Tomorrow is the first day of a new month, which for me usually means coming up with and starting a fresh monthly challenge. However, as my readers will know if they follow me at all, my challenge this month didn’t go so well.

In my defense, I did survive a hit-and-run accident, had surgery on my severely avulsed left calf, spent 2 days in the hospital, and sustained deep bruising over most of my body. I also had to get around in a wheelchair for a week until I could manage limping around with a walker and then crutches.

To everyone that has sent cards, visited me at home or in the hospital, or talked with me on the phone during this time, please accept my sincerest gratitude. A big thank you also to my therapist for being incredibly validating, my Toastmasters club for responding encouragingly to my accident speech, and my zoom heartfulness group for giving me a meditation outlet.

The first week after the accident I was generally upbeat and productive, to the degree I could be in my condition. Week 2 was difficult. I believe this was due in large part to the left foot drop that I’m sure had been present since the accident, but that I only started noticing about a week ago. I became very withdrawn and somber which ultimately led me into a personality loop.

After several days, I was able to use the DBT skills of willingness and mindfulness of thoughts along with some of my own contingency plans to release me from my mental prison. I realized afterwards that the cause of a lot of my emotional suffering was due to a formerly unconscious addiction I have to be athletically involved (running, biking, tennis, etc.), which if my foot drop persists might prove to be very difficult.

All that being said, I would like to repeat my challenge from last month. If you missed the post or are a new reader, you can see the specifications here.

To add a little zen to the month, I am going to also include a new small challenge. I will call it the ‘Lovingkindness during Distress’ challenge. Here are the details:

• When in distress, observe it without judgment. The first step to transcending any emotional suffering is to stop giving it energy. We give energy to emotions whenever we identify with them or attempt to push them away. Both of these actions only serve to further strengthen the distressing feelings. If you have incredible willpower and discipline you can push away your emotions for quite some time (sometimes even years) before having any crashes. However, in these cases, when the damage eventually does manifest, it could be catastrophic both for you and those in your orbit.

The alternative to identifying with or pushing away your emotions is to simply observe them. For me, it helps to actually vocalize what I am thinking and feeling, without any attachment or judgment. I’m just relaying the facts of my mental landscape.

• After briefly observing the distress, practice loving-kindness meditation. This can be done silently or out loud, depending on the situation, though I find it to be much more effective when said aloud, even if just in a whisper. To those unfamiliar with loving-kindness meditation, the core of it is traditionally contained in these 4 key phrases:

May I be free from danger. May I have mental happiness. May I have physical happiness. May I have ease of well-being.

Anyone practicing this form of meditation is encouraged to choose phrases that they can readily identify with during their practice. These are the ones I use:

May I be free from danger. May I be liberated. May I make a friend of my body. May lovingkindness manifest throughout my life.

After starting with myself, it is very effective to use the phrases for my family members, acquaintances in my life, or just all people in general. My goal in doing this challenge is to try to wire my brain so that it defaults to mindfulness and/or meditation during all times of stress.

Namaste.

My first YouTube video dropped Thursday night of last week. I had hoped to upload it earlier in the week, but preparing my studio space, getting up the nerve to record it, and post-editing it took much more time than I had anticipated. It serves as an introduction to the focus of the channel. I asked my listeners to think about one central question:

Do holding the beliefs I have give me a net positive amount of empowerment?

To begin answering this question, it is imperative that we first think about the nature of beliefs. I propose that all beliefs have some costs and some benefits attached with believing them. Choose any belief and this will be the case if you think about it.

