My horoscope this morning was funny:
A person from your past might be holding you back from enjoying your present -- or rather, the memories of this person are keeping you from moving forward. Are you stuck in the past? Yes, it's important to understand how old relationships or old choices can affect you today, but you could run the risk of getting stuck in nostalgia. Not much can get done when all you do is compare your current life to the life you used to have. Put away the photo albums and decide to live your life walking forward.
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I just thought it was ironic especially after my post from yesterday!
Things were a lot calmer this morning during my sit. I crawled out of bed and found my way to the floor and spent a good fifteen minutes just paying attention to my breath. If my mind started to talk I was able to note it and move on to the next breath. I felt a lot better!
It was a really emotional day for me today, which made sitting really hard.
I'm back in Chicago until Monday for a friend's wedding and have been running around doing errands and seeing everyone I can, as I usually do. My mom's been having a huge purge of all of our stuff at her house, so I spent a lot of time today going through old things from my childhood, deciding what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of. My stuff ranged from Mcdonald's toys from the 1980s/early 90s to old high school news papers, a time capsule I made when I was thirteen, so much stuff from the summers I spent at Girl Scout camp in Wisconsin and German camp in Minnesota, stuff from when I lived in Germany, and old diaries, sketch books (when did I stop sketching? I was actually fairly good!), music compositions I never finished writing, books and books of the most emo, slit-your-wrist poetry I wrote (gooood I am such a drama queen) and it was trippy as hell looking through all of that stuff.
Getting rid of a lot of it was huge excersise in letting go. Some of the stuff was really easy for me to give away, but others I had to really ask myself if there was any sort of benefit to me for keeping. Ultimately, I kept a bunch of personalized things from high school (like teddy bears I got from JV and Varsity drill team, marching band, etc), my beanie babies, and any toys I felt had a lot of sentimental value. The rest are in bags to be donated to Goodwill/given to Flora and Stella (if Tara even wants them to have more toys, hahahaha). It was so trippy reading through old diaries and reliving my experiences, finding myself getting just as emotional reading them as I had been while writing them - reliving my heartache of losing my first love (who's wedding I'm going to on Saturday), my second love, all the crushes in between that didn't work out, my frustrations at my mother (I am such a bitch. I have no idea how we got through my teenage years and how she still loves me). It was also interesting to see how I still have some of the pretty maladaptive coping mechanisms I had back then too. I think I do a lot better job of handling breakups outwardly now, but inwardly, the feelings and self hatred are still there every time a relationship doesn't work out how I had hoped it would.
Through my mindfulness yoga teacher training I've come to realize that my "Mara" is "I'm not good enough". I repeat this to myself often, usually when something doesn't have the positive outcome I had hoped (I break up with a guy I'm dating. I don't get a part I audition for. I don't get enough yoga classes to teach. I don't get a job I interview for). Since I've realized it, I've been pretty quick to tell myself to STFU, and am working on being less attached to the outcomes of my experiences, and to just live them.
Looking through all that stuff also reminded me I've done more in 26 years than most people do in an entire life. So many amazing pictures with huge smiles and happiness and laughter and love. I have such a diverse group of friends who love me and care about me and they live all over the world - that's such a great blessing. So many happy times lived and loved and its overwhelming to think about everything that's happened - before I moved to Canada and since I moved there. When I'm in Toronto, its so easy for me to forget about my previous life in Chicago, as I am immersed in the life I built for myself there. When I'm back here, it's just as easy for me to forget about my life in Toronto, and often fantasize about just packing my shit and leaving and moving here. Then I stop myself. I don't know why. But more and more I feel like eventually, I should move back here. But every time I've tried to leave Toronto, something has stopped me. Only time will tell where I will end up, and I try not to think about that now. But I miss my best friend terribly, and my family as well.
It's also been so weird to see how much things have changed around here. Most of the strip malls near my mom's house have become ghost towns as businesses have gone under, both my junior high and elementary schools have changed their facades (all friendly now. When I went there, they looked like prisons!), the Baskin Robbins that was my first job and where I worked all throughout high school is now a tanning salon, and my grandparents moved out of the house I grew up in (five minutes from my mom's) to a small townhouse in West Dundee, about a half hour from where we live. I couldn't even bring myself to drive past their old house. I never got to say goodbye to it. My mom also grew up in that house, and she thought she'd move into it one day, however, my grandparents needed a place with no stairs, and buying their house right now just wasn't financially possible for her at this time.
