Karen told me that a good way to deal with a bad situation is to picture breathing in the bad and transforming it within you to breathe out goodness. That sounded useful!
Then I found this Tai Chi instruction, here, that says breathe in the good and breathe out the bad.
I’ll just breathe.
The lesson for this day is “Be Open”. Kat and I started the week with this intention and this day (3/10) taught the lesson: Be open to whatever comes your way. That’s the short version.
Here is the long version:
After a two days of sitting in San Francisco hotel conference center chaird and listening to technical presentations via PowerPoint, I knew I had to find a yoga class. The hotel concierge found and printed a listing of a studio nearby, with a class schedule. “Mellow Flow” sounded exactly right! I walked over and was waiting for the elevator with another yoga-looking person. Sure enough, she said she was going to yoga, so I followed her. I asked her if it was indeed “mellow” and she was non-committal, as was the woman who checked me in. They both asked me if I had done Kundalini yoga before – I had sampled it as part of another class, just once.
I seemed to have the times wrong so I had to make some quick arrangements for meeting a friend after class.
The space was beautiful – a high-ceilinged loft with low lights and LED tealights, which made me think of Sally. There was a green book in a basket – World’s Healthiest Foods – Gale’s bible. The teacher, with whom I had arrived, it turned out, looked like Lava’s friend Liz, and was named Michelle. I felt surrounded by connections.
The class was awesome! Kundalini yoga is all about breathwork and meditation. The postures were few, but just right. The music was great.
After class, the teacher served tea and date balls! Who ever heard of snacks at yoga class?
I told her that I enjoyed the class but that I was surprised that it was called “Mellow Flow”.
That’s when I found out that I had gone to the wrong place! Mellow Flow was on the floor below this class, in a complete separate yoga studio!
Who ever heard of two yoga studios in one building?
The wrong place at the wrong time turned out to be absolutely and exactly the right time and place for me.
From Cindy:
“Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow has not yet come.
We have only today
Let us begin.”
~Mother Teresa
I have learned that it is OK for me to say “I will pray for you” (your newborn baby, your brother-in-law, yet another newborn baby) without disclaiming it to be whatever I take for prayer or calling it good vibes or thoughts or anything else.
OK, I confess I just stole this title from looking at someone else’s magazine on this plane, but I’m sure the article is also about what I learned in February.
For each day of the month, I posted something for which I was grateful, as my Facebook status. It was a very rewarding experience and made me very aware of how fortunate I am and how many things there are to be grateful for*, both large and small, in my life.
From the obvious and big, including my wonderful friends and family, to the obvious and small, Egg McMuffins, and on to the not so obvious, a taxi or superglue when nothing else would do the job.
I am learning that my awareness of my gratitude has extended beyond February.
* I am grateful that I having my own blog means that I can end sentences and phrases with prepositions.
I have learned that it uses up all of your reserves to keep looking and looking for something that you should know is not out there to find. To conserve your power, you need to stop struggling and stop seeking, in those situations.
I am talking, of course, about the settings on the iPhone. If you are in an area without wireless, the wireless setting should be off. If you are in some remote part of Vermont with no cell phone coverage, your phone should be set to the no-call “airplane mode”, or just off. Otherwise, you’ll run down the battery in record time.
I learned other ways to conserve battery life from this: http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
This lesson has to start with a story.
It was May, 1981. Steve went to local hangout, the bar at the Queen City Motor Inn. “Where is everyone?”, he asked the bartender. “Oh we’re out”, was the reply. “Jameson’s Social Club is in, now. Everyone goes there”. So Steve went there. And there we met.
I am learning to go to Jameson’s.
Instead of pushing and pushing for everyone to come back to Queen City, or in this case to put project resources on the project that was very important, I am learning to look around at what now is important, see where everyone has gone, and go join them there!
As Steve says, “good things happen” when you do this!
Jill shared this quote with me:
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” Ambrose Redmoon
Martin Luther King, Jr. through the eyes of my Facebook friends on this day and then a story about my grandmother.
Patti posted: ”Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” -MLK
Judy posted: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tim posted: “If a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.”
Donna learned:
“Do what you enjoy. The day goes by so much faster and we are too old to do something we don’t enjoy doing.”
Donna also said: “You may already have this one because it is so obvious.”
Tell me, is this obvious to you? Have you learned this?
Wait, did she say we are old?
Jane's Lessons Learned 