What are the costs of a belief? I think they fall into two main categories:

1. Constraint costs. Any time I believe something, this necessarily is going to constrain some aspect of myself, be it thoughts, actions, or lifestyle. If (A) you believe jumping off a cliff will be harmful to your health, and (B) you don’t want to cause harm to your health, then (C) you are unlikely or at least less likely to jump off of a cliff. Therefore, these beliefs are constraining your actions. If you didn’t have these beliefs, in some sense you would be freer, even if this freedom was short-lived because you ended up jumping off of a cliff and dying.
2. Maintenance costs. Any time we adopt a new belief, we have to make sure it interacts and plays well with the other beliefs we already hold. In the case it doesn’t, we either have to discard it, discard our former belief, or accept living in a state of contradiction (this is known as cognitive dissonance). If (A) you believe a chair (pick one out for the sake of this example) will hold you up when you sit on it, and (B) you believe said chair will crumble to the floor when you sit on it, then how can you relate to this chair? Either you randomly decide to sit or not sit and hope for the best, are paralyzed in a state of inaction, or just have to never think about or relate with this chair.

For those of you who believe in a God who is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good), here is a possible maintenance cost you may have to deal with.

P1. An omnibenevolent being does not want there to be any evil in the world.

P2. An omnipotent being has the ability to make it so no evil exists in the world.

P3. God is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being.

P4. Evil exists in the world.

C: Therefore, God does not exist.

This is called the problem of evil. The above is my formulation, but you can find many similar ones if you search around online. Unless you want to accept living in a state of cognitive dissonance, you have to show how one of the premises above is false. Attempts to do this are called theodicies, and there are many of them that have been formulated.

With all these potential costs of beliefs, why do we believe things at all? Hopefully, because the benefits of the belief outweigh the costs. What are some benefits of beliefs?

1. Social Benefits. Beliefs can help you interact with others and give you a shared sense of community. This is especially the case with religious and spiritual beliefs, which are often shared with a group or community that validates and supports each other.
2. Self-Concept Benefits. An example of this would be the concept of personal responsibility. For some, it is extremely beneficial for them to own the problems in their life as the first step towards solving, fixing, or correcting them. For others, it is extremely beneficial to radically accept their current situation without attaching responsibility for their problems to themselves or anyone else.
3. Existential Benefits. Belief in an afterlife is a very common belief. There are many different forms this afterlife takes, such as resurrection, reincarnation, or a continuing conscious mind-stream. This belief can give a tremendous amount of perspective and peace, especially when dealing with suffering and uncertainty in life. Other people find rejecting the idea of an afterlife causes them to have a renewed interest and focus on the present, which can be liberating and productive.
4. Navigational Benefits. Beliefs can help us effectively relate with the physical and relational realities of life. The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow (or technically, that the earth will spin so that it faces the sun) at a certain time, helps me plan out when I want to wake up and start the day.

In detailing the various benefits that beliefs can bring, I have neglected to talk about the concept of truth. Many think that truth should be the only factor we consider when deciding whether or not to believe something. Prominent atheist YouTuber Matt Dillahunty is well-known for saying:

“I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible.”

This seems like a noble sentiment to maintain, but this seems to assume that their is a simple metric for defining and determining what is “true” and what is “false.” This is definitely NOT the case. The definition and usage of truth varies from religious to secular contexts, from historical to scientific contexts, and even in different situations by the same person oftentimes.

Also, if your primary concern (as mine is) is empowerment, it is not necessarily the case that (assuming we could know ‘the truth’) believing the truth would be best for us. The adage, Ignorance is bliss, is a pithy recognition of this idea.

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

– Anatole France

Namaste.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
― C.G. Jung

Journaling can definitely be a great way, as Jung puts it, to “make the darkness conscious.” I have learned a tremendous amount about myself, and specifically about my motivation and the factors that most affect it this month. As I have been posting tidbits of my entries all month long, I will invite you to go back and read these posts (Week 1, 2, 3, and 4) if you want to learn about my discoveries and insights.

