Do the Least Amount of Harm Every Day

Do the Least Amount of Harm Every Day

My sister was a nurse for 26 years and worked for the most part with elderly patients.  She is a saint in my eyes.  I can call her any time I need help and she is a great listener, never judging me and seldom telling me what I should do unless I ask her.   My struggle with weight has been a life long battle ever since I was in the fourth grade.  After spending a few years with a caring loving Christian therapist, I know all the reasons why I eat.  I know them, and yet there are days when I still eat, and eat, and eat.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I made the mistake of looking at some old pictures of me and comparing myself to what I look like today. 

When I lamented to my sister how I felt, she said something that really made sense.  “Could you go through each day doing the least possible harm to your body as possible?” she asked.  I had to give this some serious thought.  Even though it would never be perfect, could my goal for each day be to do the least possible harm to my body?  That was a possibility. 

Today is a new day and that thought is still with me.  For me, each day starts with a cup of hot tea.  Most of the time I get in my twenty minutes of meditation on my back patio.  The meditation is going better and I prefer doing it outside.  It still takes me about ten minutes to really get centered and concentrate, but I am improving.  The barking dog or the airplane overhead does not distract me like it once did.  Since carbs seem to trigger more hunger in me, I am trying for today to not eat as much of them and instead fill up more on protein when hunger strikes.   They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  If this is true, then there are days when my road is a 6 lane freeway.  I get up each day with the very best of intentions, which many times do not get accomplished.  But just for this day, I am going to do the least amount of harm to my body by eating better than I did yesterday.  I will go to my Zumba class tomorrow and try not to run into the person next to me as I go to the right when the rest of the class is going to the left.  But I will tell you more about this adventure in my next blog.        

Be still and know that I am God

 Be still and know that I am God.  Psalm 46:10

Part of this journey that I am on is learning how to be more spiritual.  In order to accomplish this, I have decided I need to learn how to meditate.  I read this article that listed 20 famous successful people and it said one thing they all had in common was that they meditated for at least 20 minutes every day.  Well, that was good enough for me.  A few years ago I borrowed a book that told you step by step how to meditate and even had a couple of cds to give you more information.  It stressed me out more just reading the instructions, so I gave the book back the same day.  Honestly, I think someone should write a book called Meditation for Dummies for me. 

            When it came to being spiritual, my granny was the queen.  I was born in a coal mining camp in the hills of Kentucky and lived off and on with her and granddaddy.  They did not drive and either walked or took the bus almost everywhere they went.  Because granny could not get to church that much, she would hold Bible studies and prayer meetings at her house.  As a young child, I never understood why those women always came to her house, but when I got older I knew.  My granny had such a calmness about her that I have never had and probably never will.  She could sit with her Bible and read and sing to herself.  This was her form of meditation.  It worked for her.  She lived that verse from Psalms that told her to be still and know that God was taking care of all her problems.  Even though I am very familiar with this verse, I tend to want to jump in and solve my problems my way and the quickest way possible. Now do you see why I need to learn to meditate?

            In one corner of my living room there is a chair, a small table, and a fountain.  That seemed like a good place to start meditating.  I am alone during the day except for my dog, Buster.  To get started, I set the timer on my stove for 20 minutes, lit my white candle, and turned on the fountain.  Surely the sound of water would help me relax and focus.  As soon as I closed my eyes, I got a tickle in my throat and I started to sneeze.  This was not a good beginning, but I kept my eyes closed.  Not sure of what I was supposed to be saying while I meditated, I could only think of the movie Finding Nemo where the character says, “Just keep swimming.”  So I kept repeating in my mind, “Just keep focused.”  Oh my, this was harder than I thought it would be.  Other thoughts were going through my mind such as,” The fountain is making a funny noise and probably needs more water.  I’d better take care of that as soon as the timer goes off because I don’t want to ruin the motor on the fountain.”   Just keep focused.  Click, click, click.  I heard my dog’s nails as he ran around on the wooden floor in front of me.  He was trying to get my attention.  I kept my eyes closed because if I made eye contact with him he would want to play.  Just keep focused, just keep focused.  I heard the birds outside making loud sounds.  “Oh no, “I thought to myself. “I left the back screen door open and what if a bird comes in?”  In my mind I could see the scene from that movie where the birds attacked the town and everyone it in.  Those people who know me are aware of my fear of birds.  “Well, your train of thought has really gone off the tracks,” I told myself.  When it felt like the timer would never go off, it finally did.  Oh my, this did not go as well as I had hoped.  But I will just keep meditating to the best of my ability each day.  And in the meantime I will continue to keep an eye out for that Meditation for Dummies book.

