I can't whistle: Mindfulness

02 February 2012

Mindfulness

So today, in an attempt to stack the cards in my favor from the get go, I set up a meditation alarm to gently chime every 7 minutes to give me ample opportunities to reevaluate whatever it is I am doing and choose something else if I've veered off energetically or productively.

And you know what? It's working.

The longest this lets me veer unconsciously, unmindfully, is 7 minutes.

I'm feeling pretty happy about this simple solution. My energy is better and I am being fabulously productive. I'm just sayin'.

I have a meditation timer app on my phone, but today I am using an online one I found after a very very quick search.

Behold the fungie:
http://www.fungie.info/bell/#

I'd love to know, what works for you?

3 comments:

B. said...: Wow! I really love that bell- the whole idea of it, as well as the sound itself. If I were working, I'd probably employ it right away. In addition to using it to pull me back to what I should be doing, it would be a good way to make sure I spent an appropriate amount of time on a particular task. I had a tendency to avoid the less desirable ones, but if I could set the timer and devote myself fully for a specific amount of time, I suspect I'd have worked with more focus and success than simply making myself do something until I was tired of it. Finally, an app I can imagine using myself. (I have an app-less phone, and no plan to obtain a smarter one.)

Thank you for your kind words about Charlotte. Not that I intend to compare them, but I worry already that our expectations may be excessively high when Maggie comes along.

And yes, Maggie is welcome ANY MINUTE NOW (Do you hear that, Maggie?).; February 2, 2012 at 2:01 PM
Erin Bakal said...: Brilliant. You inspire me. I would never have thought of that, but I love it. I love the sound of both bells and I really appreciate what they might do. I'm going to have to see what happens as I try to employ them tomorrow. Thanks so much for sharing (and for being willing to be vulnerable as you were in your video post-- at least you are aware that you are self sabotaging and so can take wonderful steps like today's towards stopping it). Keep on rockin' it-- you're an inspiration!; February 2, 2012 at 9:34 PM
Jem said...: Thanks for that link. Beats the heck out of my egg timer.; February 3, 2012 at 4:20 PM

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About this blog

I started this blog during struggles with infertility--struggles that resulted in countless IUIs, medications, procedures, 5 attempted IVF cycles, 2 pregnancies, one heartbreaking loss, and one miracle baby.

Parenthood left me feeling like I was not sure what to do here, with this amazing community. To talk about parenting felt boastful for those still and forever struggling. To not talk about it felt disingenuous. So here I am. I want to talk about my real life. Parenting. Midlife reassessment. Flailing. Finding myself. Mucking about.

So yes, I am a midlife parent of an amazing child.
Yes, I battled infertility and will be forever changed by every single moment of that journey.
I am imperfect and life is messy, but it is also so beautiful.

Among many other things, I hope to reconnect to myself through writing here. And I hope to connect with you too. Others out there, parenting maybe later in life. Maybe after struggling. Maybe struggling still. We can all use a safe place and a lot of compassion. That's what I am offering to you. I hope you'll stick around.

inside out

"The key is, starting from the inside out. Often you say, “I don’t know what to do.” True, you don’t know what to do. There are infinite possibilities. And a bunch of them haven’t worked for you. A lot of them have been tried, and they haven’t worked under what you think are the same conditions. And so, you sort of pace around, you don’t know what to do. Sometimes you don’t even know what you want to have. But you always, you always, if you will stop and think about it, you ALWAYS know how you want to feel."

--Abraham