What will I do with this challenge moving forward? For the most part, I am going to continue following almost all of my challenge specifications. Here is my current plan:

• Keep up daily journaling and vary the focus each month. As with my challenge requirements, I am setting the minimum amount of writing at 3 sentences, though they can be as short as I like. The idea is consistency, not volume. Incidentally, daily journaling has given me a significant increase in my gratitude level. I think being thoughtful about the things that positively or negatively affect my drive and motivation level makes me more viscerally aware of things I am grateful about. I didn’t regularly express this gratitude to myself or to others, but I definitely noticed a generally more appreciative tone in myself.
• Add a brief motivation reflection permanently to my check-in routine in the morning. My morning check-in, which follows my communion run and meditation, consists of thinking upon 3 of my core feelings at that moment, identifying 3 body sensations, nonjudgmentally reflecting on what I have done since my last check-in, and choosing one thing I am struggling with to radically accept. Because my motivation level is such a pivotal part of both my personality and my mental health, it makes sense to dedicate a few minutes each day to reflect on it.
• Continue publishing weekly blog posts. I have enjoyed increasing my published blog posts from once or twice a month to weekly. Of course, doing this by simply taking snippets of my journal entries, polishing them up a little, and posting them on my blog was incredibly fast and easy. It will be more challenging when I am producing fresh content each week, but totally doable for me now. I also anticipate my blog mirroring and complementing my YouTube channel content.

I have not been journaling this past week, but plan on starting up again on Monday. My particular focus this month will be on pain, specifically my chronic back pain, though any pain-related observations I have are of course welcome in my journal, along with general observations about life.

I should be uploading a video to my YouTube channel, Empowered Thought, sometime on Monday, so be on the lookout for that if you like my content and want more, this time in an audiovisual format. The first video will mostly be introducing myself and the channel. Deep dives into personal development psychology, empowering ethical philosophy, and lexicology/lexicography insights will definitely follow in the near future.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
― Thich Nhat Hang

Namaste.

I am incredibly excited and nervous about this month’s challenge. I have wanted to start a YouTube channel for quite some time now, but have always found excuses for not doing so. My familiar enemy of procrastination won out. However, I am turning the tables on him this month!

Below are the parameters of the challenge:

• Spend at least 15 minutes every day (including weekend days) working on videos for the week. I am going to add this fairly high up on my daily hierarchy list. For the first few days, this time will be mostly spent preparing my studio space, where I will record the audio +/- video that will be uploaded to the channel.
• Upload at least one video each week to my YouTube channel. I definitely will shoot for just getting one video completed the first week. However, as the month progresses, if I feel comfortable and am enjoying the process, I could be getting 2 or even 3 videos finished per week. The challenge, though, is one video each week at a minimum.
• Videos can be live-streamed or pre-recorded. If live-streamed, videos must be a minimum of 25 minutes. If pre-recorded, videos must be a minimum of 10 minutes. In some sense, live streaming is “easier” because there is no editing; I just start the mic or camera and charge forward, come what may. Pre-recorded videos take more time to produce, but are a little less scary sense I can preview beforehand what I am uploading for the world to see. Well, maybe not the world, but hopefully at least a handful of people.
• Publish weekly blog posts that correspond to the video I produce each week. I definitely want to continue publishing weekly blog posts as I have done this past month. Again, this should be a fairly easy way to do this, as I would have already been working or uploaded a video on some particular topic, that I can then summarize or promote in my blog posts. Whether or not I continue producing videos and/or start a podcast, I want my blog to remain strong and healthy.

The name of my channel is Empowered Thought. What I am particularly interested in exploring is the fusion of philosophy and empowerment. I am subscribed to several different philosophy channels which I find fascinating though often they can be more on the esoteric side. I am also subbed to several self-help/personal empowerment channels which are motivating and useful but sometimes lacking in deep critical thinking and skepticism.

My channel will be an attempt to bridge these two worlds in a harmonious marriage. Whether I will come close to accomplishing this remains to be seen. It would be a great encouragement to see comments on my videos, so if you decide to watch any of the videos and want to leave a note about anything you saw, I will reserve a special place in my heart for you.

Namaste.

