Every chair should be a throne and hold a king.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tag: relaxation
Another Try…all and Err…or
Here it is, actually Sunday night, and I’m feeling agitated/messed up/peaceful/chatty/thoughtful once again. I’m sure you’re all here somewhere with me.
I have been thinking about starting some kind of routine/ritual both in the morning before I get out of bed and in the evening before I go to sleep. Something to refocus me: something to guide me, relax me, teach me; something to give my mental chatter and A.D.D. a rest.
I’m not much for religion these days — I held onto a little bit of it through the years, just enough get me through, but I think most of it disappeared when I lost my son.
I’ve tossed around several Goddesses for a number of years, along with spirit guides (who helped me write my books) and guardian angels who watched my back. I’ve looked for faeries to light my way, along with miracles meant only for me and words that blow through the pine trees that only I could hear.
So perhaps it’s time to take a break from the airy fairy and try some actual, old fashioned therapy.
I’ve thought about reading poetry before I get up in the morning. Not necessarily the creations of friends and newfound poets, but the old-fashioned ones. Robert Frost and taking the road less travelled and Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and Marilou Angelou. Beautiful, soulful poetry. Simple start-the-day poetry. No preaching; just musical words.
A beautiful way to start a day, don’t you think?
Then, when all the madness of the day is done, instead of wasting time online on Facebook or some other mindless rot, I have started going to bed, listening to soothing music, and reading a classic, physical book. Not an iPad book, not a magazine — a real live book.
I am beginning to think our grandparents and great grandparents had it right. No TikTok, no television series we have to catch up on, no blasting rock and roll or video games till midnight. I mean, all those are wonderful activities — but not when we need to sleep.
Life is full of love and play and intellectual stimulation. Full of highs and lows and frustrations and dead ends. But it’s also a gateway to wonderful worlds, wonderful thoughts. We just have to find a way to get to them.
It’s the calming of the mind that recharges us. The calming of the psyche. The calming of the soul. We can deal with anything during the day, but it’s the dawn and the twilight that really connects with our soul. Our center.
We need to find ways to reconnect.
If you have access to Amazon Music, there are a couple of music playlists that work well for me: Studying Music: Music to Study By, Relaxing Piano, Study Music, New Age Music, Meditation Music, Classical Piano, Calm Music Piano: Soothing, Relaxing, Soft Background Music for Sleep, Massage, and More, and Study Music: Soothing, Calm, Relaxing New Age Music and Classical Piano for Studying, Meditation, Yoga.
Most of the music is minor chord relaxation music — I hope it helps you relax and dream as well.
Let me know how YOU reconnect with yourself.
Friday Night Thoughts
This ought to be a hoot, because I’m writing Friday Night Thoughts on a Monday morning.
What is your ideal Friday evening?
I’ve been listening lately to U-Tube videos of ambient music lately; hours of the same kind of background tunes you find in lounges, street cafes, and movies. Many have U-Tube videos/images in the background to match the ambience. They’ve got Victorian Libraries, Jazz Cafes, Lazy Summer Afternoons — even ambience built on Lord of the Rings or Hogwarts. Great for crafting, sitting on the porch, or reading.
So that makes me have to redirect and rethink my question, turning it into two questions.
What is your ideal Friday evening fantasy?
What is your ideal Friday evening that you can actually carry out?
My dream Friday evening would be sitting at an outdoor café in Paris, eating some decadent French dessert and watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the distance. I would hope there would be some hammy accordion music in the distance, but I don’t know if they do that over there.
My ideal Friday evening back here in reality would be sitting around a fire, (indoor or outdoor), sharing conversation and laughs with family and friends, watching the sun set, sipping a pina colada or blueberry vodka and lemonade or even a big glass of chocolate milk.
There is something magical about Friday nights. Maybe it’s because it marks the end of the work week, end of a school week, or that politicians, weekly news reporters, and movie stars have gone home for a quiet weekend and left us alone.
Saturday nights are often date nights, wedding receptions, trips to the city or countryside, get-togethers, and other big deals that can’t be held during the week. There’s always time to enjoy a little bit of jazz, a rock concert, or a symphony on the first true day of the weekend. It’s a dress up and glitz to the city or drive to the beach kinda day.
Of course, our Friday nights often turn out to be something else entirely. Kids drop by, you drop by the kids house, football games, grocery shopping — the distractions are endless. It’s the first night you can crash and (hopefully) sleep in the next day. Watch a little telly, a movie, catch up on your weekly TV series — the things you can jam into a Friday night are endless too.
