Undoing

As I continue to try to keep all of these laws in the forefront of my brain, I can't help but think about all the things I have done in the past. I have not always been known for making good decisions, especially when it comes to relationships. I over think things, analyze stuff to death and then somehow end up in the same place I started. Stuck (or drunk and ridiculous, whichever comes first.) I end up hurting myself, hurting others and just feeling generally shitty about things all around. So I guess as I go through one failed "relationship" after another post Tony I can't help but wonder if it is karma coming back to bite me in the ass.

I have been thinking about this ever since I went to a Shaman last year who said something about my karma--- he didn't say it was bad, but I think he definitely implied that I needed to fix it up a bit (although this is also the guy who brought up Dave the Lawyer about 50 times and said that could work out... um... wrong on that one Shaman Lloyd!!) Anyway, so how do you undo what you've done in the past? Don't get me wrong, it's not like I've killed anyone or anything, but I definitely don't think that I've always been honest or always thought about the other person first. In fact, if I'm really being truthful, I think I am somewhat of an emotion based person, so that I don't always think about my actions or the consequences that may arise from these decisions beforehand... call me a girl, but that's just what I do. I guess the point is though, that that's not exactly how I would like to be going forward. So, the question remains, how do I get back to having a clean slate?

Maybe it's not possible, maybe I just have to try to make good choices from now on. I would like to think I try to be a nice person. Sure, when I am in a good mood, I tend to be a little more altruistic, but I mean in general as well. I mean I am a social worker for God's sake. It is my job to help people! Shouldn't that give me fantastic karma in itself? Apparently not. Or maybe the relationship karma is different from life karma. Who knows... All I know is that it's either me or karma that's screwing up my love life (or lack thereof.) I should do something about that.

**Now all of that being said, it's not like I am out hunting for a husband or anything....that would just be pathetic (not judging those of you who are...well, maybe a little...) But despite all of my feelings around Tony, what I have realized from what has been going on with New Hampshire Guy #2 is that I am finally ready to be in another relationship. Sure, it's super scary and I have definitely been seriously scarred by Tony, but I guess if you find someone you like enough then it's worth it right? (unless of course he doesn't feel like it's worth it, which seems to be in the process of happening with NH#2, and then it sucks and you are me. ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH) Grrr, Karma....**

The Third Law

The Third Law of Success is "The Law of Karma." Most of us know what Karma means... I think about a lot as I am driving actually-- sometimes when I am raging about idiots on the road and the fact that someone won't let me in, even though I just let someone into my lane a few minutes ago. WTF? (Although I am guilty of it myself from time to time...ah, Karma...) I also think about relationship Karma...like what did I do to deserve the fact that everyone I like moves to New Hampshire??? But I digress....

"The Law of Karma" as Chopra sees it is in the action of conscious choice making. “The best way to understand and maximize the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of the choices we are making in every moment.” In my opinion, this is more easily said than done. Coming from someone who barely tastes the second bowl of cereal being shoved in my mouth... well, lets just say mindfulness is obviously not my forte. This is not about food though, this is about everything. Literally. Chopra makes a good point; Think about this: “If I were to insult you, you would most likely make the choice of being offended. If I were to pay you a compliment, you would most likely make the choice of being pleased or flattered. But it’s still a choice.” It’s an interesting way to look at it, because in reality he’s right. We don’t have to get mad about an insult, it’s our choice to let it affect us.

It feels like an extremely blurry line to me though. I am a person who has a lot of difficulty identifying my emotions/shift in mood and attributing it to a trigger. I have gotten better about it (who knew that seeing a frozen waffle could make me think of Tony and get depressed?! Ridiculous.) Sure, it’s a choice I am making to be upset by the Costco size bag of Kashi cardboard-like waffles that have been sitting in my freezer for a year and a half, but it’s not like I want to be sad about it. So I guess that is my question. Can you make a choice to not experience a feeling anymore, and is that what Chopra is saying? I mean I can tell myself to snap out of it and go do something to distract me, but it’s not like I can just stop myself from feeling that way... right?

