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After finishing 10% Happier, I decided I had nothing to lose by trying to meditate for 5 minutes a day during November.

I cannot do it without music, but Pandora offers several "meditation music" options, so it may be a cheat, but... *shrug* It may also just be a starting place.

One of the things Harris mentioned in the book was to see what thoughts arose and whether there was anything you can do about them.

I note the following types of thoughts:

* Physical discomfort (aches, pains, etc.)
* Concerns about my SO and his job
* Thoughts about how I can't meditate
* Random thoughts about work, food, life, etc.
* Thoughts about how I need to do X better

That is the rough universe of thoughts that intrude, but I can see a pattern already.

What can I do about them:

* Self-care (yoga, stretching, doctors, massage, exercise, movement)
* Help with some activities (putting in grades) and emotional support (which means more self-care, so I have more to offer)
* Dismiss these as self-defeating waste of time
* Acknowledge and push aside until a better time, focus on those things in a dedicated way when it is time
* Try and reframe as cheering, not belittling, and again focus on those things in a dedicated way when it is time

The acronym Harris gave was RAIN: The book outlines the mindfulness tool, RAIN, an acronym for a four-step process: recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.

That concept was the one that really got me interested. What thoughts are rampaging in my brain that I might be able to harness better and use to my benefit, instead of my detriment?

SO CLOSE

Feb. 18th, 2011 03:44 pm
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I am so close to being out of debt. So very, very close. I can taste it. I can *feel* it. I want to revel in it...

BUT I'M NOT THERE YET AND IT'S FRUSTRATING ME.

I paid a bill today and then went and gloried in the new, lower, achievable, balance. I did that thing where I add up everything I owe (minus student loans and the car) and felt... almost confident. Hell, not even almost. Just confident.

I will be out of debt in the next 60 days barring catastrophe. For those of you who've been here for the ride, it was bumpy. And it's nearing the point where we shall pull into the station. Keep your arms and feet inside, please, and prepare to party.

Virtually speaking of course, because buying everyone I know a beer would put me back in the same situation. XD (Unless everyone wants to meet at Twains and buy your own celebratory beer! LOL. I can be in for that.)

Being debt free will make everything I've done the past few years worth it. (I hope.) Giving up my own place, moving in with people, loss of privacy, loss of self-sufficiency. Worth it, if I never end up in the same boat again - and I won't.

Oh, I won't.
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Ahhh, Friday. It has that weekend sort of feeling to it already and I can’t wait until the day concludes and I can officially kick of the weekend. I have plans, even. I’m going out with a bunch of friends to celebrate Chinese New Year.

I’m pausing now in anticipation of the comment that I have most often received in response to this pronouncement – “I didn’t know you were Chinese!”

It’s said with a grin, perhaps even a smirk, and a pointed look at my very white, very Irish features. Note that I didn’t say very “American” features.

I realize that I am about to tread on treacherous ground, but that’s never stopped me before, so here I go. I’m American and I’m white. The two are not mutually exclusive, but nor are they synonyms. I’m distinctly not Chinese, though – there is no denying that, not that I would; not that I would expect anyone to deny their heritage or pretend to be something other than what they are.

The interwebs of late have been filled with thoughtful meta about race in general, race in America in particular, the difference between race and culture, appreciation for diversity and the dangers of cultural appropriation and I’ve read a lot of it with various degrees of agreement, discomfort and annoyance.

I’m white. I’m American. I’m going out to celebrate Chinese New Year.

The group of friends going with me includes other white people – Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, black people – with and without African heritage (because it turns out that people who are from the West Indies do not appreciate being called African American), Mexicans, Peruvians, Indians, Bengalis, Lebanese and a host of assorted mixed race folks who quite openly revel in their mixed-raceness.

Oh, and yes, even Chinese people.

For the past five years, we’ve all gotten together to descend on our favorite Chinese restaurant in the city, where we’ve long known the owner and his entire (extended) family. We laugh and joke and carry on. We tell stories. We drink. We eat an absolutely ridiculous amount of food, most of which is not offered on the menu, but is prepared by our chef and his mother from their retinue of favorite dishes for the occasion.

We discuss topics ranging from trash TV (bring on the next season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta) to traditional Chinese food and medicine. We tell stories of our travels, ranging from the fact that the restaurant owner sneaks Viagra with him when he goes back to China, to the fact that one of our youngest attendees spent a semester in Ireland and will be spending a semester in Argentina. We talk jobs, we talk families, we talk current events, we just basically talk a lot.

We even talk food. We compare and contrast our favorite foods (quite a few fans of Indian food!) and the differences between cultural cuisines. Several members in our group own restaurants and most of us have waited tables, so large parts of the discussion center around the differences in the types of crowds that visit steakhouses versus those that visit Chinese restaurants.

As for the holiday itself, Mr. Jou, our host, has described it a festival to celebrate family and friends. The restaurant is decked out in lanterns and we conclude our meal with shots of alcohol set alight (rather than firecrackers, which he used as a child). We toast to each other, to the future, to the end of another winter, to friendship and to good fortune. We revel long past the close of business (last year we didn’t conclude until 4 a.m.) and then we all go our separate ways and back to our lives.