But Friday nights are wonderful nights for reflection, too. For creative planning. For savoring the week’s bounty and planning your next step. It’s a time to shut off the past week’s work and domestic activities and plan something for yourself. A bath, a walk, a book. It’s the quiet of sunset, the fireflies of twilight, and the still of a crescent moon.
Take advantage of your Friday nights. They can be the first step on your magical ladder to tomorrow.
How do ~you~ spend your Friday nights?
Your Special Place
Do you have a place that you can retreat to when the day is done? A place that offers sanctuary, protection, relaxation, regeneration?
I don’t know if it’s an age thing or a winter thing, but every time I come home from a busy day or weekend I can’t wait to get into my pj’s, grab a blanket, and curl up on the corner of my well-worn sofa.
Sometimes I heave a heavy sigh as I snuggle deep into the corner. Sometimes I put the foot rest up and stretch out under the blanket as far as I can stretch. Sometimes I sit in perfect silence. Other times I turn on music or pull out my computer.
When Dorothy says “there’s no place like home,” I know what she means.
Some people claim a favorite rocking chair or a chair on the deck. Some crawl all the way into their bed. Others claim that same sofa but cover themselves in kitty cats or throw pillows or chocolate chip cookies.
But it’s all the same.
Back to safety. To security. To a place where you can let it all hang out. A place where you don’t have to be anyone or do anything, where time ceases to exist. At least for a few minutes.
We all need a safe place to cry, to remember, or to have a drink. Or dinner. A familiar place, a comfortable place. A place to end a stressful day. A special spot where you can sit and write or read or thumb through a magazine.
We all need a place where we can pull our blanket up to our chin or just around our ankles and ignore the rest of the world for a while. A place we can fall asleep or call our friends and talk for an hour or sit and write a blog.
Everyone needs that special place.
Where is yours?
Music for Every Mood
I love music. I really do.
I don’t think there’s a state of mind, a physical or mental condition, social gathering, or house cleaning job that isn’t enhanced with music.
My first love of music (that I can remember) is my love for the Beatles. My parents weren’t much music affectionados, although my favorite memories are my dad listening to polkas Saturday and Sunday mornings while working in the garage, and my mom listening to Patsy Cline and Hank Williams.
My love of music has only grown and matured and exploded in the last 40 years. From orchestras to acoustical guitars, there is always something to fit my mood.
Today I had a headache, and didn’t feel like sitting in total silence, so I put on Easy Instrumentals. Nothing like a slow, sultry orchestral rendition of Midnight Cowboy or The Way You Look Tonight to massage my temples.
Cleaning house? 70s-80s rock, of course. There’s nothing like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Motley Crue or John Mellancamp or Rush to get your cleaning bootie moving.
Early morning wake ups? Light classical fills the bill. Work? Upbeat classical or New Age Jazz. Melancholy for my mom and/or ol’ Ireland? Gaelic Storm, upbeat Irish band, or the High Kings. Irish balladeers at their best. Can’t sleep? Aura or Spa, two meditation-type bastions for cosmic wanderings. Meditation? Electronic music, especially the space travel ones. Feel like I’m soaring past Jupiter when I get into the groove.
Late morning still trying to wake up? Swing Bands Big Bands. I have that on my flash drive for work, too. Nothing like Artie Shaw or Fred Astaire or Glen Miller. Writing? Smooth Jazz. Love those minor chords. Driving home from work? Semi-Oldies will do. Nothing like belting out Livin’ on a Prayer or Come Sail Away to shake the bad aura. Up north at the cabin? Polkas on Saturday morning, of course.
I have some friends who don’t listen to music much. I don’t know how they get through the day. There is something inspirational, celestial, about becoming one with the song and the singer and the band. You let the aura of the music world take you somewhere happy and safe. Oldies? My teenage years. Gaelic Storm? My Irishfest and Irish heritage. Rock and roll? My life. Big band, Sinatra and all? Days of future passed.
Let the music tempt you, grab you, and take you away. Explore new musical worlds, new bands, new interpretations of old classics. No one cares where you go when you listen to music — everyone goes to their own place, anyway.
The talent of the musical world is unmatchable anywhere else. TV and movies don’t let you choose your world –only music does. Go and listen to some tonight.
Elvis will be proud.
Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Aquariums
Nothing soothes the savage beast (or is it breast?) than watching fish swim. There is something about their slow, undulating movements that simplifies the most pretzeled logic and unties the tightest knots.
