May 2021 Gratitude Post

This month has been an almost wild level of change and growth. Try to keep up! seems to be my motto. But also, No FOMO!

Grateful for Meditation

Like a lot of people, I got into a routine in quarantine, and I love it. I work out on the roof, shower, dress in T-shirts and shorts, saunter over to my desk to start work. Weekends hiking, dog park, boat, bicycle, long runs, camping, etc. If you saw the video of what I packed for Colorado last summer, you will note that there were no purses, jeans, dresses or heels involved.

Meditation has shown me that for myself, being happy is important; more so than over-extending myself because of FOMO. It’s also up to me to decide where I want to spend time and for how long. I even drove over 90 minutes (in a Getaround Prius!) to a meditation, sound healing and movement seminar at a festival. FLOW over FOMO.

And I realized, it gives me joy to go to festivals for the seminars and classes. I love that a lot more than the ‘party’ aspect. Meditation has essentially opened my eyes to realizing that as things open up and opportunities with other people become available, seeking further conscientious and healing activities is what really speaks to me.

Grateful for Dogs

By now you probably know I’m a dog-lover. Dogs are amazing!

• In graduate school in Washington, I was a Teaching Assistant and had a blind student in my class with a seeing eye dog. In our training for student accommodations, we learned how to work with the dog also, although we couldn’t pet him. I was blown away.
• Dogs have other important jobs in society and for their owners, like sniffing bombs or fire smoke, and diverting bear attacks so the owner can escape. That last one about bears isn’t just a wild guess; I met a man in Alaska who told us about how he trained his dog for just that.
• Dogs can be great companions. I see almost every person or group walking in my neighborhood has at least one dog, and

Grateful for Challenge

Challenge makes you grow.

At work, I am stepping into more challenging, requiring a lot of new thought and applying skills in ways I have only learned about or theorized. Blogging, working out, practicing my dulcimer, buying less stuff… They’re all opportunities to grow.

Not that growth is always fun or easy. For me it can be frustrating, annoying, painful. That’s where I am learning to lean into the challenge. Vale la pena, as they say in Spanish.

The other day when I was running, I came to a fork in the road, where one part of the sidewalk went over a steep hill and across a bridge, and one part went on the flat road under the bridge. I saw a runner go under a few seconds before me, but I thought to myself, This is for you. These gains are for you. And I schooled up the hill and down and streaked out in front of the other runner and never looked back.