To pick up basically where I left off yesterday. I weeded out a few more of the religions and decided that the one I'm gravitating towards is Zen Buddhism.
Then I went shopping! They have a great bookstore here, and I hadn't spent any money in it yet this trip. The book I bought is You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh. I for some reason got turned off of his books a few years ago without ever having read one (I forget now what the circumstance was). But now I'm definitely being drawn to his books. For those that don't know, Thich Nhat Hanh is a great Zen Master. I also bought a caramel crunch dark chocolate bar (mmm).
Today I am practicing mindfulness. I practiced while I cleaned 7 bathrooms (!) and while I made beds. I found mindfulness particularly useful in helping me with the hospital corners. I want to get it right, but sometimes I rush. I find when I slow down and focus on the task at hand, the details (like hospital corners) are a lot easier.
When we were doing up rooms I noticed my name on the departing list for this weekend. I thought "No!". But when you come here they have you sign up for just 2 weeks and then near the end of it you can extend your stay. So I will do that before the end of the week, so that my name can come off the list for now.
I'm really glad I chose to spend a month here. The settling in took a few days and then getting to what I wanted to do here took a few more. Now I still have lots of time to continue to reflect and explore while I'm here.
sounds like you are settling in quite nicely! It's amazing what happens when we put a bit of mindfulness in our day. For me, I do it when I answer phones as it is my job and it changes my perspective on things. Rather than sound defensive or annoyed, I realize what's happening with myself. I then become more aware of what's outside of me.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that you got a bit of some dark chocolate in there! :-)
You had me at caramel crunch. The rest of your post was muddled...what was that again? lol
ReplyDeleteMiss you!!! ;)