Sun Dec 22, 2013 5:27 pm
Ooh, yeah, I think I'm going to be needing X-mas mindfulness too...!
Sorry to hear that last year's X-mas was so tough, James. X-mas is such madness. Apparently the murder and suicide rates skyrocket at X-mas!
We're off to stay with the family for 10 days (eek!) - that's a 1/3 of a month!! Thankfully they are quite nice - can't really complain about my in-laws.
We leave on Tuesday and I've been flipping back and forth between calmness and anxiety for the last 3 or 4 days.
For me, the biggest issue is that I don't have any "me time" or any "personal space" there... I feel like those people in art projects, when they "live on display" in a museum, or a shop window, you know?
I feel like I'm meant to keep up my "social facade" 24/7 and I usually start feeling pretty miserable after 2 days of that...
But living in such close quaters with relatives, it feels too risky to "just be me" or "just be authentic", tho. I suspect that there's all kinds of conflict, bubbling away beneath the surface, that would escalate into a fight, if everyone wasn't making the effort to "be nice"...
Ach, it's difficult... At least with friends, you get to choose them. But relatives, nope.
I really, really, really, really hope that LOTS of mindfulness practice is going to make a difference there, this year.
XXX Janey
I've been practising formal meditation for 15 years.
*~*~*~* I love keeping beginner's mind. *~*~*~*
Not a fan of mindfulness being taken tooo seriously.