Clickty clunky clumping!!

 “That was actually a good one”, my son says to me.  First of let me explain how my son become involved in this week’s love and kindness exercise. As I began to start my exercise, the house was quiet, my daughter was in bed and my son was out playing with friends.  I started listening to tracks, now somewhere 5 minutes into the audio my computer start screeching at me having a hard time reading the cd.  Not only did I have a heart attack, but I was finally starting to relax!  After re-entering the cd and beginning the love-kindness track I returned to my state of relaxation until my son enters our home and begins clickty clunky clumping in the kitchen.  I finally was so distracted by the noise that I asked what he was doing.  After he pointed to the icy pops he was cutting open, I acknowledge his answer and was able to block him out.  This is until he walks his way in the room and stares at me waiting to ask if he can watch t.v.  I told him I was busy doing my homework, and instead of politely walking out of the room, he decides to sit in a chair across from me and mocks my position of relaxation.  Finally, I stood up and said, “Fine, do you want to try something new?  Come with me…get comfortable...You’re doing this exercise with me.” 

Finally, after all the efforts of trying to relax and focus on myself I was able to take in what was being said on the audio and follow it.  My mind was consumed by the waves that I immediately began to rest my mind by focusing on my breathing.  I like how they directed you to focus on your breathing anytime your mind started to wonder.  This helped me more than anything since my mind is in constant state of to do lists.  I loved the part in the audio when they were making you aware of your surroundings/ current state and needed to accept things the way they are.  This of course was mentioned just as my two year hold started jumping on her bed like a trampoline and singing…even though I thought she was sleeping.  Due to the timing of the audio, I was able to smile at her quite personality and love to jump and continue on with the rest of the session.  By the end of session, I didn’t hear her anymore therefore making me think she went back to sleep.   Keep your fingers crossed.
I believe the mental workout of this exercise is providing oneself with an overall feeling in reaching to the inner love and kindness emotions and applying them to the difficult parts of our lives and ourselves.  Especially when there are issues that are so big they can emotionally wipe you out.  If you allow yourself to feel love and kindness and accept those things in your life the state of processing the issues can be much smoother and cause or prevent unnecessary stress.  I believe this is an exercise I will be re-visiting, or at least seeking more exercises like this to use for 15 minutes every day to expanding times in the future.  These can be done primarily during quiet moments of one’s life especially in the morning before the brain begins to circulate with thoughts of daily activities.   I truly think the idea behind all these mental workouts is providing people with the direction to focus one’s mind and open up to all aspects of life, creating a healthy psychological self due to the time to reflect and process all that life throws at us.