An extra dose of the ordinary life

Any day, I would choose the ordinary life, give me an extra dose of it actually. This life of coming back to the balcony and looking at the verdant backyard. The life of watching in awe how babies can teach you so much about what practice really is. This life of going back to the same worn-out mat and same old asanas. A life of absolute boredom and a life of putting the same, yet somehow new toy in the mouth. Yes, yes, give me this ordinary life where I come back to my foreign language books and sigh non, je comprends rien!  Let me sit with this life of procrastination, practice and letting go. 

Monsoon Mediation

I accept this life, this so completely ordinary life that I come back to every morning. That teaches me that there is so much beyond the mind that demands, the mind that beckons and the mind that pushes and shoves. This ordinary day of embracing baby and husband, this oh so very ordinary day of afternoon naps and quiet times, of colors and acrylics and work and some more work. 

This extra-ordinary day today is so much like yesterday and yet so different from yesterday. What does it bring today? What does it make you feel? What does it demand from you and what possibilities does it hold? You know and yet you don't.

Titled:Monsoon Mediation in Acrylics

Yes, I choose the extra-ordinary life. A life where the sun comes out everyday, the birds chirp, the weather changes and the flowers bloom-the same old and yet not at all.

P.S: As the universe would have it Karen Miller says something similar, so MUCH more articulately than I do in this post: "Settle". Enjoy!

Media Deaddiction

I opened this page to write  a post and simultaneously opened my gmail account, my linkedin account and two other blogs that caught my interest, I have my camera hooked to the laptop in hopes of uploading pictures on picassa so I can send them to family. As I write this I can sense the rush of thoughts in my head, a heaviness at my chest and a sense of urgency in my body. I want to do it all, I want to get everything done so that I can go do other things that I already have listed out in the order of preference in my head.

Am I a Media Addict ?  (Source: Google Images)

For now though, I want to read new posts that some of my favorite writers have posted on their blogs, I want to connect with mindful bloggers that I have discovered over the last two days, I want to stream the videos of the online classes I bought. I want to do this all right THIS minute. Late last night I did the exact same thing. I was inspired by a few writers and my mind was consumed by this energy to "do" something. It was way past my sleep time, my head was abuzz and my body tired. I took myself to bed but couldn't sleep because of the thoughts from all the things I had done on the computer, seemingly all at once. I felt like I had bounced off of walls after a sugar high. Even now, I just took a peek at a new unread email that hopped into my inbox and I have three more tabs open as well. My attention goes to these tabs but I am consciously bringing it back to write this post.  

I have taken part in this rush and multitasking, online and off many many times in my life. And I am sure too many of us out there do it. The urgency to know, the restlessness to do it all- its like unleashing a wild elephant at Chandni Chowk/ China Town. At the end of my media fast I promised myself that this week I would only go to my email once every three days, that I would hop, skip and jump blogs only once and blah blah and here I am telling you all that didn't happen.

Where is your attention? (Titled: Awareness)

So what did the media fast teach me after all? My media fast has brought to notice this urgency and this addition that I consider to be so normal. I hear myself defending this addiction as useful- after all I read things that enhance my mindfulness, that teach me how to better myself and the world around me, after all I am not whiling away time listlessly online. After all...yack yack. 

My addictions, my habits, my love for media and how much I "learn" from it is not going to go away easily. Is pushing it away the answer even? Not to me. What helps me is this:  that when I draw my attention to this sense of urgency, the rush of thoughts, and this multitasking that I do, I begin to make a conscious effort to slow down and do at least one thing with love, attention and completeness. And when I do that, the urgency, this discomfort in my chest and the feeling of not having done even one thing fully, goes away. I continue to see my unread inbox message, the linkedin group message waiting for me to read and two other tabs that I really want to get to and then, I draw my attention gently back to the words I am typing and the post I am about to finish. Now that's getting something done with love, attention and completeness and that's allowing media to be a part of me without becoming addicted it.

Media Fast: Day four-Letting Go

Letting go is a lesson I get to learn constantly. To me, its indicative of how much I hold on to "my, me and I" On day four I was squirming to get away from the obsessiveness with which I do things. My should's, ought to's and have to's came to the surface. In the end though, I let the awareness of it wash through me. Here are some of my realizations from day four of my media fast. 

My Media fast: Day three came tumbling after.

After two weeks of pushing it away and one week of completely embracing it, I am back to the world of computers, television sets and music. Not that I could possible escape it while I was on the fast but I chose to consciously choose other things over media. My media fast entailed a whole week (and a few bumpy previous weeks) of not reading books, watching tv, or using the computer (it was mainly the internet but I can never get on my laptop and not open Google Chrome). The first two days were a breeze. I was on a high that I chose something so positive but then day three happened and it was not pretty. Here are my notes from there: 

(P.S: More notes to follow)