A Day at a Time – Up Early and Ready! – 30/03/20

31 Mar 2020

https://yestolife.org.uk/day-at-a-time-a-daily-blog-of-life-in-lockdown/

Up early and ready for Sculpt at 8.00 am. I am loving this start to the day and planning to find something for the intervening days when it is not on. Next, my weekly meditation group with friends, which normally happens in my house but now we meet on zoom. We practice together either in silence or listening to a specific teacher and then check in with each other afterwards. It is a very nourishing start to the week. We have been practicing together for about 6 years now. Practicing meditation and bringing mindfulness into our daily lives is how it started. The discipline of developing a personal meditation practice is challenging and is helped by having the support of a weekly group.

Then, in the spirit of taking control of what I can, I emailed my consultant (well, an email to the NHS department with an FAO to him) to inquire about the possibility of changing my medication to one that doesn’t put me at risk of severe illness if I get Covid-19. I also emailed my GP (I love this patient online service, it’s so efficient) to check about another medication I am taking which may also put me at increased risk. I was alerted to this by research on the data coming out of Italy. I’ve already had a response back from the GP. I am feeling very grateful for this. Normally, I am a procrastinator but in the current circumstances that would be foolish. I can’t berate myself from beneath the lid of my coffin “I should’ve checked my medication, if only I’d made an effort”. This reminds me of Spike Milligan. When I had cancer, it was a joke of his that used to make me laugh my head off. I had cancer of the throat and coughed the whole time. The joke – it’s not the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin. Pretty relevant for these times! I liked it because it reminded me that coughing didn’t mean dead!

Hint:

Setup your own support group on Zoom with like-minded friends.

Decide who is going to facilitate the group each week. It could be the same person or take turns.
Start the group with a meditation or simply a period of 5 minutes silence. This will help you all to settle into the moment.
Either see what arises from the group or select a topic. You could read a poem or a piece of text that expresses what you would like to focus on
Take turns speaking and allow whoever is speaking the space to finish. Make it a discipline that there is a pause of about 30 seconds before the next person speaks.
Create a system to ensure everybody gets a chance to speak

The Practice:

Listen

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice,

you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,

you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems,

you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,

you contribute to my fear and weakness.

So, please listen and just hear me, and, if you want to talk,

wait a minute for your turn: and I will listen to you.