But then again, there are fish in tanks and fish in tanks.
And as my mind begins to wander, so does my imagination…
And I begin to wonder — is this still relaxation?
Are these fish tanks whims of a creative mind?
Their mind? Or Mine?
Suddenly, the possibilities are endless. Swimming and relaxing and contemplating all in one place.
Yet I began to wonder….can you take swimming and relaxing and contemplating…just a little too far?
It’s All About Me…Isn’t It??
I will probably wait a few days before I publish this blog, because I don’t want to send too many blogs out a week, filling up mailboxes and facebooks with more personal dribble. After all, it’s invading your personal space, and you might not like me for it.
That’s the stress talking.
My husband came home from his 2nd shift job and woke me up at 4 a.m., asking if I was okay. It seems the knob on the stove wasn’t turned off all the way and the house was filled with gas fumes.
This is me talking through the stress.
I always thought the older I got, the less I’d care about things that upset me. That I could truly not give a $hiT about things that plague my every day existence.
That hasn’t happened.
I seem to be taking more and more things personally. I wasn’t near the stove yesterday except to take rice from the pot. I was second in line, delayed by at least 10 minutes because I was on the phone. But I was stressed because I thought I “might” have been the one who didn’t turn the handle all the way vertical. And stress, being what it is, told me that my husband and kids might start thinking I’m getting senile.
I’m training a newbee at work, and I’m upset because I’m training him on something I’ve never quite worked on, and his desktop shortcuts are different from my shortcuts, and my Photoshop froze up mid-demonstration, plus I’m slow in getting the hang of learning something new. And stress, being what it is, told me that I might lose my job or get reprimanded or not get a raise because of my dilemmas.
We are paying off medical bills as steadily as we can, and have worked with doctors and hospitals and told them we can’t afford “their” payment plan. We send in a goodly chunk of money every month, yet they still like to call and remind me of how much money I owe. And stress, being what it is, told me that I could go to jail or get in trouble for not paying off thousands of dollars of bills right away.
My wonderful daughter-in-law is spending Friday morning at my house, waiting for her husband to get off of work so they can follow us on a weekend escape, and I feel I have to spend 4 hours just cleaning my kitchen so she doesn’t get ptomaine poisoning. And stress, being what it is, tells me that she might not like me anymore if she has to spend four hours in my messy house.
Why am I so screwed up about these things?
I know I should save the stress for big things…Lord we know we all go through them. Jobs, families, and illnesses are all sources of stress. But lately I feel like I’m taking the blame for everything, leading to higher cholesterol, sleepless nights, heartburn, and worse. I’ve been told to let it go — you can only do so much, you can’t change others, do your best. Blah blah. After all, it’s not my fault if a computer program freezes or someone else is late for something I want to go to. Don’t sweat the small stuff, they say. Smell the roses. Get some fresh air and clear your head. Don’t take it so personally.
But I do. All of it.
I’m already taking something to keep the door closed on an all-out anxiety attack. Still I have to stop my mind from wandering and wondering about stupid things that have nothing to do with my reality yet really stress me out, like: what would it be like to be tortured? What would it feel like to be mangled in a car accident? What if I anger somebody and they come back and turn postal on me?
It’s like I have something to do with all the bumbles of the world. Like if only I were smarter or quicker or more graceful I could avoid most of the faux pauxs that happen around me. I don’t move as quickly or as calculatedly as I used to. 61 is not 31. But that doesn’t mean I’m one step away from senility, either. Who is thinking I’m getting senile? No one but me.
Yet I continue to second guess everything I wear, everything I do. I don’t work efficiently enough, I don’t clean my house well enough, I don’t learn fast enough. I’m not sure what “enough” is, but I’m sure someone somewhere down the line thinks that. I should have enough time to work and fill the dishwasher and visit my grandson and grocery shop. I should be able to remember codes and go to bed on time and cook great meals and go for walks.
But I don’t.
And that stresses me out even more.
I doubt if I’ll go to jail because I’ve made up my own payment plans, or never have my grandbaby over because I have dust bunnies peeking out from beneath my couch. I doubt one negative remark will terminate my friendships, or that leaving dirty dishes in the sink will make it into the local newspaper. I will still be the same person I was yesterday, which, in the grand circle of things, isn’t a bad thing.
I’ve got to find a way to not take the world personally. It certainly doesn’t take me personally. I’ve got to find a way to let go of a lifetime of self-doubt and self-judgement.
But now I’m going to stress out about how to do that.
Humoring the Goddess 