Week 27 Day 6

Medi object choiceless awareness
Intention to be receptive to all sensations

Afternoon all! Today 45 mins practice. First time ever felt slight reluctance to practice, did a bit of procrastinating but after 10 mins got on with it.

I am very tired this morning and to be honest vexed about going into the shed to get the lawn mower! I'm not good with wildlife so do not know what to expect when I open the door! As a recap I discovered that a robin had made its nest in my shed two weeks ago, so hopefully they will have moved out by now as fledgings were staring at me through the gap in the shed door at that time!

I acknowledged my weariness and noted my aversion to this future activity at the start. In fact my focus moved onto my weariness and I mused about why I was so tired and lethargic.  I think that more exercise this week and the stress of wondering whether to extend this work contract is taking its toll. I am in essence an over analyser but in my mind staying makes sense but in feeling I think it is going to be bad. Not easy when one has this dichotomy of heart and mind. As a consequence a lot of thoughts came into my mind. I let them drift through and observed the vedana each presented. Not always pleasant and they were mainly about the state of my house. It has become somewhat of a junk yard since I have been working long hours and trying to fit in meditation with golf both of which are not five minute jobs.

Thoughts always present themselves as happening now and then I mentally elaborate that they are past or future thoughts. Also current thoughts of verbalising occurred throughout this practice as though I needed to persuade myself to keep going.

For some reason it was visitor and phone call season, two cold calls and my neighbour. I tried to remain mindful during the dialogues and returned to practice immediately except when the neighbour called in there was only 15 seconds to go on the timer.

The bell went for metta and I felt I could focus on the feelings of metta for a few minutes. This is good as often the metta is fractured. Today my efforts of focus on the object seemed to yield a strong sensation for the alloted time. As the bell went for 30 mins I decided to continue with a final 15 minutes of noting. I felt happier after the metta and renewed my intentions to be on the present. And to observe some micro-joys maybe? I cycled through the senses and tried to move from one sensation to the next without drifting. It moved smoothly for about 5 minutes then I struggled with thoughts about time. In the end I peeked and there was only 1 min 40 seconds left...Then of course my neighbour pressed the doorbell with 15 seconds to go. I sat for a few seconds debating whether to ignore her, but thought I should do the neighbourly thing and answered the door. I listened to her as neutrally as I could as she was asking me about the house insurance  (blah blah blah) which only reminded me that I needed to sort the lease out. My neighbours rely on me to do this legal stuff as they don't really have a clue. More stress.

In the words of a work process: Risk: There is a risk that build up of stress will result in overload of thoughts and demotivation to do anthing. Mitigation: a) Daily meditation b) Daily Big Rock action plan required to rein in house chaos and other key goals. c) write down pros and cons of staying in job d) open shed door..😨.

Will update tomorrow!

Glad to share with you and thanks for reading! 🐽💜🐽

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