Anyway, I will attempt to put "The Law of Karma" into effect by making a commitment to take the following steps:

1. Today I will witness the choices I make in each moment. And in the mere witnessing of these choices I will bring them to my conscious awareness. I will know the best way to prepare for any moment is to be fully conscious in the present. (This will be hard for me since I think I deal with things by not thinking about them...NOT effective BTW)

2. Whenever I make a choice I will ask myself two questions: "What are the consequences of this choice that I am making?" and "Will it bring fulfillment and happiness to me and also to those who are affected by this choice?"

3. I will ask my heart for guidance and be guided by it's message of comfort or discomfort. If the choice feels comfortable, then I will plunge ahead with abandon. If the choice feels uncomfortable, I will pause and see the consequences of my action with my inner vision. This guidance will enable me to make spontaneously correct choices for myself and all those around me.

Random Thought

It's interesting, I go through my days focusing on the bad stuff that happens, but when I actually take the time to think about the happiest parts of my day, well they are there, so why don't I ascribe more worth to them? In many ways they balance out the parts of my day that suck. Hmmm... something to think about.

Happiest part of my day: knowing that I have friends who think about me and care about me despite all of my insanities. That and getting a pedicure!

Mantras

I have been continuing to struggle through the meditation. I don't know that it is doing much for me yet, but it's hard to stay consistent with it, which I am sure is contributing to the lack of effect. My friend Leslie gave me some advice though and said that I should come up with a mantra by taking something I don't believe about myself, making it positive, and saying it while I meditate. She suggested that I start with the basic mantra, "I love and approve of myself" and adding on to it. So my mantra is "I love and approve of myself, I am smart and I am confident." It feels silly saying it to yourself, and to be honest, kind of lame. But I am doing it in hopes that the more I say it the more I will believe it. What is your mantra?

Did You Know...

That there are multiple months known as Friendship Month? Apparently International Friendship Month is in February. But if you are not in the business of being worldly, then you can wait until November and celebrate National Friendship Month instead. If you choose to be strictly ethnocentric and you are German American, you could even celebrate German American Friendship Month in October...but you also have to be from Michigan. Wow, that is very specific. National Women's Friendship Month is in September. If you don't have enough time to devote an entire month to celebrating your friends, then you could just say "you're awesome!" on August 1st (3 days before my birthday and just a fabulous month in general) which is National Friendship Day.

Unfortunately for me, It is not February (guess I missed the boat on that one...) Clearly it is not November or September (Yay Spring!!!!!!!!) And happily, I don't live in Michigan so that's out too. So today I have decided is "Joy's Friendship Day." With all of these 'official this' and 'national thats,' it doesn't seem hard to make a day into a special one, so "Joy's Friendship Day" it is! (Side Note: Can you tell I have no idea what the difference is between " and this ' is yet? If anyone would like to enlighten me, please do so. Oh super-smart-English-person-extraordinaire Kendra, I know you're reading this!)

Inspired by my continuous reading of the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (you totally thought I had abandoned this month and forgotten about that book didn't you??) I realized that I am not nearly as grateful for the things in my life as I should be. However, there is one thing that I am always eternally grateful for and those are my friends. Many of them (especially my college friends :( ) I don't talk to nearly enough as I should but I always know there are there and I can just pick up where we left off at any given moment. Some, who live close by, I don't see nearly enough. And as for everyone else...well, I apologize for my incessant over-analyzation and paranoia of everything relationships and boy(s). Seriously, I am like a 15 year old girl. It's pathetic. Anyway, each of you have your own wonderful qualities and I am sure I don't tell you all enough how much you mean to me and how much I appreciate all of your support--especially throughout this last year. So here it is: Thank you. I am so very grateful for all of your late-night talks, impromptu drinks, reassuring words, much needed distractions, general hilarities and of course, all attempts to keep me from having a meltdown at any given moment. I do hope that I am able to show you how much you all mean to me from time to time (you know, by baking a pie or forcing you to come over for brunch or something,) but if not, thanks again, I love you all!

New Hampshire and I are NOT Friends...and Other Stuff.

I haven't written all week. I am aware of this and I apologize. It has not been a good one....my week that is. I am trying very hard to look at the positive and there do seem to be a few bright spots which I will start with before I go into my diatribe about New Hampshire.

