A poet friend of mine has decided to dedicate March to writing only happy poems, on account of he feels he writes mostly sad ones.
I woke up this moring with an idea in my head that needed to be written down immediately, and it was this idea that prompted the idea for this on-going post.
Generally speaking, transition in life is never easy. There is wonderful metaphor in the transition a writer must make from one style to another. I took this step at the end of 2014 when I decided to begin writing performance poetry. So my friend now takes this step in choosing to attack this new writing method... topic... whatever. So we all take this step anytime we take on a new hobby, a new mindset, or anytime we choose to let go of that which no longer serves us.
I have decided to dedicate the month of March to gratitude; however, instead of simply listing things I am grateful for, I will be posting meditations accompanied by writing prompts for myself and anyone who wants to join me. I will be posting daily from March 1st - March 31st, 2015.
And so, without further ado...
31 Days of Gratitude: LE(N)T'S GET THANKFUL, March 2015
Day 1: Make a list of what calls to you. Use 3 of these to describe a single day in your most ideal life. How is this different from the life you're living? (This is what you make it, so if you make it ridiculous, that's your call.)
Day 2: What story does your body tell? What marks on your skin offer insight into the more fundamental parts of who you are? Do you have scars (maybe from sports), tattoos, piercings? Consider how the stories we write across our bodies are not only influenced by our self-perceptions, but continue to influence our self-perception (and, perhaps, maybe resolve to write only love across your body from now on).
Day 3: How do our habits shape our happiness? A less permanent, but no less important aspect of self, our habits directly reflect the respect we have for both our selves and others. List three good habits you've developed over the years, three habits you'd like to change, and three habits you'd like to form. Select one of these habits and do a focused analysis of how this habit has shaped or will shape your life.
Day 4: Make a list of what inspires you. This can be people, places, activities, ideas, objects, etc. Not every day is going to be a great day for us humans. Some days, we wake up feeling completely uninspired. We may find solace in simply remembering where our purpose comes from - and we can find our purpose in that which most inspires us. Once you've made your list, choose one of your sources of inspiration, and meditate on all the ways you can incorporate that one thing into your daily life.
Day 5: What are you committed to? What are the three most important current committments in your life? Do these committments energize you or exhaust you? Explore this contrast through a brief freewrite. What committments can you alter or drop in order to improve the quality of your life? (Note: Think outside the box. For example, I am committed to eating chocolate everyday. I am committed to wallowing in self-pity. It doesn't have to be a physical activity!)
Day 6: How much time do you make for yourself? Thursday is my busiest day of the week. I go from 7AM - 10PM straight, stopping only for a brief lunch, and I did not have time to blog yesterday! Personal time is extremely important for all of us. So today, list five different activities you love to do, just for you. Reflect on days when you have done one of these in comparison to days you haven't. In what ways do these activities fill you up? Make a point to do at least one of these a day!
Day 7: How have you grown? We are so blessed to be human, capable of great change: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We may feel stuck, but we are always able to change our circumstances simply by shifting our perspective. Every day, there is an opportunity for new growth, when we resolve to learn something new. If we keep an open mind, we will be able to take advantage these daily gifts of new knowledge, and only when we understand that we are never done learning wil we come to know that we are never done growing, even on the days when we feel our best and believe we have it all figured out. Today, "Begin by assuming you know nothing about anything, and you might just learn something." Write about the most important lesson you've learned thus far, and evaluate how it has caused you to grow.
Day 8: What can you give? Reading my book, Meditations from the Mat, the focus this past week has been on santosa, or contentment. Where in your life do you feel a sense of contentment? Where in your life do you feel a sense of lack or discontented? Today, I challenge you to practice both santosa (contentment) and seva (service) by examining the areas of your life where you find yourself most wanting, and then writing about what, in those areas, you can give away. What we give away has a funny way of coming back to us twofold.
Day 9: What are you afraid of? Make a list of your 10 greatest fears. Once you have completed your list, next to each fear, write a brief explanation of why you have that fear. Then, summarize each fear and its explanation in one word. Write a 20-line poem using each of these words. The first 10 lines must explain each fear. The second 10 lines must resolve each fear. In other words, use the second half of the poem to face each fear and mitigate it.
