I had a hard time falling asleep last night...I think it was because I was drinking green tea all day and at night...so I was pretty wired from the caffeine. Whenever I can't sleep, I stress over how tired I'll be the next day if I don't fall asleep soon and that usually makes it worst and keeps me awake longer. After tossing and turning for a bit, I remembered what we learned in session earlier that day...during our meditation, they taught us that it's ok if we have thoughts going through our head...just accept it and let it be. Instead of being critical, give our mind the space to do what it needs to do...so I figured why not accept that I can't fall asleep instead of getting anxious over it. Guess what happened when I accepted it? I felt so much calmer and at ease...and I actually fell asleep shortly after that.
Isn't that such a simple concept to apply to our daily lives? If there's something that is making us anxious or agitated...how much easier would it be to accept the problem instead of fighting it? It's definitely something I have to keep in mind to do going forward. I hope you guys reading this will try it too...as you will see in my later paragraphs, I had to do alot of acceptance today and I feel really good about it.
I did well in this morning's 7:30am meditation...I was able to keep my posture for most of the 45 minutes. I think I had fewer thoughts running through my head and I was repeating different affirmations in my head so I wouldn't get too distracted. But during the next 3 morning meditation sessions that were 30 minutes each, I started getting fidgety again...my back was hurting, my legs kept falling asleep, and I was getting distracted everytime I saw someone move out of the corner of my eye. I was constantly switching between the cross legged and kneeling position so I could get comfortable. I noticed Laura nodding off again and apparently Claire did as well, but I didn't see Claire since she was on the other side of Laura. I'm happy to report that neither one of them fell flat on their face....yet! :) During our Q&A session, I told the instructor that I am having a hard time focusing as the day goes on...and she said that if I have alot of energy, I will be fidgety. Well, now that all makes sense...I'm a bundle of energy! :) She told me I needed to focus more on slowing my breathing down and also look down...whereas some people were falling asleep, so she told them they needed to look up. I never knew meditation could be so grueling and painful...I really feel like I could use a good massage. The instructor had some pain medication ointment that she uses and she put it out to share with everyone...good to know I am not the only one in pain!
We had silent time today until 1:30am from the time we woke up. I don't know if it's considered cheating, but Claire, Laura and I might have cheated using gestures. :) Only a few times though...because we needed to coordinate our day for our afternoon break. I used my hands to show walking to Claire so she knew I wanted to go hike up the peak and we would sign up for our personal interviews with the instructor tomorrow. During lunch though, we were really awful...giggling and laughing because we were trying to coordinate the time to meet back up for the hike and kept going back and forth since we didn't know what the other was saying. Laura was making a motion for breaking an egg...or so we thought. Finally Claire look at the watch of the lady next to us and motioned that we had 3 minutes of silence left. When they finally rang the gong (which is breaking egg motion) that silence was over...we were all like "thank goodness!". I hope they don't kick us out for being distractful during silent time! :)
After lunch, we (Claire, Laura, new girl Jemma, and me) all went hiking up to Mullach Mor, which is the highest point on the island. Initially during the hike, I was busy trying to dodge the poopie and they are all walking along like it's nothing. I finally asked them about it and they said they are use to it...goat, horse, sheep poopie...it didn't bother them one bit. They had no problem stepping into the poopie and about 30 minutes in, I had to accept that I was going to be stepping in poopie too. There was just too many to avoid...there was little poo, big poo, piles of poo...you just couldn't avoid them. I tried only to step in the little poo though since those were harder to avoid. So again, my acceptance came in handy as I stepped into some poo but I also accepted I will not be taking my sneakers home with me...hehe... :)
Laura thought she knew the way up the mountain, but we somehow got off track and we ended up hiking through some bushes and parts of it was pretty steep. After about 1 hr 45 min, we finally made it up to the top. It was such a beautiful view...even as we were walking up, the view was incredible. There are no words can describe how beautiful it is and I took some pictures, but that won't do it any justice. To be able to stand on the highest peak and look all around the island was so amazing. It felt so calm and serene...I would have to say this is on the top of my list of favorite places now! As we were heading back around the other side of the mountain, we came across a Healing Spring. Jemma took a drink and then Claire and Laura did as well. I wasn't sure about it since it didn't meet the EU drinking water quality standard, but figured might as well do it since when else am I going to come across a healing spring. Hopefully none of us will get sick...Laura said she drank it before and she's still around. :) We also came across some trees that had yellow flowers and the flowers smelled like coconut...that was the weirdest thing. I'll need to see what the name of it is.
By the time we got back, we had missed our 5pm meditation...definitely not off to a good start on the second day. I heard they actually meditated for a whole hour. We had a 7pm meditation and thank goodness it wasn't a whole hour like it was suppose to be. As I am typing this. Laura is on the phone saying we still have 5 more days and talking about all the sessions she's missed...now I don't feel so bad for missing just one session so far!
I'm definitely challenging myself with the food today. For lunch, we had butternut tomato sauce pasta, tomato and oregano salad, a regular salad, and carrot salad. And dessert was rhubard crumble with ginger cream. For those who know me, you know I don't really eat salads or anything with tomato sauce...so I'm sure you are laughing at this menu. I'm happy to report though that I ate it...and went for a second serving of the tomato sauce pasta...probably because my stomach was growling during meditation and I was hungry. And the rhubard crumble was interesting...I've never had rhubard before and it's tart! I made a face to show Claire that it was too sour for me and she just laughed since we were still doing silent time and couldn't talk. I only ate the crumble part...I left the rhubard in my bowl. Dinner was a little more challenging...we had carrot lentil cardamom soup. I can deal with the carrot and lentil...but I absolutely hate the flavor of cardamom. I couldn't even eat the soup...so I had some leftover carrot salad and two slices of bread with peanut butter and jelly. I suspect I will probably get hungry tonight. I guess part of this experience to be more open and accepting of things...so here I am accepting that I can't have rice and meat for another 5 days and being open to eating foods that I don't normally eat!
I feel like an old woman after meditating most of the day...I think it's time to take some Aleve and call it a night!
P.S. After I posted this, Laura said she had impure thoughts during today's meditation session...they both think it will be my turn to have impure thoughts tomorrow...lol...we are so bad!
