Boot Camp Mondays

Painted Lady

Monday is my day to reset for the week and get my ducks in a row - make some plans for health and home, and get ready for a week of fun activities with my grandsons. 

This week at the full moon I discerned a new intention: 

I intend to list clear actionable steps towards paring down, resilience habits, delegation, care-taking, and community-building because the next 2-weeks are our boot camp for the long haul of recovery.

The truth is that I need to control the bits I can control: MY habits, my preparations and negotiations, my integrity and compassion. So, for the next two weeks I'm putting myself through Resilience Boot Camp! And today is Day Two.

Agenda this week:

1. Love Meditation

2. Review "How to Keep House While Drowning"

3. A simple living room

4. Health and renewal plans

5. May nature tray

1. Love Meditation:

Every month after the full moon, in the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon, I practice a love meditation that progresses from receptivity, to gratitude, to generosity:

Day 1: Practice a love meditation, and open to receive blessings - send a prayer to the universe asking to be showered with love, kindness, health, and happiness.

1. 1 minute - Relax your body, and focus on the tender emotion of generous love. Allow a smile to settle on your face and in your heart.
2. 1 minute - Visualize love as soft, tingly, warm, pink light, and see it move from your heart to every part of your body so that every cell is glowing and vibrating.
3. 1 minute - Now see the pink light of love radiating to fill the whole room, then the whole city, and the whole planet earth.
4. 1 minute - See that all people, plants, and animals feel warm and happy.
5. 1 minute - Send an extra dose of love light to those people you want to have a better connection to.

2. Review "How to Keep House While Drowning":

I got this little book by KC Davis (2020) from the library a couple of years ago and thought I'd like to review it this month. It covers care tasks - cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, and hygiene - and explains how complex these really are, and how overwhelm and energy fatigue can so easily stop you from carrying them out successfully, and why that failure brings such a baggage of shame and self-loathing.

Her philosophy is "You don't exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you. ... There is a big difference between being on a journey of worthiness and being on a journey of care."

Chapter One is Care Tasks are Morally Neutral. In a nutshell, she says that being good or bad at these tasks has nothing to do with being a good person, or in deserving praise or love. This is a good reminder for me, because I DO correlate completing tasks with being worthy, and I do feel like a lazy person if I'm not keeping up.

3. A Simple Living Room:

In April I did basic housework with integrity, keeping the house clean. In May I want to give greater attention to simple, clear spaces (with the notion that this is something I have control over). 

This week our living room needs a little organization. We have book and toy tangles, winter coats, and messy shelf spaces.  May simplicity is not only about less clutter; it's my goal to have order, to have a home for each thing, and put it back there every day.

My plan is to clear off one shelf space, basket, or toy box each day, and put back only what we need. 

Clearing even a small space, like the book basket, gifts me with feelings of peace and joy. This week I plan to:

• Clear the mantle space, and the bookcase top and leave them virtually empty for a bit.
• Clear and tidy the kid books and remove some we no longer use.
• Clear the toy box, and give some things away.
• Make a new nature tray.

4. Health and renewal plans:

Every week I look at my list of renewal ideas and evaluate how I'm doing, and what habits I need to build. This week I want to focus on: 

• Body: Start the Stand Strong routine; Drink more water - aim for 3 glasses daily; evening walks.
• Mind: Work a little every day on my N-C project!
• Spirit: Enjoy nature daily with photos and grubbing.
• Heart: Give attention to being calm, stoic, even-tempered, the bedrock for the family; find ways to celebrate who W is.

5. May Nature Tray:

It's time to put away the birds and nests. For May I add a vase for flowers, a dish of seeds, a basket for petals, a magnifier, and a "Mother" doll.