Day 10: How do our fears shape us? Consider the poem you wrote on fear. In what ways have these fears shaped your life? Select one of the fears from your poem, and rewrite the entire 20-line poem, focusing on only that fear. This time, use the first 10 lines to explore the fear - what it is, where it comes from, etc. - and the second 10 lines to explore a potential future scenario where the fear might manifest again. How will you react to the fear if you allow it to control you? If you choose to see past it?
Day 11: Where are you misaligned? We talk about alignment all the time in yoga. We talk about it in terms of safety: if you aren't practicing proper alignment, you're bound to hurt yourself. Of course, of course, of course, this applies to everything. Seriously. So, why was I not paying more attention to my alignment in Kung Fu today? In all fairness, probably because I was concentrating more on swinging my leg up while pivoting my standing foot to face the opposite direction without falling over, chambering my leg, thrusting from the hips, and striking on the correct point of both my foot and my partner's body. When we learn new anything, it can be a lot to take in. Today, I relearned the importance of first and foremost ALWAYS practing proper alignment when my knee started popping in a rather disconcerting way. As a very self-aware person - one who is, I will say, very in touch with her body - it was certainly a welcome reminder that I still and always will have growing and learning to do. Anyway, the point of this whole story is, when we allow ourself to develop bad habits, we are living out of proper alignment. For tonight, consider an aspect of your life where you might be misaligned. Write a short reflection on the origin of this misalignment and what this misalignment reveals about your habits and your attitude. How can you adjust your alignment for a safer practice? What "muscles" do you need to build in order to achieve this?
Day 12: In what uncomfortable ways do you show gratitude for yourself? Going to the gym is a form of self-love, when it comes from a desire to take care of the body. Eating healthy, whole foods, abstaining from unhealthy relationships, leaving jobs that make us miserable, partaking in activities that bring us joy, such as hiking, poetry, yoga, surfing, or skiing are all ways we express love for our selves. Sometimes, however, the ways in which we love our selves are not so comfortable. Meditation can often be a difficult and turbulant endeavor, for example. When we take time to step back and acknowledge our own ego - when we choose to observe our selves, as though from the eyes of an other - it is often a painful process. We do not always like what we see. I posit that true self-love is acknowledging our own "short-comings," and choosing to love our selves anyway, then, from this place of love, choosing to grow. In what uncomfortable ways do you show gratitude for yourself? Jot these down, then write yourself a thank-you note. That's what this entire endeavor is all about. Holding space for what is, in an effort to honor all that we have the potential to be.
Day 13: "Yoga is the practice of accepting the consequences of being yourself." What parts of who you are feel like consequences? Make a list of three of these consequences, and describe how each of these has made you who you are. Consider what you have learned from each of these aspects of self.
Day 14: When we were children, we could find fun almost anywhere. There was magic in the mundane. Today, grant some imagination to the tedious. Take the activity you most frequently do that you consider to be the most mundane, and write a short story (it can be a few sentences long, if you like) describing the most epic way to perform said activity. For example, taking out the trash.
Day 15: There's no need to dirty the water digging up what's buried under the mud. Sometimes my thoughts drift back to a particular situation in which I was greatly wronged by the person closest to me, and I never received so much as an apology. The relationship was tainted with anger and lies before it culminated in physical violence by the other person. I have long worked to move forward from this event, but I know I have not fully healed, because my thoughts do sometimes drift back to it, and, if the timing is right, I will still feel the pulling tension in my chest, as if it happened yesterday. We all have such trauma in our lives. Sometimes, I find myself craving the satisfaction of reaching out to this person, and saying all the unkind things I have long chosen not to say. Time and again, I do not say them. Time and again, I try to let them go, and I do my best to silence the hurt voice in my head. We do not always do this. I've come to find, there is no permanent solution. There are times when I feel like I do today - indignant and hurt - and there are times when I feel true empathy for that person... When I feel that I have truly forgiven her. When I feel the way I do today, I do my best to analyze the true source of my grief. When I feel genuinely empathetic, I reach out. Happiness falls somewhere in this constant balance. Today, I challenge you to write a short three sentences evaluating why you are plagued by one of your demons, followed by a short three sentences evaluating why you have been unable to let this go, and concluded with a short three sentences on how it will help you to let it go. Who knows. Maybe, in time, we will all be free of the shit that weighs us down.