--This past weekend my mom came to visit. My mom visiting was not so much the bright spot. The sushi we ate was. Yum.

--Monday: I completed a pair of earrings in my jewelry making class that I actually really like and think I will wear.

--Tuesday: The sun made me happy even though I didn't get to enjoy it. Leslie came over to drink some much needed wine, that was a good way to end my otherwise crappy day.

--Wednesday: I had a great date/dinner (lobster mac & cheese!!) and lots of (even more needed) drinks.

--Thursday: bbbbbbbblllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. New Hampshire sucks. Running/ walking with Kate and Biggie, getting my first blackberry, sugar/carbo-loading (see: emotional eating,) and bookclub made my otherwise grey day slightly better.

See, I can be positive. And I'll try to keep the negativity to a minimum. The short version is that basically all the boys in my life eventually get sucked into the black hole known as New Hampshire and never come back, (well, at least not for three to five years.) And it's not, oh, 45 mins away Nashua or something, no, it's like 2 hours, 3 hours away New Hampshire. I mean what did I do to New Hampshire? Is there some sort of karmic something or other at work here? WTF. I just don't get it. This BLOWS. A lot.

Work has also been hard and is sucking the life out of me this week. I don't want to talk about it. It has sucked almost as much as the New Hampshire thing and that was terrible news. Plus I have fallen off the meditation wagon, although I am working (not that hard) to get back on it. Maybe this weekend.... okay I'm off to try to get myself out of this funk I'm in.

Hahaha can you believe there is actually a mousepad out there like this?!?! Awesome.

We Are All Getting Old

It's my friend Lauren's 30th birthday today. Lauren is my most favorite friend. She is super thoughtful, fun, loyal and throws the best parties ever! I was supposed to go to Vegas to celebrate with her but I didn't end up making it :( I'm guessing it would have been a far superior time to avoiding the rain all weekend. Love you Galletta!!!

Food Glorious Food!

My short ribs turned out to be quite yummy and I think the new (unofficial) boy enjoyed them as well :) I wish I had been organized enough to take pics and show the progression of creating delicious-ness, but unfortunately I was not. If you are interested in creating your own short ribs (for a boy, a girl, or just for yourself) here is the recipe I used.

Also, I really want to make this, anyone want to come over for brunch this weekend????

Totally stole this pic from Smitten Kitchen. Doesn't it look delicious? I promise I'll post my own pics if I find any takers this weekend!

The happiest part of my day remains to be seen, although chatting with my friend Sara at work today was pretty great so that may count (it's only 4pm.) It is nice to know that there are other people out there who are as neurotic and crazy as me. Thanks Sara!!

Realizations

So this morning I was at Whole Foods buying short ribs for the dinner I am super excited about making tonight and all of a sudden I felt strange... this unfamiliar feeling of... happiness. Weird, right? I mean especially with yesterday's feelings o' crap. But it just sort of hit me. For a second I thought to myself 'well this is bizarre, I guess I should take advantage of it while it lasts.' But then I thought, wait, that's an awfully negative way of thinking about it. I can just be happy. Maybe it's the potential new boy, or the meditation, or the weather... who knows but for today that's what happening. Yay!

The happiest part of my day: realizing that today was the first day I've felt genuinely happy in about...well, I have no idea... it's been a looooooooong time.

...

Today is Tony's 30th birthday. I have tried very hard to distract myself. Working for 12 hours helped, but I'll be honest, the driving in between was not fun. Too many hours of ignoring the radio and getting stuck in my own thoughts. Sucked. That's all I've got.

No happy parts to my day today :(

Life Throbbing

I enjoyed the life throb today. Hahahaha. Oh man, I crack myself up. Okay, maybe I should take this a little more seriously... For real now: Today was another beautiful day and I took advantage of it by walking throughout the entirety of Boston. In these shoes:

Believe it or not, I did not want to die. Well, at least not in the first 2 hours... What?! I was on a date and wanted to look cute! I had no idea we were going to walk all over Hell and creation. I am not complaining though. It was amazing out and I love walking, in these shoes or not.

Anyway, happiest part of my day: The weather. I don't think that the winter brings me down, but warm(er) weather surely brings me up!

Tomorrow I am going to an all day training at a super scary hospital. It is so creepy and totally looks like a real old school psych hospital. Eek!

