Hello gorgeous human cookie studded with chocolate chips of pure love,
Welcome to your midweek snack break.
Firstly, I’d like to report a 100% success rate with my new morning practice of sitting outside for 5 minutes and absorbing the day. It has become my favorite part of my morning routine, and it flies by.
I perch myself on a little cushion on my stoop in Savannah, GA with a cup of tea. Some mornings I see a parade of cycling enthusiasts whizzing by. Other days I focus on all of the sounds making their way into my ear: a shirtless man chatting on the phone and pacing, different cars, some kind of power tool.
If it ever stops raining, I’d like to bring the practice to a park bench 100 steps from my front door.
I’ll keep you updated.
Reading:
In keeping with our theme of “presence” for this month, for my 10-minute morning read, I’m tackling the book Fully Present by Susan Smalley, PhD and Diana Wintson. I’d been reading another book by Wintson, The Little Book on Being, but put it aside to be fully present with exploring presence.
Fully Present is a big meaty tome which looks at different aspects of mindfulness and breaks them down scientifically, as an art and in practice, complete with exercises. They approach mindfulness as it relates to breath, awareness, movement, physical pain, feeling bad, feeling good, focus, stress and obstacles.
There is a lot here to digest. Let me fill you in on the science part: although mindfulness is a relatively new area of study, pretty much every scientific study ever done concludes that the human brain, and thus the human body and human being, functions best when mindfulness is part of a daily practice. This generally means meditation. Every. Damn. Day.
I’m a pretty fast reader, even at 10 or more minutes every morning, I’m just over halfway done with this book.
I’m not into regurgitating scientific facts, and there are so many of them in this book. To be honest, because I’m reading this early in the morning, sometimes, my brain sort of glides past the statistics and I move along to the art and practice apportions, which is really the part I want to learn from and incorporate and find ways to pass along to you. To be honest, the information presented doesn’t seem hugely different than so much other stuff that I have read, but to be fair, this book was published eleven years ago, which is a long time in terms of the subject matter and how much more information is common knowledge.
Along the reading lines, I have a gift for all of us. I’ve been reading a novel that I don’t love. I don’t care about any of the characters, I’m not interested in the story, and I find myself not wanting to read it at all. I hit that halfway mark where I feel like I should be invested enough to finish. But I don’t want to. So, I’ve decided to let it go. I’m starting a new book tonight.
And lastly, let’s get to journaling—here are some prompts for you:
· What do I want focus on today, where do I want to send my energy and attention?
· What are the things that distract me, both in my thoughts and in my actions?
· What do I wish I hadn’t missed by being distracted?
· What are the things I find myself doing out of obligation?
· What do I wish I was doing?
Have a great rest of the week, see you on Sunday.
xo
I did drink my lemon water! And I love being called a human cookie 🍪🍪