Day 98, October 30, 2016 @8:17 am

The mornings are still dark at 7:30 but when I step outside, I see it is not total darkness.  There is light reflected back from the white of the garage and the garden fence.  Then there’s the Buddhas,  sitting in prayer and contemplation under the spruce trees. How peaceful and stalwart they are through all the days and seasons.

They are good examples to emulate.  I am not so peaceful.  I’m testing my fortitude in this year of doing different.  The thoughts in my head are like a bag of worms.  They’re wiggling and squirming everywhere.  I worry, fret, catastrophe, project, fear, so and on and on.  On some dark mornings, I’m afraid to open my eyes and face the world.  I’m nauseated by everything before my feet hit the floor. When I open my eyes, reality is not as bad as the stuff in my head.

I’m choosing to sit in meditation with Melli Obrien and Jack Kornfield this morning.  I’m sitting to quiet my mind and open my heart.  I’m learning to sit with the fear, the anxiety, the anger, the boredom and what have you(s). I’m getting to know them through sitting with them.  I am not past the flight mode into stillness.