Hello in There

My adventure in Christian mindfulness has begun to open up more awareness of my own head.  As John Prine would say, "Hello in there, hello."

It's been interesting to say the least. Several times, I've been able to deal with a feeling of being overwhelmed with work requests by concentrating on my breathing and watching the anxious feelings come and finally go.  Interesting.  I feel I really am doing as much work as possible, and getting myself in a centered mode helps me to maximize it.  Yet the "Oh no, I'm going to let someone down" feeling has always been hard for me.  Now I know that it can ebb away, and that part of me is always calm.

Then there's looking backwards with sadness.  One of the aspects of having a daughter who writes a lot of autobiographical pieces is that you find out things you didn't know.  I bought copies of the two "Rookie" yearbooks, which feature her writing.  But I haven't been able to get myself beyond the first article, in which she talked about her wretched high school years.

I found that she had two major incidents in the high school cafeteria ... that seat of evil.  Kids were cruel to her in a public, obvious way twice. She never told me about that. When I read the story, I just felt so sad, so sick to my stomach. Now, this was at least 13 years ago.  (We eventually pulled her out of that high school to be homeschooled, and thank God we did.) But I still feel such emotion when I learned about it.

I left the book alone for a few weeks, and now I know I need to go back and read it.  It is, indeed, the first published book containing work from my daughter. This time I will be a little more aware that it may contain information that will upset me. So I hope to read with mindfulness, perhaps by being aware that this is in the past and there is nothing I can do about it.  When I get upset, I will stop reading and breathe.  Let's see if it works.