow cooker. My lamb shanks, after 6 hours, were not as I expected and it seems that I’m going to have play around with the settings and test some more to get it right.

I had an early night so that I’d be fresh for Saturday morning and the “celebration of life” for our friend Linda.

I was picked up at 9.50am and we drove out to Mrs Fabulous’s house and transferred to her car to drive into the Bay.

There, we picked up The Gypsy and drove to the botanic gardens where the service was being held in the Treehouse.

We were a touch early, so we walked across the road to the bakery for coffee and cake. The Gypsy and I did not partake but Mrs Fabulous and Miss Telstra enjoyed the wares.

Soon after, we joined everybody at the Treehouse and sat through an hour of moving speeches, photographs and a mind blowing eulogy which proved that none of us knew Linda as well as we thought.

The one common thread through it all showed that she was a shining beacon of light and love who touched many people all over the world. Every single photo (and there were MANY!) from childhood and covering 79 years of her full and rich life, showed her beautiful beaming smile.

She will certainly be missed.

I was home by 1pm. I made myself some lunch and planted my emotionally drained body on the couch for the remainder of the afternoon.

I’m now in bed watching the football and I hope to see some of the golf during the night. It doesn’t start until 1am so we’ll see!

I’m looking forward to a quiet Sunday..

Nite all.

All the Best People

This was my view at morning coffee today …

Such a perfectly glorious day!

There were four of us catching up and boy was there some news to share. Some serious medical situations for all three of the girls that I met up with. Very worrying times ahead but relief for others.

I had to leave the girls early to get home in time for my zoom meeting with The Gypsy and I had received a text to inform me that there was a parcel at the post office, so I stopped there first.

The parcel was 2 out my three material pieces that I’ve ordered for my patchwork. One more to go.

I spent two quality hours with The Gypsy until she had to leave for a client.

I made myself a late lunch and caught up with The Voice before taking Harley out to play. He gave up before I did and dropped the ball at the gate indicating that he was done playing.

While I had every intention of using my new slow cooker, I just didn’t have the time to do the prep work, so I chose to create a new dish using slices of chicken breast, the last of my chilli creamy vegetable soup as a sauce and konjac noodles. I served that with green beans and boiled potatoes in their jackets.

It went over well and Adoring Husband ate the leftovers.

He had played golf today and was obviously pretty weary by the end of the evening.

BGWLBH worked today.

I’m now in bed watching the Broncos get beaten by the Storm.

The final of the FedEx Cup golf championship starts tonight and the US Open Tennis starts on Sunday! I’m going to be exhausted for the next couple of weeks.

I’m off to catch some sleep before the 1am golf start.

Nite all.