A Very Good Day(s)

The happiest part of my (Fri)day: There were lots of excellent parts to this day-- I went to yoga, I cleaned the apartment, I met up with friends at Peet's(whose coffee far surpasses Starbucks,) got a little bit of paperwork done, My roommate drove me downtown for my date (so I wouldn't have to take the T,) for which the company, not to mention dinner, drinks and the Improv were fantastic. Yay for good days (and dates!)

Saturday is shaping up to look pretty good as well... SO happy it's sunny and wonderful out!!

P.S Happy Birthday Jaclyn! See you tonight!

Law Numero Dos

The second law is the "Law of Giving." This law discusses the importance of giving and receiving and why it is necessary to keep wellness and affluence circulating in life. According to Chopra, it is the intention behind the giving and receiving that is the most important thing.

"The intention should always be to create happiness for the giver and receiver, because happiness is life supporting and life sustaining and generates increase. The return is directly proportional when it is given from the heart...Practicing the Law of Giving is actually very simple: if you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent."

So in following the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, I will put the "Law of Giving" into effect by making the following commitment to take the following steps:

1. Wherever I go, and whoever I encounter I will bring them a gift. This gift may be a compliment, a flower or a prayer. Today I will give something to everyone I come into contact with and so I will begin the process of circulating joy, wealth and affluence in my life and the life of others.

2. Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of nature: sunlight and the sound of birds singing (good thing Spring is almost here!) or the Spring showers or the first snow of Winter. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether that be in the form of a material gift, money, a compliment or a prayer.

3. I will make a commitment to keep wealth circulating in my life bye giving a receiving life's most precious gifts: the gifts of caring, affection appreciation and love. Each time I meet someone, I will silently wish them happiness, joy & laughter.

Morning Cuddles

Today was a bit uneventful. However, by default, the happiest part of my day is usually being woken up by the pups in the morning (okay, not the initial 6am we-really-have-to-pee wake up, the second one at a more reasonable time.) They somehow always manage to seem so cuddly and happy to see me even when they have been taking over the bed and basically sleeping on my head all night. Oh puppies... :)

My Triumphant Return to Anna's!

The happiest part of my day: eating Anna's Tacqueria for the first time in 8 months. Yum!!! It was a good food day :)

I would love to pawn this pic off as my own, but unfortunately I stole it from

someone.

Are you drooling yet?

Blaaaaaaahhh...

Okay, can I just say, meditating is not easy, but it is especially not easy when you are sick. I know I said I was sick yesterday but I realized in my 15 minutes this evening that I probably shouldn't have gone to work this morning since I am far sicker today. Yesterday I could breathe through one nostril at least. Today, I had neither to work with. Not being able to breathe made it harder to focus on...well, my breathing. So my mind went off on a little tangent today, mostly about what I was going to say in my blog posting about how hard it was to meditate when I was sick. Of course, I don't remember that little internal conversation now that I am actually blogging about it... something about being congested literally and figuratively. I don't know. It sounded good at the time. I just remember that my attempt at meditating was so rudely interrupted by a combination of my dogs barking at nothing and my wonderfully runny nose, which forced me to move from my meditative position to wipe it away. Anyway, tonight was not successful and I opened my eyes one minute before my alarm went off. Don't even talk to me about law number two right now since I didn't do it today. Okay, I'm off to bed at 9:30. I feel like crap.

The happiest part of my day: Taking a two hour nap!!

Update

So I meditated for 15 minutes tonight and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The first few minutes I thought about how long 15 minutes was going to be but I was able to push that out of my head pretty quickly. The rest of the time, I just focused on my breathing until at some point Tuffy started licking his paw. I was pretty distracted from then on out, but I tried to make my breathing louder so I wouldn't hear it as much. Overall the time went by pretty fast which I was really surprised about. I guess I am not exactly sure what it is going to do for me, but maybe as the days go on, we will find out.

I did not convene with nature today, but I took the dogs on a walk to CVS. Most of this experience was pretty foggy however as my head is still pretty stuffed up so I don't think that really counted.

I do need to be more mindful of the judgement thing though. I am pretty sure that pops up way more than it should.

