pointer finger

YOU HEAR A LOT about mindfulness these days. You hear less about awareness, the sister of mindfulness. They’re two sides of the same coin really. Just as the mind can be sharpened into focus — this is mindfulness — the mind can also be fuzzed out and panoramic — this is awareness. Zoom in to a pinpoint — mindfulness. Zoom out to take in the open space all around you — awareness.

gratitude

THE PATIENTS I TREAT rarely thank me. It’s not that they’re ungrateful. Many can’t speak or don’t know where they are, much less what’s happened to them. And those who can speak and aren’t confused think that nothing is wrong with them and that I’m some kind of jailer. Last week I got punched in the mouth when a life care patient of mine asked me when he would get to go home and didn’t get the answer he wanted to hear. A few weeks ago I got peed on helping a guy having a seizure. Yesterday I got called a f*cker at the end of my first appointment. All in a day’s work.

if you could plant anything

IF YOU COULD PLANT anything, what would you plant? The hypnotist had guided our small group through an enticing gateway, into a sun-lighted corner of an imaginary garden, and was conjuring a fertile patch of freshly tilled earth.

grateful for resentment

A FEW DAYS AGO a friend told me about the gratitude journal he'd started keeping. I told him he should start keeping a resentment journal as well. He thought I was kidding. I wasn’t.

in case of emergency

USED TO BE you could turn off the screen on the seat back in front of you. You had to press the dimmer button eight times for the screen to go blank, and, yes, it would re-illuminate with the slightest provocation — when your neighbor would rest her hand on the armrest, for example — but at least you could turn it off for a while.

peaceful habits — the classroom

THE REHAB CENTER where I work (Touchstone) just built a new multi-purpose building — gym, therapist offices, counseling suites, conference rooms, etc. At my suggestion they included a meditation/yoga space in their project plans. I was honored to learn that they named the room after my program — Peaceful Habits.

two slogans

TWO SLOGANS stayed stuck in my mind yesterday. The first slogan: “Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.” It’s from Pema Chodron’s compassion box, which includes a book and a stack of cards to use as daily mantras. The second slogan, an advertisement for greasy convenience store pizza:

japanese plums

THE JAPANESE PLUMS were so orange, so ripe, but the lowest branches drooping over the gate had already been picked clean. Only a tantalizing cluster at the tip of a high branch — beyond my reach, I imagined, even with a running leap. I tried anyway. I’d just finished a twenty-minute walking meditation, and I was feeling in the zone.