I am posting this before 4 weeks is up because I will be starting a new monthly challenge on Monday. I don’t like my blog posts to be too close together so am finishing this week’s reflections early. Here are selections from my journal this past week:

DAY 22

Right now, I feel grateful to be alive. May I remember this feeling and be able to find it again when the next crisis hits me. The concept of PAT is so important and valuable to me; I think I am finding the right rhythm in my week. All is not well with the world right now, but all is well enough for me at this moment.

DAY 23

I heartily enjoyed playing a violin solo for church this morning with Randa Parker. Performing gives me such energy; I really should try to set up more “performances” even if just for family in the evening. This could be a huge motivation booster for me.

DAY 24

I slept in this morning. I did this yesterday morning as well, but it was by less than an hour and it was a Sunday, so I didn’t think much of it and treated it as a fluke. That was probably my first mistake. This morning was significantly worse. However, I eventually did get up and surprisingly did not feel that much guilt about it, mostly just sorrow over the lost time. This is a welcome change and totally appropriate.

DAY 25

I endured/enjoyed a 45-min heartfulness meditation session this evening via zoom. I try to do one of these per week. I attach my TENS unit before starting and set up a few yoga mats and pillows to create a meditation station. I always find these challenging both mentally and physically, but usually feel calm and centered afterwards. My motivation seems pretty stable.

DAY 26

I know as a mindset this won’t always work, but whenever I can it helps to view my sleep time as sacred and have rituals that communicate as much (such as lighting candles when going to bed and waking up). The importance to my motivation level of getting to bed on time, enjoying restful sleep, and following a predetermined plan in the morning after my alarm goes off CANNOT be overstated.

DAY 27

I had a glorious meditation practice this morning. It was a little bit cooler than it has been, there were some beautiful swirls of clouds in the sky and the sun was just up over the horizon. I think I am becoming better able to appreciate and be grateful for the beautiful things I encounter everyday instead of only fixating on the big picture.

I love compiling insightful and motivational quotes whenever I come across them. I read this one by Winston Churchill the other day and it immediately resonated with me.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.“

Sometimes I feel like I “fail” at every thing I do. This quote reminds me that success is not a destination but a mindset. Timeless wisdom.

Namaste.

I was sick for 3 days this past week which made for an interesting case study on my motivation level. Though I obviously didn’t enjoy the experience, I was able to remain fairly zen despite it. Here are some brief samples from my journal:

DAY 15

I completed a 50-mile bike ride this morning carrying a 30-lb backpack full of clothes, water, and my laptop! It was incredibly exhausting, but I did it! It took somewhere between 5 and 5^1/2 hrs. The rest of the day was interesting.

DAY 16

I noticed a lack of desire to do my 15-minute segments in the afternoon. I believe part of this was due to being more physically tired than usual, part due to my tendonitis pain acting up, and part due to wanting to spend as much time with Benj and Marina as I could.

DAY 17

When I got home just after 11AM, I felt physically sore but not particularly fatigued. This was a big change from Saturday! What this also meant was that I was able to jump right into my priority hierarchy and have a very productive rest of the day at home.

DAY 18

Getting up this morning was a little bit tough, as I still felt pretty sore and also itchy several places on my body. However, my morning routine worked like a charm and I sit here typing this feeling very excited and optimistic about the day.

DAY 19

I woke up sick this morning! Headache, low fever, achy feeling all over. I took some ibuprofen mid-morning, which helped, though I still felt incredibly sluggish. On the bright side, my motivation stayed strong and I didn’t suffer any noticeable loss of productivity. This is huge for me!

DAY 20

Though still sick today, I treated my symptoms more than yesterday and enjoyed a productive and mostly pleasant day. I had a back pain spike after a couple of hours of lessons and piano practice. Normally, I would want to apply my TENS unit, but no one was around to put it on for me. I didn’t panic and instead opted for laying on my acupressure mat, which worked wonders. I am definitely starting to trust my motivation more now, which is both incredibly exciting and anxiety-provoking.

