Tag: welcome

Day 26 – lifting

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Writing into Life

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com

When I wake, my thoughts again go round to different people in my life.

Then a message from a friend invites me round for a curry at her house later.  It’s a welcome invitation which I gladly accept. I’ve started being able to say ‘yes’ to things again.  While I still want and need lots of time to do little or nothing, it will be good to spend a few hours with my friend.

Lydia, I think, is missing the warm weather as it’s raining again today.  We had our morning walk without getting too wet and I’ve now turned the heating on in the house. 

Trev has the ‘Nest’ app on his phone so I adjusted the thermostat controls manually. He would have done it remotely if I’d asked but he may well be in the middle of a museum visit, or driving. There’s an app for pretty much everything these days but it’s good to not be totally dependent on them either.

Having finished the last episode of the latest series of ‘Married at First Sight: Australia’ last night, I decide to start watching the latest series of MAFS: New Zealand.  I haven’t done this much binge-watching since Covid but it’s good at the moment just to switch off and watch.

Later …

Before setting off to visit my friend, I meditate for about 20 minutes.  After curry combined with kind conversation, I feel a small but still perceptible change in mood; something shifting and lifting. The lift, like the invitation, is very welcome.

Day 11 – welcome

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 Writing into Life

As I wake this morning I reflect on a reminder from the Buddhist teachings over the last few months:

Welcome Wholeheartedly Whatever

It isn’t always easy to welcome the difficult stuff especially when it feels like there’s no end of difficult stuff to deal with.

But I find that the more I apply this principle, the more I begin to understand what it means. I’ve still got a long way to go in deepening my understanding of what it means, but I’ll keep working on it.

Today, though tired after yesterday’s intensive session at the studio, including the 50-minute drives to get there and back, I feel a sense of something having shifted in my inner landscape; not a momentous shift – marginal, but a shift nonetheless.

Sticking with a steady routine of walking Lydia daily, going to regular yoga and Qigong classes, building a short meditation practice into my morning routine, benefiting from the expert guidance and teachings from the Buddhist Centre and the weekly classes, and returning to the pottery studio for an afternoon of contemplative creativity in conducive company, are all helping to restore something in me that has needed to be restored for a very long time.

As I write, Lydia is relaxing in a corner of the room on her favourite rug.  She’s had her walk and breakfast, spent a bit of time outside doing a bit of barking, and now – like me – she is ready to rest a bit.

I’ll go out later and do a bit of shopping, taking some soft plastic waste with me to go in the recycling bins that Aldi have in store.  Their distribution methods do create a lot of plastic waste but at least they provide recycling facilities. Less waste would be better but we all have to start somewhere.

It’s hard to say which self-management rule applies here, although it could be rule no. 13: something to do with responsibility.

 

Day 2 – belonging

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Writing into Life

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Lydia loves her home; our home. 

I’ve noticed how her confidence has increased, particularly over this last summer when she makes decisions about what she wants to do and when she wants to do it. The back door is open most of the time, and she comes and goes as she pleases, within the confines of our garden.

While I continue to train her and manage her behaviour around reactivity, reinforcing basic commands such as “sit”, “wait”, “down”, “stay” and “heel”, I like the fact that she works things out for herself, and we sometimes have a compromise. For example, if she’s outside barking at birds or other dogs or motorbikes going by, and I use the “here” command to bring her in, she will often come towards me but then settle down quietly, still outside but near the door.  I think this is really clever. She gets what she wants – to stay outside – and I get what I want – for her to be quiet and not disturb the neighbours. I like the fact that we can come to an understanding about this arrangement between us, me using my language and she using hers.

Some people may say that I shouldn’t let her get her own way like this, that I need to be ‘top dog’ but I’ve read that the ‘alpha’ principle that used to be thought to apply to dogs, doesn’t, and I’m happy to go with the latest research.

Source: Alpha Dog Myth: Understanding Canine Behavior – PetPress, and others

Lydia belongs here.  After the life that she’s had – much of which we know nothing about until she came into our lives through adoption – it’s good to know that she has a strong sense of home now. Her home; our home.

At the poetry open mic meeting that I performed in last week, another reader read out an extract from ‘The House of Belonging’ by David Whyte. I hadn’t heard of it before, but it resonated with me at a level that leads me to want to reproduce it here:

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

The House of Belonging poem – David Whyte

Homepage – David Whyte

Going forward, that poem will underpin how I apply my own ‘rules for self-management’ that I introduced in yesterday’s post: https://gladabout.life/2025/08/26/day-1-filing/.

It somehow feels like it’s what I’ve been working towards for a long time, and the poem just said it for me.

Thanks and thoughts go to David Whyte, and to the lady who read out the poem at the open mic meeting.

Day 17

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me

Waking up this morning I reflect – as I often do – on how fortunate I am to have access to the Buddhist teachings that I have access to.

We’re on a short break from the mid-week classes that I usually go to, but my mind turns to two of the mantras that I have been learning from most recently.  One is in the form of an acronym: RARE.

Recognise

Accept

Reduce

Eliminate

‘Recognise’ is to recognise a negative thought as delusional.

‘Accept’ is to accept the situation in which the thought is arising.

‘Reduce’ is to reduce the impact of the delusional thought.

‘Eliminate’ is to eliminate the delusional thought.

In my experience it can be extremely difficult to identify a thought as delusional because our thought patterns are often so ingrained that we don’t even notice them when they do arise.  However, I’ve recently found that if I start to feel anxious, this alerts me to potential negative/delusional thoughts that are giving rise to the anxiety.  I can then turn my attention to my breath, engage in a short meditation and find that the anxiety starts to abate.

I’ll continue to do what I can to recognise, accept, reduce and eliminate my delusional thoughts.

Most of us associate ‘www’ with ‘world wide web’ but an alternative presented in a Buddhist teaching recently is: ‘welcome wholeheartedly whatever’.

The nun who gave the teaching presented an example of a monk who lives at the Centre who has significant paralysis, is unable to walk and experiences constant pain. Apparently, he affirms the ‘welcome wholeheartedly whatever’ mantra and I’ve found this immensely humbling and inspirational.

I don’t know how things might unfold in my life – none of us do – but if I keep meditating, keep my focus on positives and aim to eliminate old habits where negative thinking takes hold, then I’ll be better prepared to welcome whatever does lie ahead with an open heart.

That’s what I’m aiming for. That’s what I’ll do.