Thursday ramblings

It is Thursday morning and it has not been an easy week.  My guy and I have both been under the weather although differently.  I have had stomach churning, throbbing headaches and total exhaustion, while he is suffering from sore throat, running nose and fever.   Of course this morning I wake us with a slightly loose nose and a scratchy throat.  We have not done much other than work and sleep because we have just been so worn down.  I am in a bit panic because week 3 is this most common week for us to drop off the wagon and leave all our goals and aspirations behind.  I feel myself slipping a little but not with the normal gusto when I fall of the wagon.  I believe that once I have just a bit more energy that we will start up with the plan again.  I am targeting a Friday night swim although I cannot lie my sore throat this morning has me a little worried.

I have hired a coach Jeff Godin to help me train for a redemption marathon Mount Desert Island in October where my goal is under 5 hours.  I am starting Saturday with some crazy Lactate Threshold and VO test to set my training plan up according to my HR and overall health.  I have seen a lot of naysayers talk about the testing not be worth the cost but there are some that say it is a good training tool as it can really inform how best to train.  I am interested in where I am from a health perspective and think that it is worth a little indulgence to learn something.  He said my legs would probably be a little wobbly after (YIKES) so I guess that is one way to get back on track.  I am not sure what it will all mean or how the testing works so I am nervous but looking forward to it.  We have a really hard half-marathon on Sunday that will be humiliating and exhausting but the good news is I can only get better (assuming I train) from here.

I have been reading my Pema Chodron books at night and honestly I had forgotten how much I enjoyed and how her words resonates with me.  I am amazed that for years I blocked out and  "completely forgot" about the comfort and sense of myself I find in the Shambhala teachings. I wonder if the fact that my biological mother is very radical left wing, (understatement)  if I did not pull back and become more conservative as a way of protecting myself from being too much like her.  Combine that with my aversion to the religion panacea and perhaps lumped Shambhala in as just another cultural construct to enforce morality and provide escape from the reality of the here and now.

However, Shambhala is such the opposite of what I normally consider religious doctrine.  I read last night Pema's four reminders of why we should stay in the present moment 1) how precious life (birth) is 2) truth of impermanence (we are all going to die)  3) every seed we sow comes back to us (Karma) and  4) the futility of samsara,  I realized last night that the teaching is everything I believe but have never been able to frame.  Living in the moment is such an overloaded term, but I really believe there is no heaven or hell - there is just now.  Why is this so hard for us to believe?  Why do we choose to live so opposite to this reality?  I do not want to lose sight of this and some how bring this more into my every day life.  Funny it feels slightly uncomfortable to profess this belief...I wonder why I have built such a wall around believing anything definitively...

I think the thing I am really missing is a regular practice of meditation.  I have been working on waking up (but not getting up) a little earlier than I have been with the hope that I could create more space in the morning to have some time to sit.   Right now I am getting up just in time to hang out with the boys in the morning and write when I am feeling inspired.   It sounds crazy but I cannot figure out the right order of things.  My thought is I should get up - do the 15 minute morning yoga, 30 minutes sitting and then be up with the boys - but wait - some mornings I want to run - so where does that fit?  It really isn't that hard though because if I would get up at 545 I could be through yoga and meditation before 630 and then once the boys leave go for my run.  Well the hard part is getting my body from that warm bed to the open world.  My goal is to do get up and do this three times next week.  Stop scheduling...start doing :)

For those playing along at home.  I wrote and mailed a note to my parents basically saying I am well and have been thinking of them and that the one hole in my life was our lack of reconciliation or relationship.  I said I would be open and encourage them to reach out to me if there was interest.  The mailing of the letter was anti-climatic and now that it is gone I feel relieved and I have no real expectations that I will hear from anyone.  I am not 100% sure what the motivation was but it feels good and true to me to have made the effort - again.