DAY 21

I am writing this as I reestablish equilibrium after a crisis. I was cropping photos and started seeing a lot of pictures that included me. The more I saw, the more I hated what I saw. I hated everything about that representation of my body I was seeing in those pictures – my back, my hair line, my neck, my smile… you name it, I hated it. The more pictures I cropped, the more disgust I felt at what I saw. The action of cropping photos is not something my back likes when in a neutral emotional space; adding intense disgust on top was a recipe for mounting disaster!

Thankfully, I remembered my contingency plans. As I lay down on my acupressure pad with my head still swirling with emotions, I remembered self-compassion. “This is exactly what I need,” I said to myself. I began using mindfulness to create space between myself and my emotions, and then texted a ‘HELP’ bitmoji to one of my brothers and chatted with him for 15 minutes. My motivation is weak right now, but I have restored confidence in myself.

This last journal entry reminded me of my self-compassion pain mantra:

“This is a moment of pain.
Pain is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.”

I try to use this whenever I am dealing with a physically or emotionally painful situation. Just saying the mantra several times can put me in a much better head space to deal with the situation from a wise-mind perspective.

Namaste.

I am posting this a few days late. This is because I biked almost 100 miles round-trip to visit one of my brothers and didn’t bring my Clicky Keyboard, so I passed on doing a lot of typing (regular keyboards make my wrists burn). Here are some snippets from the week.

DAY 8:

The cloud was still there, but there was light coming through. I found I was able to access some skills to navigate and even enjoy learning from the situation. Hopefully, this experience will be a reminder to me that although I cannot directly control my emotional state, I can indirectly alter it by choosing to smile or make other physical adaptations of willingness and acceptance.

DAY 9:

One new event I experienced today was a secular Buddhism zoom call, which was very wholesome and encouraging for the most part. The one small problem is that I experienced a minor ego hit when I shared some thoughts and got crickets for a response. It goes to how incredibly sensitive I am that this would actually somewhat significantly bother me. What I can say in hindsight is that I desperately crave validation from someone outside of myself pretty much all the time with few opportunities of getting it.

DAY 10:

It is a dreary day outside and I definitely can feel the effects now. Dreary days don’t generally start taking a toll on me until around mid-afternoon. To prepare for this, I may want to check weather forecasts for the week in advance and plan some special pick-me-upper for days when it will be gloomy outside.

DAY 11:

I have enjoyed putting some motivation reflection in my morning check-ins. This is also an uplifting time to do this, since my motivation at this point in the day is probably the highest. However, while this may skew my reflections in a more positive way than is the reality, I actually think I am able to reflect quite truthfully when in this state.

DAY 12:

In my motivation check-in time this morning, I reflected on the 3 things that made it difficult to maintain momentum at the end of the day yesterday. I realized these facets are true generally.  First, there is the importance of having regular energy pick-ups. Second, there is the importance of recognizing when it would be imprudent to test my motivation capability. Third, there is the importance of creating a sensorially pleasing environment within which to operate.

DAY 13:

My physical body definitely feels pretty great and I am wondering if the slight drop in starting motivation level is because of the extra work I am putting into my physical exercises which is just making me slightly more generally tired. Honestly, if my pain level is lower and controlled, I think that more than makes up for any slight to moderate drop in motivation.

DAY 14:

Today was difficult. I am not exactly sure why, but my pain just spiked. Was the shirt I put on over my athletic T too tight, did I overdo my hyperextension exercises, did I practice piano too much? I don’t know. It has calmed down a bit after laying on my acupressure pad for 15 minutes. Needless to say, this didn’t help out my motivation which was already flagging due to aggravations with getting my new phone set up.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I will say that I enjoyed and learned a lot about motivation during my extensive biking over the weekend. Stay tuned!

Namaste.

Per my challenge requirements, I am posting some excerpts from my motivation journal the past week. I had intended to elaborate, but the excerpts pretty much speak for themselves. I have greatly enjoyed and benefited from the experience so far.

