It’s Like This…

It’s been more than 2 weeks since I left my meditation retreat. As deep and meaningful as this last retreat was, I’ve found it rather hard to find my groove in life again. It’s often challenging to come back to life after being away for some time, especially after some really good time whether active vacation or silent meditation retreat.

Other than trying to find my rhythm in my work, I’m trying to do the very basic things as well as I can — like taking my vitamins (oops, I haven’t taken them yet today!), meditating, doing my yoga or stretching, or some other kind of body movement, cooking dinner, and going to bed at a decent hour (my goal is to be in bed by 10pm). I would say I’m doing o.k. with my basics, but I also noticed I’m picking up my device almost unconsciously and scrolling the screen at lot. Hmmm…

This is when mindfulness can kick in, which doesn’t always happen for me. But when it does, I have an opportunity to be curious with myself. What’s happening in my mind and in my body? Often such curious exploration would point something that I wasn’t aware of… like sometimes I’m anxious about something. Sometimes, I simply want to avoid being present. I’m not keeping score of myself but being aware of my tendency to check out is helpful. Just something to take a note about…

So that’s what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. Just trying to be simple and basic, staying away from the news and appreciating the tranquility of the mountains. Taking one breath at a time. It’s like this today. It’s like this right now.