It is challenging to live here in the Boston area this particular year. The winter is brutally cold and the snow is never-ending. We have created new records for snowfall in the last month...a dubious honor to be sure. The only thing anyone seems to be mindful of is the weather and the work and expense that ensues from counteracting the weather...an endess cycle of plow, shovel, chisel ice, salt, pay someone, repeat. I am not immune to this drudgery, but I can choose to frame it differently - to practice mindfulness by being grateful for what I do have...a reasonably healthy body that CAN shovel, the fact that shoveling is exercise (and pretty much not optional if I want to leave my house before July), that I have a roof over my head that isn't leaking - yet, that my heat is working, that the power hasn't gone out, that the snow and ice is beautiful when viewed through the window(?!) I am sure God is laughing at the lengths to which he has to go to get me to exercise; This weather may be entirely my fault - perhaps I should have chosen discipline as my word of the year after all? In any case, the point is, being mindful is, at the heart of it, choosing where your mind focuses and while I shovel, I am choosing gratitude with a dose of hope for the springtime that is coming eventually. Where is your mind choosing to focus?
Blessings,
Janet
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