Practices

Let me be honest here. It was really hard for me to keep up with all the meditations I have learned in the class. I figured that practicing alone is much harder than practicing as a group in the class where I felt connected and supported.

 Since I need to make a commitment what I am going to do for this semester, I tried many practices- Pilates, three-word check-in, prayer, volunteering, etc. All of these, I tried more than 3times in the past weeks and they helped me to focus on myself.

·         Pilates: helped me to engage with my body

·         three-word check-in: helped me to analyze my state of mind and where my energies are

·         prayer: helped me to be spiritual and hopeful
·         volunteering: helped me to develop the spiritual qualities such as Ethic of caring, Charitable involvement, and Ecumenical Worldview.

I do not have a solid plan for what I am going to do yet, but I am looking forward to practice whatever it would be. Also, I am very excited about our “Mindful meals”.

*Usually, I ask someone to review my paragraphs or papers because I make MANY grammar mistakes. I have been pushing myself hard in past years to finish my writing assignment a head of the times-so that the person can have enough time to review. However, I decided to encourage myself, approach to people as who I am. In this case, showing my writing as it is.  Therefore, you will see many mistakes in my writing. Feel free to give me feedback or ask me for clarification if there are sentences you don’t understand. Thank you for being so mindful! :)

Week 2 of a Practice

This past week has been a bit of a struggle for me and I’m bouncing around on what mediations and practices I would like to continue for the semester. I have been trying to balance school, family, work and social life or at least find a balanced medium for all. I have been feeling the stress from school already and keep looking at what other assignments are going to be due and what projects, just trying to plan ahead and get organized because I know I have to stay focused for school. I have been trying to keep in mind my mindful eating or well-being because as the semester keeps rolling I don’t want put unhealthy food in my system or stress myself out to a point where I am fully overwhelmed and it’s not even the mid semester yet. So I have been trying yoga and I feel relaxed and peaceful in a way after. I feel I would probably continue yoga as one of my practices for a healthy mind, body, and be in good spirits.

Practice: Dance!!

Well I absolutely learned a lot about myself, my emotions and grew more internally as a person from the five days of class. For one practice I really wanted to feel as good as I did when we all left class for the start to the semester. So I wanted to incorporate more dancing meditations in my practice for the week. I would go to the Zumba class at my gym to kind of get a "warm-up" first but then I realized that once the class was done I still wanted to dance! So when I would get home I would dance walk around the room. I'm not the best dancer and my dog would look at me like I was crazy because it was out of the ordinary. Eventually he wanted to join the fun and play around too. So I danced around and played fetch with my dog. When I was done with my dance walk I just felt so energized! But by dance walking at the end of the day, then getting ready for bed I was more aware of how my body was reacting to a work out, then a dace walk; I felt good mentally but physically I was tired. So I fell asleep rather quickly.

 

I love yoga :)

Today marks two weeks into my new yoga practice that I've chosen as one of my on-going practices this semester!  I've been attending CCT's yoga class held at 12:15 on Thursdays in the Piedmont Hall multipurpose room, so if anyone wants to join please do!  I love the atmosphere and the practice itself.  I am a beginner at yoga, but since trying it last week, I've been looking forward to it everyday.  It really gives you chance to not only let go of stress and anxiety mentally, but physically as well.  As a very hands-on kind of person I find that being able to use physical postures along with breathing practices helps me to contain my stress at a low level.  Although I am only attending to this practice once a week, I am contemplating practicing yoga outside of CCT's class as well. Hope this post finds everyone doing well!

Beginning my Practices

When we left the last day of our class I was on fire and excited about all that we had done and learned. I had no idea it would be such a challenge for myself to keep this excitement up and carry all of that into my "real life." Starting my last semester, making sure im all set to graduate, working a job and even overtime because we just lost 2 other employees, planning for my future, trying to enjoy my days and building and maintaining relationships. It was hard for me to find balance last week in these things, and it seemed almost impossible for me to add the practices into the list as well. I was overwhelmed and anxious. Though it was quite a struggle for me to keep up my practices during the first week of classes, I am so glad it was a requirement. My practices are morning affirmations, hula hooping, yoga and mindful eating.  Unfortunately I did not practice each one every day, but I did however each of the 4 at some time during the week.  They really did have a positive impact on my well being and demeanor.  I think the ones I picked were very strategic and I strongly believe that keeping these practices up will be very good for me, both helping me as I work toward graduation and also after.  I am taking a deep breath and starting again and I am determined to keep them up throughout the semester.  I am planning to do my morning affirmations and mindful eating everyday, and I would like to make time every day or at least 5 days a week for hula hooping or yoga time!