Unit 8

The two exercises I choose to focus on are calm abiding and visualization.
I practiced calm abiding tonight.  My two year old grand-daughter was at my house.  She was tired and cranky and generally being very uncooperative.  She didn't want to behave and was getting fairly sassy.  Her mother who is young and pregnant again - and had already had a long day was not fairing well with the situation - none of us really were.  Her mom and my son were trying to get her to listen and do as she was told, but she was going to have none of that.  She was put in time out and still was trying to fuss with the adults.  Finally, I turned her away from everyone and I sat behind her.  I kept my hands gently on her shoulders and I closed my eyes and focused my mind, I thought thoughts of peace, calmness and love towards her.  Almost instantly she calmed.  She sat still, no longer fussing with anyone.  She sat calmly and quiet the rest of her time out.  Afterwards she got up and got some toys to play with, asked me if I would play blocks with her and everything was good.  The adults also became more peaceful because they no longer had to deal with her tantruming. It was awesome to send peace and love out to her and instantly see the calming effect it had on her behavior.  I will continue to try this same calm abiding exercise in other situations where peace and calmness will have a positive effect.

Visualization will be very important to me right now.  Having lost a large part of my income from a job lay off, breaking up with my fiance' and having many other changes going on in my family right now, it would be very easy to feel overwhelmed and drop into a depression. But I deliberately choose not to take that path.  I will focus on the positive things that are happening in my life, the things that I can be thankful for (this, I believe is very important), and to build up an excitement in my psyche for new beginnings. I will seek out these thoughts and expand on them with visualization exercises.  One of my very favorite sayings is "...this too shall pass" I am not stuck in this part of my life indefinately.  The one constant in life is change, so I choose to visualize a different tomorrow, a better tomorrow.  So be it  :-)

~Helen