Sunday, the day of rest
Today is Sunday, and I am going to rest! It sounds like a guilty pleasure these days. Growing up in a predominantly Christian town, we always knew that Sunday was the day of rest. The liquor stores were closed, as were many of the stores back then. Some of our friends went to church. In the Jewish religion, the Sabbath is Saturday. Regardless of religion, my parents always kept the weekends free to be with family. They shopped, worked around the house, or we went on a memorable trip somewhere — sometimes a museum, ice skating, or Mohonk Mt House for a special time. Life was always an ongoing adventure, and it still is! The bottom line is that we do need to rest. Yet the weekends have been busy with work, and I want to change it back to where weekends are most memorable. I want my safe, fun, and relaxing bubble back! My brain is sore from overthinking about our life, taxes, income, health, human nature, and the social conditions we accept. I saw a few movies recently that rattled me. Last week I saw Triangle of Sadness, then, The Banshees of Inisherin, and last night, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. My brain has had a workout. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold, repeat.
Triangle of Sadness was a slap-in-your-face expose of our money culture and class system. Narcissism, capitalism, socialism, and wealth on a yacht until it all becomes one giant puking and an explosion. Click here for the New Yorker review. I’m still downloading Everything, Everywhere, but my biggest takeaway was that nothing matters; everything matters, and we need to be kind. It was a wild trip. The heaviest of them all was The Banshees of Inisherin. We can’t let the Banshees win because we know in our hearts if we do, there will be nothing left. Without love connecting us, we can’t see the beauty of existence. Love gives us the faith to survive and believe in something greater than ourselves. Love gives us hope and lets us form bonds of friendship. Friendships that endure the test of time build our foundation, which we can continually spring. After seeing that movie, I wonder about niceness, kind acts, and our society’s inclination towards narcissism and cruelty. Why ruin a delightful existence?
McDonagh’s lesson is clear: human nature is human nature — corrupt, selfish, and cruel — no matter where human beings live.
Martin McDonagh has succeeded in writing one of the most horrific, dark stories of human nature that I care to witness. The cruelty and messy dismemberment. Sexual, mental, and physical abuse amongst the beautiful scenery set on an Island off of Ireland. Here is a full commentary of this piece that will leave you tormented, a little nauseous, and speechless.
Is there something wrong with me? I want to see something funny, joyful, and light. Who else out there wants to laugh so hard that it hurts so good? I still enjoy Rom Coms, where love wins. As we all know, everything is relative, so we must endure the dark to live in the light. When I get to choose, I will always choose what lifts us all and keeps us alive and accessible to love. Kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, faith, happiness, joy, and love. Do I have my dark moments? You bet I do, and I do my best not to let the anger and despair ruin another day. If it does, I do what I can to make amends. Is that the best we can do? It is because we all fall from grace and suffer sometimes. What we do with that hurt is what matters. They say, “Hurt people, hurt people,” yet isn’t that why we go to therapy?
Welcome to my 100 Days of Wellness, Day #36. After 36 days, I expected to feel lighter than air, happier than joy itself, and clearer in mind, spirit, and body than ever before, and yet, I still struggle.
My meditation practice is intact; that’s the good news! I’m finding a peaceful place to reset and land at least once daily, sometimes twice, through my TM practice. I am grateful, and it’s a start. Getting on the yoga mat has been intermittent, and I blame that on time management and excess weight making me feel sluggish and sore after each class. The worst problem is food, which I have been relishing with enormous zest. The cold weather always makes me hungrier. I will start a new program tomorrow and do my best to keep active until my trip comes up in early March. It’s challenging and complicated for me to eat sparingly and disengage from food when social. I know this is nothing new. I want to solve it, though, and will discuss it until I make a new mark.
Here is the yoga sutra for today, 1.35, Or the concentration on subtle sense perceptions can cause steadiness of mind. Satchidananda, Swami. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
How “concentration on subtle sense perceptions can cause steadiness of the mind” is what I need to learn to make better choices in my daily food intake. Why can’t I train my brain the way we train our dogs? Sit still, stay, eat this, good dog! When we are hungry, our resolve and concentrated determination can dissolve, and unbound eating, or even a binge, can occur. And that is ok, I guess, if we are young, active, and don’t have excess body fat weighing us down. It’s making me miserable. I’ve never been this heavy in my life. Once, I asked my mom when life felt different, and she started feeling older. She said it was around 60. At the time, when I was in my 40’s, the ’60s seemed very far away. I thought, “I have a lot of time!” And here I am, living in a body of change.
There are therapies of all kinds: Yoga, massage, and cognitive talk therapy; you would think I’d have great control over my mind and actions. Sadly, that’s not the case, and I keep slipping from my weight loss plan and sometimes wallow in or dream about what’s been lost to the past and get a bit anxious over what’s to come. I sometimes get annoyed with my meditation teacher for being so steady and calm when speaking about heinous crimes and the destruction of precious nature. I think, “how can he stay so stable and committed to peace and joy even when facing so much suffering amongst defenseless nature? Then I remember that the sutras are essential to my well-being, happiness, and concentration. Yoga sutra 1.33: By cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness. Whether you are interested in reaching samadhi or plan to ignore Yoga entirely, I would advise you to remember at least this one sutra.
Satchidananda, Swami. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Until we get clarity and control over our delusions, the thoughts that drive us to a dark place, we can’t change anything about our lives.
Everything starts in the mental plane before it manifests in the physical plane. “conceive, believe and achieve.”
Your inner thoughts determine how you see the outer world. The yoga sutras are a study in life and directions on finding that inner calm and eternal bliss we need so we don’t go into a doom and gloom abyss. Here is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, read by Bob Roth in the TM meditation group this morning. Enjoy!
How yearns the solitary soul
To melt into the boundless whole,
And find itself again at peace!
The blind desire, the impatient will.
The restless thoughts and plans are still;
We yield ourselves and wake in bliss.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “One and All”
[Image: Karl Joseph Stieler, “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
I would like to add that today was the full moon in Leo; it’s called the snow moon and has quite an intense energy, even though it’s the smallest full moon of the year. It’s called a micro-moon, the opposite of a supermoon. If you feel extra spacey or tired today, you may be able to blame it on the moon! LoveLife, Jackie