DAY 1:

I noticed a big drop in motivation level today after I started watching the new Black Widow film. It was great and that was part of the problem. I realize I need to completely swear off of watching an TV, movies, and other videos not on my subscribed YouTube channel list, even (and maybe especially) on weekends.

DAY 2:

I am choosing to not condemn myself; the falling off of a time paradigm was due to my mistaken belief that I could have controlled times of watching videos during Philosophical Appointed Times (PATs) and that this would actually be good for me. Neither of these suppositions is accurate, at least at this time. I blame the faulty programming I had previously inputted, not my current low-motivation state for the relapse.

DAY 3:

I have accepted that chronic physical pain is just a part of my life – something I struggle with, something I gain insight from, but ultimately something I just accept. My confusion stems from how this affects my motivation level. It feels like the more ‘productive’ I become, the more my pain tends to increase until I have an inevitable ‘breakdown’ of sorts.

DAY 4:

I want to enjoy higher motivation levels whenever I experience them while also not dramatically increasing my expectations of performance. In other words, when I experience a higher motivation level, I want to use it to really throw myself completely into whatever plans and activities I have scheduled without allowing new ambitions to raise my expected productivity level.

DAY 5:

I have found in the past that whether I am overwhelmed or overexcited from an event or experience, the result tends to be the same = CRASH! When I get overwhelmed, it is more of a desperation crash, while with overexcitement it is a post-event depression crash, but the ending is the same.

DAY 6:

I find that my motivation level is always highest immediately following my communion run/ meditation/check-in sequence in the morning after my shower. This makes perfect sense, especially if I successfully followed my rise-time protocol. I got up, enjoyed a shower, had some exercise, centered myself, and checked-in with my emotions. However, after this point, it seems to generally be a negatively sloped line in the motivation department.

DAY 7:

My motivation level is definitely affected when I’m around other people, especially when I’m  visiting someone (i.e. hanging out) as opposed to just doing an activity with them. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing: it’s just something I am aware of. I believe the key to harnessing this to boost my motivation without having ‘dead’ feelings after leaving the interaction is integrating aspects of mindfulness into as many aspects of social interactions as I can.

So far so good. I will finish by sharing the lovingkindness meditation I use daily.

May we all be free from danger.                                                                                                        May we all be liberated.                                                                                                                      May we all make friends with our bodies.                                                                                        May lovingkindness manifest throughout all our lives.

Namaste.

To start off, I want to recognize that I have neglected to post for a few months. My last challenge of drinking tea mindfully ended 2 months ago. Very briefly, what did I learn from this challenge:

• I enjoy the idea of drinking tea much more than the actual practice – This is something I subconsciously already knew, but became readily apparent about a week or so into the challenge. Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy having tea, but I much more enjoy thinking of myself as a tea drinker. Why this is the case I am not entirely sure, but I think it probably has a lot to do with my correlation of tea drinking to mindfulness.
• I would like to use this as a way to have new sensory experiences – This is definitely true. I get very excited whenever I hear about a type of tea I haven’t had previously. If I’m being honest, my genuine attraction to tea is sensorial. With this in mind, I would like to focus more on experimenting with different types as a way to incorporate new sensory experiences in my life rather than using it as a mindfulness practice.
• If I really want to practice drinking tea mindfully, I need to use a much smaller mug – There are many times I like having a large mug of tea. Peppermint is one of my favorites for this purpose. However, as a mindfulness exercise, having a much smaller cup that I sip out of instead of drink would be preferable.
• I miss tea houses – I did not go to them very often when I lived in Houston, but I liked having them around and the atmosphere they provided. Where I live now, it is only about coffee. There are even tea rooms I looked up that don’t have any type of tea listed on the menu!

For this month, I am going to do something simple and straightforward, yet at the same time something that requires discipline and reflection. I have had passing thoughts of keeping a journal on multiple occasions in the last couple of years. Most prominently, I contemplated starting a chronic pain diary and/or depression/anxiety diary. More recently, however, I decided what would be most helpful for me is to have a motivation journal. The biggest challenge I face today is dealing with my chronic low motivation level, so this will be the primary focus of the journal I am starting.

