updateI started this last week and am finishing it today. Just so you know.
This morning I'm hanging out at Starbucks while I wait for my Mom's testing to get done. She has about two hours of testing with the Neuro-Psychologist to see where she is at. She has already had some preliminary tests done with the neurologist and a MRI scan of her brain. We have a wrap up meeting next Wednesday with the gerontologist again. We should have a good baseline of where she is at and can more accurately evaluate any steps we need to take.
so while I'm waiting I thought it would be a good time to start my post for my next set of intentions for 2019. As I mentioned in my Part 1 post, I have about 10 goals for this year that I want to try and achieve but some of those are the same as last year. Overall, they are all related to making lifestyle changes that I hope make me more mindful, kind, and healthy in mind, body and spirit. Even if I don't achieve them all the goals and the journey are worth it. As mention in the previous post, my dabbling in journaling over the last year and half led to a some benefits, realizations, and ah-ha's that motivate me to make it a more consistent, bigger part of my lifestyle. Similarly, many of the items that are "rolling over" from last year have provided some benefits or enough of something to think I want to keep trying. Some I did fairly successfully, some I failed at. In this and upcoming posts I'll take about what I'm trying and why.
Following journaling first up is Meditation.
in 2018 I began using the Insight Timer app. February 18, 2018 to be exact. Since that time I meditated, chanted, yoga'd 270 days. Mostly meditation, and on days I did yoga or chanted I also meditated. There were a few days that I simply did yoga which I've decided is valid for the consecutive days count in the Insight App. But the reality is that was a late-in-the year decision and 90% of those 270 something days was formal seated meditation with some yoga nidra thrown in. Overwhelmingly seated meditation.
Which is cool and I consider that my last year's goal to more consistently (everyday) meditate a complete success. Granted on some days it very short like 5 minutes and towards the end of the year I was averaging about 10-12 minutes. I want to be doing at least 20 minutes per sitting, but then sitting, even if short, preferable to not sitting. My intention this year is to meditate everyday for at least 20 minutes a day, preferably in one sitting. But I also hope to add a second sitting during each day so if it breaks down to 10 and 10 that's fine. I'd like to be able to do a minimum of 20 and 20 on average everyday by the end of the year.
Secondly, over the last several months I have read Refuge Recovery by and Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. In each of those books was several guides to meditation practices that may be useful. Adding these into the Vipassana practices from my 10 week course or Hatha Yoga Pradipika I have quite the toolkit for deepening my meditation practice. Sometime before the summer I'd like to come up with a plan to actually do each of those meditation practices at least for a couple weeks each. That goal will probably mean that achieving it will bleed over into next year, 2020. Which is fine. Perhaps, in 2020 I'll finally take that meditation teacher training I was thinking of doing at Yoga On High.
As part of the meditation goal, I'd like to add in a more consistent pranayama practice. Whether it's kapalabhati, nadi shondana, what-have-you, I'd like to make sure I add them in. I won't yet go to WIMHOF methods but maybe over time I'll do that. That may be something to do for next year. We'll see.
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