post meditation follies...

the day started out fine enough. I got a decent amount of sleep, got up and meditated, walked the dogs, fed the dogs, fed myself. I felt in a good place - grounded. I started listening to an audio file for school about tonglen and the lojong mind/heart training. This put me into a great state of mind. I love learning this stuff. It resonates to my cells, blood and bone. I'm listening and saying, "Yes! This is good!" and I swear I'm enjoying the whole day. I take a break, walk the dogs, feed them their green mush and go back to work. Sam's friends come over, Emily is doing her thing. The dogs are on my lap and life, she is good.

time rolls by and I'm just pleasantly plugging along. I think I have all kinds of time to write papers and take care of things that need to be taken care of. I had two very nice phone calls and emails that came in, too, which delighted me to no end (relating to work stuff... more on that later...) then the monkey wrench came. my sweet little peaceful world started to get a little shitty, to be very honest... and why shouldn't it? there's ebbs and flows to the day. that is what is natural.

the three boys and Emily were playing outside and the dogs were jealous or curious or something. They kept barking every time they saw the kids. There would be peaceful moments and then crazy barking out of the blue. turned into every sound or sight was freaking them out. I kept jumping out of my skin each time it happened. (I think the dogs and I are part cat - we can be so highly strung at times.) I swear this must have happened about a dozen times in the span of an hour and each time I breathed and relaxed, it seemed to happen again.

but that was really nothing. it was annoying but whatever. the dogs are just being dogs. they calmed down pretty quickly when I called their names. the real monkey wrench was my son telling me that BY THE WAY, I was supposed to drive the boys home, 1/2 hour drive each way. My brain went into some kind of overdrive, trying to figure out the rest of the day and how it would all work if I'm supposed to take these boys home. When? Where? What about the dogs? What about my papers? What about my chores? What about my intention of doing some yoga? I spoke in a very frustrated tone telling my son that I really want to have clear communication with him, that this would not be a big deal if I just knew about it long enough to figure on a plan for my day. I tried to cram all the things I wanted to do in a short time just so that I could get the kids home and get some things done for myself.

thankfully, the boys' mom called and said she could pick them up at X time. I was instantly relieved. I hold a lot in my day. I manage a bunch of abundance very well. I also know when I have too much on my plate and lately I have had too much on my plate. I've got 2 weeks here of doing the solo parenting thing plus managing school, houses, businesses, work, parenting, etc and so forth. I should stop listing these things because it doesn't really help to do so...

mindfully, I was trying to remember what I JUST learned on the videos about tonglen and awakening bodhichitta and all this good stuff on the ego being like a room that we love to be in and how difficult the outside feels in comparison, so we never leave it, thus creating a kind of prison for ourselves. I had this monkey wrench in some tiny part of my day and I watched how badly I handled it. I suppose I did some good by stating some things clearly and setting up some kind of boundaries. This is good. However, I somehow managed to feel badly afterwards. I felt for my son who was trying to have a fun day with friends. I felt a bit on edge from the dogs barking at random things. It was difficult to get back from this triggered place, but I eventually did.

I ended up doing some yoga and it was very good. It helped to bring me back to my body and that was very necessary. I had an experience of distrust inside myself and I'll write about that in a bit. Right now I really want to say my gratefuls and put this day to bed.

this is the part when I try to be very gentle with what is going on inside me. simple request but not always easy. I'm grateful for this practice...

good night.