Here are the details of this month’s challenge:

• Have at least 5 minutes of reflection on my motivation level sometime during each day. This could happen during my morning communion run or check-in, at the end of the day before retiring to bed, or while I am journaling. Basically, I want to make sure that I am reflecting on my motivation level regularly. I would like this practice to continue whether or not I stick with journaling.
• Write something down each day. It can be as little as 3 sentences. I downloaded the desktop application ‘Digital Diary’ yesterday to have a simple program I can use to record my journal entries. I can use my keyboard or my computer microphone to input my thoughts. When I have journaled in the past, the hardest part was just deciding to sit down and write something. Once I did that, I generally would have to stop myself from writing a novel. So the focus is not on amount, but consistency.
• Put up a blog post once a week to share with the world. I have been desirous of increasing my blog posts from once or twice a month to weekly for some time. This will be a perfect opportunity to start reaching this goal without having to put much more time or effort into it, since I will simply be sharing some of my journal thoughts from the week.

I am greatly looking forward to this monthly challenge. If this or any of my monthly challenges inspires any of my readers to do something similar, I would love to hear back from you and to know if there is any way I can support you.

Namaste.

This monthly challenge is inspired by a blog post I read years ago by Leo Babauta. I could not find the original article, but please check out his blog. It was one of my biggest motivations to starting this blog.

This month I would like to up my tea drinkage, but more importantly cultivate an activity to practice mindfulness each day. Ever since I began my health journey and especially when mindful living became a major part of that journey, I have felt a sense of power and peace at the mental image of drinking a cup of tea. This image and the feelings it evoked have remained constant regardless of whether or not I actually consume tea on a regular basis or even at all.

I would like to experience the full breadth of feelings that can come from mindfully drinking tea. At this point, making tea still seems like a minor chore sometimes. Therefore, I would like this challenge to shift my experience of making tea from a deliberate action to an automatic one, and possibly become part of the baseline routine of my life. Whether that ends up being the case depends of course on how the month goes.

Here are the details:

• Choose a mug before the first day of the challenge – This will be my special tea-drinking mug for the month. I want to choose one that vibes fullness and equanimity AND that is the appropriate size – not too big nor too small. I purpose to treat the mug with the same reverence that I want to experience while drinking from it. Once I finish a cup and wash up, I will store the mug in a special place.
• Make a mug of tea each day of the challenge – This is pretty straightforward. Sometime between when I wake up and go to sleep each day, I want to prepare a mug of tea. The most likely time candidates are first thing in the morning and last thing before getting in bed. Another possibility is after a meal, especially one I am eating alone. However, any time is fine as long as I make at least one mug per day.
• It’s about drinking tea, not preparing it – I have researched and experimented with tea meditation previously. Usually this involves mindfully doing every activity from the intent to prepare the tea all the way through to the washing and putting away of the tea mug. The goal is to make the entire experience a space to practice and enjoy being fully in each moment. My challenge does not concern the tea preparation or cleanup. I am primarily focused on the tea itself and cultivating the ability to savor the sensory experience.
• Do the act mindfully, but not necessarily meditatively – I absolutely love Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness: awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. This is a mindset we can have regardless of what we are physically doing. Meditation, on the other hand, is an exercise designed to help us reach a state of pure awareness, where we remove ourselves from being caught up in our emotions and thoughts and simply observe them from a 3rd-person perspective. I practice meditation at least once a day both formally and informally. This challenge, however, is about cultivating a spirit of mindfulness that I can carry with me through the rest of my life. It is perfectly okay to follow and explore whatever thoughts or emotions arise in this scenario, or to just BE if that feels right.

I will conclude this post with this quote by English essayist Thomas De Quincey:                                     “Tea… will always be the favorite beverage of the intellectual.”

Namaste.