April 5 – A day with many administrative tasks needing my attention. I tend to let administrative things pile up and then address them at all once. Can’t decide if that tactic compounds stress or helps to gather it in one batch so there is less of it throughout the week.
Thich Nath Hanh has a paragraph in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness where he talks about washing the dishes. Something about only do the dishes, not the dishes and other things. I thought I would give this a try this evening while cleaning up the kitchen. Not so simple to implement. My mind kept wandering off to administrative things that remained undone, class tomorrow morning, updating my website, calling my brother and on and one and on. I kept bringing myself back to the dish in my hand and the soapy sponge, trying to stay solely focused on the task at hand.
After I finished the dishes, I went in search of that book and I found it. The paragraph in the Miracle of Mindfulness reads as follows:
“Wash the dishes relaxingly as though each bowl is an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl as sacred. Follow your breath to prevent your mind from straying. Do not try to hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life. Washing the dishes is a meditation. If you cannot wash the dishes in mindfulness, neither can you meditate while sitting in silence”
What I did, didn’t look or feel much like what was described in the book. Maybe I should have read the book first. One good thing is there are always more dishes to wash, so I will try again tomorrow and the next day. Let’s see how this progresses.
All day I did stairs only, no elevator. Up and down 4 or 5 times -- qualifies as exercise. I also spent time reading the Sunday Times, a ritual I also always find to be relaxing.
I am starting to wind down and bring the day to a conclusion. A cup of tea on the table beside me. I purchased a new blend yesterday, pear ginger white tea -- let’s just say the jury is still out on that one - the flavor is a bit like soap.
Hope you will consider joining me in my Stress Reduction Challenge.
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