I’ve done some reading about “traditional” Chinese New Year, because I was curious as to how the celebration originated. I don’t pretend that it has the same cultural significance to me that it does to someone who is Chinese, or has Chinese heritage. How could it? I’m not Chinese.

But I’m also not blind, nor oblivious. There are very large immigrant populations from all over the world in the city that I call home. I can travel down one highway and see Little Korea, Little China, Little Viet Nam, Little Mexico and Little India all within a few miles. I see these cultures and I grow curious. I want to visit the shops and eat in the restaurants. I wear jewelry and clothes that I buy from these shops, despite the fact that they are certainly not part of my heritage.

I don’t speak the language. I don’t understand the depth of the history. I don’t always know exactly where the home-town of the shopkeeper is. And yet, I don’t consider my participation to be cultural appropriation, either.

The United States used to be described as a melting pot. I am aware that that term has come under intense – and justified – scrutiny of late. No one wants to be forced to leave behind their cultural identity and take on someone else’s. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but assimilation is the worst sort of insult.

I struggle sometimes to know where the line is – and when I read posts from people on the internet expressing their frustration at (usually and almost always specifically stated ‘white’) interlopers, I get uncomfortable, because I don’t want to be accused of “appropriation.”

Still, this is the city where I live – this is my city. These are my neighbors. These are my friends. Being involved with them doesn’t feel like appropriation. It feels like community.

Is it worse to attend Chinese New Year celebrations as a white person, or stay home with disinterest? What if you’re Japanese? Or Indian? Or Mexican? Or Peruvian? Or black? Or racially Chinese, but culturally southern? Or bi-racial?

I’m going to make mistakes, because I’m human. I’m going to be oblivious to social cues, because I’m sometimes oblivious. I’m going to hurt the feelings of someone from a different race than mine, because I only know how to be white. I’m trying, and whether that counts for something or not, it’s the truth.

I don’t know where the line is between cultural appreciation and cultural assimilation, or when I can legitimately say that something that is traditionally a part of someone else’s culture has become an important and anticipated part of my own life. I may throw the question out tonight at dinner between the spring rolls and the baby octopus and see what answers I get.

There are a lot of things I don’t know and I’m probably “doing it wrong,” but I do know one thing - I’ll be damned if I miss out on this year’s Chinese New Year celebration.




This entry was written for Topic 12: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery at [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol. I assume voting will take place later this week. Everyone should check out all the good entries!
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I'm nosy. And I'm also looking to come up with my own 1 year plan and would like to see what everyone else is considering as their goals/plan for 2011. If it's not too much of an imposition, I'd be really curious to see what people list as their top five goals for 2011, or alternatively, their one year plan (personal, professional, extra-curricular, anything you want to include).
bewize: (Default)
When I was a child, I knew a secret. Once I went to bed, if I pulled my blankets in tightly around me, if I slipped the second pillow over my eyes, if the only part of me left exposed to the darkness was my nose, then I was safe from everything.

You don't understand. I coulda had class. )

This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 19: Blanket . There will (probably) be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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I die on a Thursday in roughly 30 years. The exact date isn't important. The exact moment is. There is a rattled breath, a feeling of being hugged too tightly, and then the sound of breaking glass. I see my life for the first time in the second after I die.

It was nothing like I thought.

Through the Glass )

The title of this piece is a lyric from Annie Lenox's Into the West.

This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 18: It's Not What You Think . There will (probably) be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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"I think your problem is that you just let people get to you. You shouldn't care what they say or think. It doesn't affect you, let it go."

This was the advice a friend of mine gave me a week ago. Another friend gave it to me a month ago. Yet a different friend gave this advice to me several months ago. At least a few friends have told me this repeatedly over the years. And if you go back a decade or two, my mother and father both told me this repeatedly.

As you can tell, I really suck at taking advice.

Things I Bet Most of You Don't Know About Me )

This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 17: Open Topic. There will (probably) be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
bewize: (Default)
Warning: This is not dial up friendly. Also, for readers who are visually impaired, I apologize and hope that my captioned explanations will suffice to help explain what I was attempting to do here.

As a young child, I liked to draw pictures. My mom would put them on the refrigerator, as mothers do. It's really too bad that I was always a terrible artist.

Evidence to the same behind the cut. Brace yourselves! )


This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 16: Coloring Outside the Lines. There will (probably) be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

I am aware that I have completely cracked. But, whatever the result, I had fun with this entry. And that counts for a lot in my world at the moment.
bewize: (Default)
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. ~Jean Houston

My will is unconquerable. )

The title of this entry is inspired by this Winston Churchill quote – “I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.”

This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 14: Resolute. There will be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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That monthly changes in her circled orb )


This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 12: Favorite Stories. There will be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoy my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
bewize: (Default)
"Do you know one thing that I admire about you? When it's time for you to go, you just go. You don't look back. You don't linger. You don't cry. You just march forward into the future on blind faith, don't you?"

~WizeMother, circa 1998



I wonder if my mother suspected that I'd remember her words a decade after she spoke them?

Wherein I ramble on the subject of goodbyes. )


~ Bewize

This entry was written in response to the [livejournal.com profile] therealljidol Challenge 1: Saying Goodbye. There will be voting for this week's entries. I will make sure to link to the poll once it is put up and I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you enjoyed my entry. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

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