Did I forget to mention that I am also planning on documenting the happiest part of my day every day this month? I think I did. Anyway, here it is:

The happiest part of my day: reading "The Happiness Project" in my bed, snuggling with Tuffy as Biggie lay his little head on my foot.

MARCHing Towards Meditation

As I said in my last post, for the month of March, I plan on following the principles of the book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. Even though I am not a particularly spiritual person, and certainly not religious, I do think that I have started to feel as though I am seeking something--something to make sense of the way things have turned out in my life. I recognize that my experiences could definitely have been far more traumatic and I am not trying to undermine the incredibly difficult situations that other people have gone through by whining about my own (in fact, I often feel quite guilty about that.) However, happiness is something that I feel that I have never truly had a good grasp of, something that I have been seeking all my life.

Granted, in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Chopra does not speak of happiness specifically. However, he does discuss his perspective on the attainment of success: "Once we understand our true nature and learn to live in harmony with natural law, a sense of well-being, good health, fulfilling relationships, energy and enthusiasm for life and material abundance will spring forth easily and effortlessly." Now it is clear that Chopra's goal with this book is to help others find material abundance. While I am not turning that down(!), my main goal here is not to attain material abundance, it is to attain success.

Success is a pretty subjective term though. To me, success is about finding contentment in my life and learning to be happy with what I have, while still wanting to improve myself. Success is about liking my job and living comfortably without having to worry about money too much (ideally in a place where I don't have to take all of my cookware out of the oven before I want to bake something!) Success is having people in my life who care enough to view our relationships as a priority; People who are willing to work with me on communicating and improving our relationship, instead of letting it slip away. So in an attempt to find some semblance of success and happiness in my life (large kitchen or not) here goes March!

So here's the plan: Given that there are seven laws and coincidentally also seven days in a week, I am going to apply one new law every day, compounding them as the days go on until I am following all seven laws by the end of the week. UPDATE: This is impossible....although I'm guessing it seems more so since I'm sick, but I am going to apply a new law every four days. We'll see how it goes from there.

Law #1: The Law of Pure Potentiality

"This law is based on the fact that in our essential state, we are pure consciousness." According to Chopra, "when you discover your essential nature and know who you really are, in that knowing yourself is the ability to fulfill any dream you have because you are the eternal possibility, the immeasurable potential of all that was, is, and will be." This sounds to me awfully similar to "Be Joy" (or Gretchen as it may be.) In fact (and not to go off on a tangent here) I think a lot of these books are virtually expressing the same things in different ways. But I digress, Chopra discusses the struggle between the Self and the Object, between your internal spirit and external need to control things out of fear (umm... I can definitely relate with the latter, relationship issues, anyone?) So in order to quiet this struggle and put "The Law of Pure Potentiality" into effect, I will make a commitment to take the following steps:

1. I will get in touch with the field of pure potentiality by taking time each day to be silent, to just be. I will also sit alone in silent meditation at least twice a day for approximately 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening. (This is significantly cut down from what Chopra suggests--two hours(!!!!) a day. That is a looooong freaking time, and as far as I'm concerned 15 mins will be a long time too, but we all gotta start somewhere.)

2. I will take time to commune with nature and to silently witness the intelligence of every living thing. I will sit silently and watch a sunset or listen to the sound of the ocean or stream, or simply smell the scent of a flower. In the ecstasy of my own silence and by communing with nature, I will enjoy the life throb (life throb?!?) of the ages, the field of pure potentiality and unbounded creativity. (Okay, that one was a little much for me...maybe I could just cuddle with my pups? Does that count?)

3. I will practice non-judgement. I will begin my day with the statement, "Today I shall judge nothing that occurs" and throughout the day I will remind myself not to judge. (This one I believe will be the most difficult for me, not in terms of judging other people... I am pretty much paid not to judge other people. In terms of judging myself though, honestly I think judging myself is so deeply ingrained I don't even know when I am doing it half the time. Apparently, "by constantly evaluating, classifying, labeling, and analyzing I am creating a lot of turbulence in my internal dialogue" I will also totally believe that. I go back and forth so often, I have no idea what I'm thinking at all. It's terrible.)

Off to meditate-- wish me luck!