Tag: Mindful Monday

Mindful Monday


Taking my own recommendation, I realized I have another book I haven’t used but once on here, Hey, Thanks: A Guided Gratitude Journal.

I found this page that you might reflect on and answer (in comments or only to yourself):

I thought it fit in with the mindful theme of “be who you are in this moment.” So I found a coloring page in this book:

And colored it for you.

The quote on the back of the page, from “Unknown,” says, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

Mindful Monday

Oxytocin is a natural hormone made in the brain. It’s stored and released into the blood stream by the pituitary gland.

Other suggestions to boost oxytocin include yoga, massage, listening to music, physical intimacy, meditation, and doing something nice for someone.

Tom, Debby, Tim, and I celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, with photographic proof below. Our oxytocin levels were excellent.

A couple of table views, where the menu was hen, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, black-eyed peas and macaroni and cheese (both from Debby), green beans, asparagus, corn, cranberry sauce, and rolls.

Dessert table, with my cranberry orange bread and Debby’s sweet potato pie.

People!

Lots of leftovers will be eaten. I’m just about to have a slice of cranberry orange bread with my coffee while I start a reread of Book 6 before getting back to the writing of Book 7. One of the issues with a character whose secrets force her to tell lies is a common problem: I, knowing the truth, can’t keep up with her lies.

Mindful Monday

Mindfulness means being present in the moment.

Stones/rocks and crystals are invariably part of any type of meditation, mindfulness, or centering I do. Those particular stones are citrine, clear quartz, amethyst, turquoise, carnelian, rose quartz, variscite, and black tourmaline.

I was flipping through one of my Word Search books yesterday and saw “List Of Rocks.”

These were not the rocks I expected to be looking for. =)

Paging through more of the book, I found another list that related to the coloring page I shared the other day, “Grandma’s Attic.” Tom’s father did say the page I colored reminded him of his mother/Tom’s grandma’s attic!

Mindful Monday

Wishing you all peace of mind. Happy Monday.
For me, I hope it’s writing, home, husband, dogs, music, and nourishment. For you?

Was sad to hear about the death of Quincy Jones today, though he lived a long and eventful life. What an impact he had on music and culture. Someone in comments to the obituary I read strongly recommended Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, and just like that, it’s in my Kobo ebooks. Research!

Mindful Monday

In 2019, when I began to rewrite what came to be called the Neverending Saga, I did a lot of research for a particular character who has a tendency toward anxiety, panic, and fear. An intensely private person, she isn’t the type who’d go to therapy or easily express those feelings even to people who love her and who she trusts. Somewhere in my research, I learned ways that “laypeople,” that is, untrained to act as teacher, guide, or mentor, can still help someone through a panic attack. I also found people who use art to help people develop coping skills.

I never anticipated all the ways the larger world, and my smaller one, would change in the years after that. I’m not sure who out there on the big Internet should get credit for the seed of an idea that developed into a self-soothing exercise for my character. It has also sometimes helped me when I have insomnia and my brain goes into overdrive.

You (the vague word that applies to anyone) trace your hands on a piece of sturdy paper, and as I developed it, my hands (with poor fingers misshaped by arthritis) take on two different manifestations. My left hand I connect to my heart and coping words. My dominant right hand is connected to the fears and anxiety my brain can throw at me. I always like color, so with watercolor pens, I gave my left hand colors that soothe me: blues, greens, purples. The right hand colors are the ones that stir me up (and rob me of rest and peace of mind): reds, oranges, yellows.


If I match fingers, my little fingers are “playful” versus “fragile”; my ring fingers are “loved” versus “painful”; my middle fingers are “strong” versus “worried”; my index fingers are “intentional” versus “assertive”; and my thumbs are “determined” versus “anxious.”

Just trying to remember and focus on those words, then process them as solutions versus crises, can pull my scattered thoughts into something either distracting or soothing enough to help me finally fall asleep.