Day 6
Gratitude: I’m thankful today for my dad; for his health, and his happiness. I found a box of old photos today… mostly of my dad when he was young. A picture popped up of him as a tiny little guy dressed in a suit for his first communion. He has the biggest grin on his face, and a little black ninja turtle-like band around his bicep. I remembered asking my mom when I was little why he had that black band around his arm, and she said it was customary back then in Spain to do that as a way to mark the children that were mourning. Apparently his mother had just died the day before. The fact that he was grinning so widely speaks volumes to his character. I’ve never known one person to have suffered so many personal losses. He’s lost a lot of his best friends, his parents, his wife. A lot of very key people have passed away in his lifetime, and he’s dealt with his fair share of hardships that he always handled so gracefully. He allows himself to be sad, but he somehow manages to find happiness again. The way he handles grief is similar to the way he handles his anger. He acknowledges it, expresses it (I can attest to this: Angry Spaniards know how to express anger…LOUDLY!), but then he moves on very quickly from it. Because of this ability he has, he’s one of the most baggage-less people I know. And I love that about him.
Meditation: Today we did Pranayama which is yogic breathing exercises. I love this stuff. Many people can get embarrassed when asked to breathe this loudly in a studio class, but I’m all about it. One of my favourite Toronto yogis, Diane Bruni, 
said this kind of breathing is meant to sound like the inside of a seashell. This is what we call Ujjayi breathing. I like to think of it as “The step-before-snoring-breathing”. When some people start entering deep sleep, they don’t quite start full-out snoring, but they do breathe very deeply, and this is the kind of breath I tend to aim for when doing Ujjayi breathing.
Yoga: Technically I think the weekend disk splits up Saturday and Sunday into: Saturday Yoga and Sunday Meditation. So I guess I didn’t have to do yoga today if I followed the program exactly, but I really like the saturday class…so I BIG FAT did it anyway. There’s one part where you have to think of “a Confrontational Person”, someone you don’t really get along with. You have to send them love and good intentions. I struggled here because I couldn’t think of anyone. It makes me happy to know I don’t have many, if any of these “confrontational people”. A skill I have gained from being a student of naturopathic medicine, is the ability to see the beauty in everyone. Even when people behave in ways that might offend you, or might seem hurtful, it’s important to understand where they came from when they acted that way. More often than not, it’s not a personal thing against you, it’s just them struggling to salvage some ego. Once you realize that, it’s easy to find love for people, even if you don’t initially feel like you want to be their biggest fan. Since most naturopathic students develop this skill, I guess this is why the most common feedback naturopaths get is how “NICE” they are.
It’s the weekend, and Sunday, the day of rest, so I’m going to go ahead and skip out on the Nature Appreciation and Food Awareness. Perhaps I don’t feel like appreciating nature today after the tremendous snowfall that has crushed all my hopes of an early Spring.
commit to bliss 