Cruisin’ To Divine Insight

I’m back from a long 8-day cruise of the Mexican Riviera. Second cruise of my life. Probably not the last even though my girlfriend, Andrea, and I have both reaffirmed some travel preferences (we like to stay longer at a destination to experience it more and cruising is really not about that so much).

It’s more-or-less day two back at the proverbial grind. And what I’ve noticed is NOW is the time when clarity comes… not during the vacation. Unless of course, you intend to take a vacation like that… with solitude and quiet reflection. Which may not guarantee you gain desired clarity, but hey, we do still intend to find it.

This wasn’t that kind of vacation.

Three Divine Insights

Now that I’m back, and actually deciding on things I’d like to do. And what’s important to continue taking action on… yati yati yah (I am not minimizing; life is IN the yati!)

First,

Live Healthfully. Which means getting my health & wellness thang in gear. It has slipped. A lot. Which is OK. Well used to be. I’ve been saying to myself, “Mynde, you’ve been in a huge die zone for the last 3-4 years.” But now it’s starting to sound a little bit like an excuse.

I’m grateful for all the support and opportunities to begin again. All around me. Seriously. It’s everywhere. And I’m so glad I see that.

Me: Today, am I willing to participate in my wellbeing & healthfulness?

Me: OK

Me: In what way would you like to participate?

Me: I’d like to drink more water/tea. I’d like to eat proportionate, well balanced meals. I’d like to take vitamins & supplements. I’d like to take a walk. I’d like to go to the gym. I’d like to be strong, fit & healthy today.

Next,

Writing is epic shit for me. Charlie Gilkey time. Yeah, his appearance is pretty regular here, on msquared. Well and on Twitter (@CharlieGilkey), and in my head in tiny bits and pieces of conversations & concepts. Charlie talks about doing “epic shit” and I’m sure he’s mentioned where he first grabbed the idea but I don’t remember that part of it. I only remember “epic shit” and contemplating that.

I had no answer for awhile, which was OK. I’m happy to say that I noticed a difference in how I treated myself while in the uncertainty of not knowing what my “epic shit” might be. I did a really good job at being gentle and relaxing, instead of giving myself epic knockouts (which I am highly trained at).

Yesterday, Charlie’s vlog mentioned it again. Epic shit. And I realized that for NOW (thank you Steve Hagen for your book on Buddhism which I read on the cruise), my epic shit is writing.

Writing in any way where I’m not hiding behind something else. A corporate product, or set of processes & diagrams and/or especially my own perceived notions. The mantle of relationship… as in businesses, with trees. Or I guess even personal, romantical ones also.

Writing is a way of stepping out. Using my voice. Being who I am. It’s practice. Because it’s not always easy and I don’t always want to do it. And at other times, I realize I’m healthier when I do, like eating well and exercising regularly.

So writing, and being me (with my grammatical errors and run on sentences, and extra 20 pounds or whatever) is my epic shit. For now.

Finally,

Self-compassion is the key to everything. While cruising, I read two books. However, here in this post, I’m only going to talk about one. The one I’ve already mentioned called Buddhism, Plain & Simple by Steve Hagen.

And I read this book and did some noticing. Because Buddhism is about awareness and noticing and stuff like that.

And what I noticed the most was my own judgment. How it flies up in a nano-second. I would look out my eyes and see something and instantly have a thought of judgment about it.

I mostly noticed how my judgment leaned into negativity. And it sucked. And then I noticed how much I wanted that to be different. To be more neutral. To have the ability to suspend my judgment for just a nano-second longer. Get better at that. Practicing over and over until I was maintaining a bigger gap of innocence with others (and myself) before jumping into judgment. Innocence, for me, is that place where we have not assigned labels like good/bad, black/white, male/female, right/wrong.

And not necessarily because of the book I read, but probably because I was in a Buddha-state-of-mind I recalled a quote “All compassion begins with self-compassion” or something like that.

And anchored again that any kind of change starts with self-compassion. And my judgment is a sore spot that I can heal with self-compassion.

The decision to see my own judgment, began with self-compassion. Getting back into my health & wellness routine will begin with mounds and mounds of it. And the new story I’d like to tell about writing is, that each time I begin, I sit down with self-compassion first and continue all the way to the publish-button finish line.

That’s what I’ve got; two days post-8-day-cruise vacation. In case you were wondering. 😉