A life spent making mistakes is not only honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

Ok dear friends this quote really gives me hope.  I got up this morning and knew it was time to write again.  I can't do it on schedule or if I feel like I have to.  So it happens when the spirit moves me.  I have learned so many lessons in my life by doing the wrong thing.  Take for instance what happened to me this morning.  I had to go get a pedicure and it was so painful I kept pulling my foot away from the lady.  She has been giving me a pedicure for years now and always tells me if I came more often it would not hurt so much.  I made a promise to myself today that I would not wait so long to go back again.  But then I say that every time.  Have I finally learned my lesson?  Time will tell.  This is so symbolic of my life.  I only take action when I feel the pain.  There are times when I am a "teabag Christian."  I call on God the most when I am in hot water.  Now this is not to say I don't pray every day, many times a day in fact.  I told you before that I consider myself to be spiritual, but not necessarily religious.  Hum...I feel like I am getting off topic now.  (Ugh! The writing teacher in me is always on duty.  I just want to tell her not to judge this blog and just let me write! It does not have to be perfect.)  I think I have this retirement thing figured out now, after two years.  I am down to tutoring just one student for the next four weeks during the summer.  That is a big drop from tutoring five students and being gone from home five days a week.  I am still at the senior center, but I really do love the opportunity to help the elderly.  In addition, I will continue to sub for the school district next year, but will not be volunteering three hours a week in the classroom  as I did last year.  This schedule is feeling better to me.  I did call the church and volunteer for some small projects that can be done in a few days time.    I need to find out how to spend more time on myself.  In order to make this happen, I am going to try to spend the first twenty minutes after I wake up just sitting still and listening.  I have a serenity corner that has my favorite chair and a fountain. I am going to try really hard to turn off my mind and focus on the silence. Not sure how this is going to work out, but I need to move on and start trying to be more spiritual.  I may be making mistakes in my life, but at least I will not be guilty of doing nothing.

The Schedule

No matter how many mistakes I make in my life, or how slow my progress is, I am still way ahead of everyone who isn’t even trying.

When I asked my mother how she handled her free time after working all those years, she said she put herself on a schedule every day.  Well, that made sense to me.  I had spent all my working years living by the schedule in my plan book.  My plan book and the school schedule told me when to start my day, eat my lunch, go home, and even when I could use the restroom.  A written plan sounded reasonable to me.  She told me she did certain things on the same day during the week.  I was willing to give that a try.  Off to Target I went in search of a whiteboard so I could make the perfect schedule so I would know what I was going to do every day.   In my mind I thought I had to plan something for every day and then I would feel like I was using my time wisely.  Listen to me, in retirement it is not necessary to do something every day.  I had to learn the hard way that at some point I was going to need to rest because let’s face it, I was older and did not have as much energy as I did when I was younger.   My plan was on Monday I would volunteer at the senior center packing meals for home delivery and then serving lunch to those who walked in to eat at the center.   On Tuesday I went to the gym to work out with my trainer.  Every Wednesday I volunteered for 3 hours in two different classrooms at school.  Even though I was not very good with plants, I worked in the yard and flowerbeds on Thursday.  Friday was the only day I did not schedule any activity where I had to leave the house.  This was my day to clean house. I was also tutoring five students during the week in the late afternoons.  Now that I am writing this, I can see how crazy it all sounds.  Yep, I was using my time wisely, I thought.  Now that I have done this for the two years I have been retired, I am exhausted. Time to regroup.  I am rethinking this schedule thing.  I wonder what would actually happen if I played it by ear for a while?  Scary thought for me, who needed to have each day filled.  I wonder if I will learn more about myself if I just take time to sit still?  

The Journey Begins

Dearest Reader,

First of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart for choosing to read this blog.  It is a huge step for me to put my words and feelings out there for the rest of the world to see and know.  I am by nature a very shy person, a shrinking violet.  However, I am following my instincts and taking a leap of faith that not only will I grow from this journey, but that you may also gain something as a reader.  My initial plan is to begin each post with a thought and go from there.  At the present time in my life I am struggling with three important issues.  How can I best make use of all my free time in retirement after being a teacher for 37 years, will I ever get my weight down to where I want it to be and become a healthier person, and what can I  do to grow more spiritually?

Sometimes my mind is like a sieve, and nothing stays with me.  But other times I get something into my head and it keeps rattling around like a pinball in an old pinball machine.  It is during these times that I write that thought down in my notebook.  This blog was born from those thoughts.  I am forever grateful to those of  you who have decided to go on this journey with me.  When I was ten years old I had a teacher who told me I was an excellent writer and poet.  She put my story in the little glass display case in the lobby of my small elementary school.  From that day on, I knew I would continue to put my stories and poems on paper, even if it was only for myself.  And so .... the journey begins.