Day 16: What are you grateful for? Pick something outside the box, and write a list of 10 reasons you are grateful for this thing. Keep it simple.
Day 17: What was the most difficult lesson you ever learned? Why was this lesson difficult to learn? Who would you be today if you had never learned this lesson? Write a letter to who you might have been, from who you are now.
Day 18: What does it mean to hold space? I didn't understand this term for a very long time. I now understand holding space as allowing myself and others to be our most authentic selves. Holding space, to me, means refraining from judgement and practicing mindfulness in both how I behave towards others and how I interpret the behaviors of others. Sometimes, it's very difficult to hold space when I'm feeling out of sorts... I believe that, unless we can first hold space for ourselves, it is almost impossible for us to hold space for others. We must be gentle with ourselves, even through the difficult times. So, today, let's try something a little different. Today, write an advertisement for whatever you most struggle with. If you struggle with self-doubt, write an ad persuading someone to buy it from you. Sell that which prevents you from effectively holding space for yourself... we have garage sales when we've accumulated too much junk, so why can't we do the same when our emotional bodies feel too full?
Day 19: What is the question you really need to ask? It can be of yourself, someone else, or it can be a theoretical question. Practice asking the question in five different ways. Write each variation out. Now answer your own question.
Day 20: What do your dreams sound like? What is it you want most out of life? If you do not know the answer to this question, I suggest you ponder the answer for a while. If you have an answer - or once you find an answer - describe the realization of this dream in terms of sound.
Day 21: Welcome to spring. How are you planting and watering the good seeds in yourself today?
Day 22: We carry our old mistakes with us, like tattered pieces sewn together into a ragged quilt. We clutch this quilt to us like a child, terrified that if we let go, we will repeat our past mistakes. But we are not children anymore. We do not need to hide behind our past failures. We are fully able to move forward, to become our best selves. Today, consider one of the "mistakes" you've held onto. Turn this mistake into an object or person, describe it in detail (ex. the ragged quilt), and then, in whatever way you choose, let it go. Say goodbye. Burn it. Whatever you see fit. And then move on.
Day 23: We carry the possibility of future mistakes with us like a road map meant to guide us around every potential displeasure. Today, take note each time you catch yourself imagining the ways something could go wrong, then imagine instead three ways it could go right.
Day 24: Think of the thing you most want to do, more than anything else in the world. Now think of three reasons you haven't done it yet. Now find three solutions to each of these three problems. Begin.
Day 25: "The questions will be followed by answers, answers by actions, actions by growth." I keep coming back to this idea of asking questions. Perhaps because we spend so little time seeking answers within. Consider a situation where the source of discomfort seems entirely external, i.e. maybe a rude driver on the highway. How do you react? Now ask youself, why did I react this way? Seek the answer within.
Day 26: Do you know when to say no? So much of life is all about saying yes, but if we always said yes, we would probably be in a hard spot of trouble. Examine the last 3 times you said no. How did this benefit you? How was it not beneficial?
Day 27: What does poetry mean to you? Why have you decided to, or to not, write poetry? Write a poem about it.
Day 28: Susan says, "come to the poets." Come to the poets when your parents don't get it. When your priest looks away. Come to the poets. I have learned the meaning of naked, not lying in a lover's arms, but standing on a stage, fully clothed, dripping "secrets" from my lips for a room of some fourty-odd strangers to hear. Except I have yet to read to them the "secrets" I most need to tell. Someone keeps telling me I have vulnerability issues. Today, write the poem you need to write.
Day 29: Would you live your life differently if you knew every person you met would write a poem about you? Write a poem about yourself from the perspective of the last cashier, homeless individual, server, or other random stranger you encountered. Does this paint a pretty picture of you?
Day 30: Today's prompt, again: WHAT ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR? Name one person, one place, and one thing. Write each of these a thank-you letter.
Day 31: How does examining the more uncomfortable parts of your life create gratitude in you? When we choose to learn from the messy parts of our lives, we learn to hold space for them, and, ultimately, to find gratitude for what's difficult. Write a mission statement for the next month. How will you develope your gratitude practice over the next 30 days?
If you participated in this with me at any time over the month of March, thank you. Awareness practice is a beautiful part of many different spiritualities and religions. I hope you continue to nurture your own awareness practice everyday in your own life!