So when I went to sit, the only thing my mind could think about was moving back here, and then the other half of my mind kept dialoguing and saying I'd be an idiot to move back after all the hard work I've done to get to where I presently am in Toronto. Then the other half started guilt tripping me into moving back, and the part of my brain that just wanted to label inhales and exhales was telling the other two parts to shut up, and then I just started crying and, well, sat there and did that, only stopping when I was sure it was done. It felt good to get those emotions out of me though, and I was thankful my mom wasn't home to see all that, and that I had four cats sitting on the floor with me giving me head butts and kisses so I wouldn't be upset.
LOL. Sometimes I like to tell myself how I don't cling to things and the past and all this crap, then I have days like these and realize maybe I haven't come as far as I'd like to think, and that possibly I give myself too much credit. That's ok though.
I totally just fell asleep meditating.
I have no idea how it happened! I closed my eyes and started labeling breaths, and my eyes opened a half hour later and I have a huge pain in my neck and between my shoulders (I was sitting on the floor, supported by a bed).
Granted, I had a long day, have been up since 2h30 this morning as I had to drive to Chicago, but wow. I was not expecting that to happen!
Interesting to note: I find myself slipping into du-sa-ni-ma at random times during the day. On public transit, while driving today I definitely did, and during yoga classes as well. Its weird during yoga classes as I feel like I'm tuning the teacher out. I really like that breathing excercise, for some reason!
So this week we're back to labeling inhales and exhales.
The only thing which has changed for me since starting sitting every day is my attachment to saying du sa ni ma and I noticed myself slipping back to that every so often during my ten minute sit this morning.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom this morning so my back could be supported against my bed. My cat sat right next to me this morning like he was going to meditate as well. He purred the entire time and I kept wanting to reach out and pet him. Eventually I did and just kept my hand between his shoulders. I felt at times he was trying to match his inhaling and exhaling to me, and I caught myself doing the same. But what was cool to observe was his stillness. He was perfectly content, and sat there with this grin on his face, eyes closed, so still. I don't really think I ever look that still or serene when I'm sitting. Phoenix came in handy when I was studying yoga just by studying the way he moved himself around my apartment... perhaps he'll be just as great a teacher for my mindfulness ;) 
I had a nice sit today. Nothing really came up. I felt focused and peaceful.
I did three hours of mindful cleaning today. Washed dishes, did laundry, dusted, vacuumed, wrote some letters (actual letters that cost money to send and delivered by an actual person, I know) and organized my desk drawers, and purged a lot of stuff that had accumulated in those drawers since 2006. Reading through some of my old cards and scribbles and grocery lists and to do lists was pretty funny. I felt like I wasn't being fully present, when I was kind of starting to relive the past, but I knew it was in the past, so was that ok? haahahha.
My brain did wander while doing my housework a few times, but I felt I was pretty good at really concentrating on the task at hand. I didn't play music when I was cleaning like I usually do, to help my brain stay more focused and connected to what my body was doing. I don't feel as if I cleaned any better or worse than I usually do. I thought it was cool to observe just how often my brain tries to wander away though!
I didn't sit today. I guess you could say I missed a sit. And I'm ok with that.
I had next to no sleep and had to teach a lot and it was difficult to stay strong for that. I wanted to get sleep on the bus back to Toronto, however, the seats didn't recline. A really uhm, strong smelling man sat next to me on the bus and I wanted to cry. Then I came home and found out Revenue Canada wants to audit me. Awesome.
What was interesting about today was how I was able to sit with my anger and acknowledge that everything that had happened was really shitty, but what intrigued me was that every mental formation I had (I'm going to pass out teaching/they're going to deport me/I suck at life/Why the fuck am I here/I'm so alone/Why doesn't anyone give a shit about me) I was able to tell myself how ridiculous I was being, as opposed to letting them spin out of control to the point where all I want to do is throw myself in front of an oncoming train. And after talking to some of my friends about what was going on and being calm enough to be able to listen to similar experiences they had had, I realized I wasn't alone and stuff that I was experience was randomly happening to everyone. And crying about it was good too. And I'm eager to go to bed and wake up and know that tomorrow will probably be a much better day.
But being mindfully angry - that was a pretty new experience for me. Or rather, I think I should say I haven't been "mindfully angry" since after my teacher training in 2007. I've just been hella angry, hella livid, and off the wall. I hope I don't ever have to be hella angry, hella livid, and off the wall again.