Day 80 - Mindfulness, A choice

This past weekend I went back up to Boston to visit with my Mom and finalize some details for my Dad's memorial. And I've realized that I've driven 500 miles or more each weekend for the past 3 weekends!

No wonder I've been having trouble with the KFB workouts on the weekends .... that's a long time to spend in the car, and draining all out of proportion for the activity. Yesterday I tacked on a 5 mile run, because the weather was finally prime for a beautiful morning run. And then I went and sat in a car for 6 hours, so I was rather stiff when I got up this morning.

Now that I've got that negative stuff off my chest - on to the positive!

The KungFu push ups are, I'm surprised to find, not as impossibly hard as I thought they'd be - yay me! NOTE: I have no desire whatsoever to see what I look like doing them. Though I think they might be more descriptively called "grasshopper" push-ups ....

I've discovered another way that mindfulness can be a boon. I was mentally griping/whining/complaining to myself (I've noticed that I've been doing that alot lately ... STRESS!) on Friday about going to Boston this past weekend: I didn't really want to go, I'd been doing alot of driving, I hadn't finished unpacking from my vacation, I had piles of chores I'd left backed up, and I really didn't want to spend my time that way.

But then I became mindful about how negative my thinking was, and it occurred to me that with that sort of a mindset, I was just about guaranteeing that I'd have a miserable weekend. So I set about mindfully changing my mindset.

• I reminded myself that it was my choice to go up to Boston
• I reminded myself that it was a great opportunity to spend time with Mom
  
• I reminded myself I would get to spend time with my Brother
• I reminded myself that one of the side effects of letting chores pile up is: I won't be doing chores this weekend (I suck at doing fun stuff first - which generally means I tend to have little time for the fun stuff)
• I saw the driving as an opportunity to listen to an audio book and chat with friend

And it worked! I was relaxed and had a great weekend (well, aside from the excess traffic on the way home).

Now it's time to do laundry. And prep food for the week...