Triple D

Mindful vs. Full Mind

Two weeks ago, I began practicing yoga again. I love everything about this practice, and have tried to keep it up since my senior year in undergrad. Injury and my first year of graduate school have kept me from being consistently involved, but I am determined to keep up the practice despite my crazy schedule of school, work and planning a wedding. Three-four times per week, folks. That's my goal.

Speaking of goals...

...It has become a personal goal of mine to be more mindful. (BEWARE: I'm about to get all philosophical...oh, boy) This is something that has become more of a personal goal since studying and applying Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) during my internship this past summer. What does it mean to be "mindful"? Well, think of what happens when you have to drive to work/school every day. You are taking the same route and are essentially on auto-pilot. Once you are finally at your destination, you wonder, "Wait! How did I get here?" You have spaced out for that 30 minutes it took you to get from Point A to Point B. (Or, I have spaced out...I don't mean to make it sound like YOUR problem, reader...or is it?)

So, if you (or me) are mindful, then when you drive, you just drive. When you are cooking, you are just cooking. When you are washing your car, you are just washing your car...you get the idea.

It's very challenging and sometimes impossible.

DBT is a very powerful practice for individuals with mental illness. It helps with attention, staying focused on personal goals, not becoming overwhelmed with life and dealing with hallucinations. In people with brain injury, it is believed that the mindfulness used in DBT helps reconnect neurons in injured brain tissue. If this practice works with people who have been injured, it can certainly make us all more functional and stable; more productive.

So, this is what I am working on in my yoga practice. Yes, I have other motives...I want to look hot in my wedding dress...but, I also want to achieve a higher level of consciousness, motivation and balance in my life.

Don't we all?

Feeling blah

Today is one of those days where it just seemed like any news I got was worse than the next. It is the most helpless feeling when situations are happening around you and you have no control to make it better. I know things will get better. They always do. That's what I'm reminded of when I see this video. It appears disturbing...being knocked down over and over again, rambling...but, there is always clarity in the end. And with that clarity, we have the strength to fight back. Thank you, Radiohead.



By the way, I realized on the original post, I only had half of the video...this is the complete version.

Day Tripping

This post is a milestone in two ways:

1. I am posting photos of our first "vacation" in two years!

2. This is my 100th blog!! Yay!

Last Friday, we took a day trip to Monterey and Carmel. I can't believe this was our first time being that it only took us a little over an hour to get to Monterey from San Jose!

This beautiful red octopus posed for the camera at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I must say, I have been to many aquariums throughout the US, and Monterey has them all beat.

My favorite section of the aquarium was the jelly fish exhibit. I was unaware that this is the "upright" position of jelly fish.

Although I captured a lot of beautiful pictures of jellies, I was unable to get a good shot of the great white shark the aquarium caught two days before we toured. She was young and only about 6 feet in length. I hope to make it make when she has matured to her full growth.

After leaving Monterey, we drove along "17 Mile Drive" along the Monterey Bay coast. The views were absolutely breathtaking. Along the way, we saw beautiful mansions with views to die for along with Pebble Beach and Sypglass Hill PGA golf courses. I imagine some of the pro golfers have houses along this drive, which costs $10 for regular folk like us. The water was really rough that day and the air was bitingly chilly, but I got some really beautiful shots.

When we arrived in Carmel, I was blown away. The town is very charming and offers attractive dining options such as this Welsh inspired tea house just a few blocks from the beautiful, white sandy beach.

As we were walking around downtown, I was drawn to this outdoor walkway. This beautiful setting lead into a garden full of paintings. It happened to be a garden art gallery. Genious!

Holy shit, I finally remembered my password!!

Hello, reader(s)! No, I haven't been lazy or fallen off the blog bandwagon because of graduate school. The story is that my laptop finally shit the bed and when I bought a new computer, I obviously did not have the password to my blogspot account saved, so I couldn't sign on. The ever-so-smart folks at blogspot finally gave the option of password retrieval, or I just found it, so here I am!!! Yay!!!

So, a lot has happened and there is no way in hell I can catch everyone up on everything. Just know that I have grown so much as a person since I have gone through the toughest semester of my life which involved going through five very difficult graduate classes with a zombie-like existence due to lack of sleep and bags under my eyes from reading the entirety of eleven heavy occupational therapy textbooks. Then, going through three months of a psychosocial internship that challenged me and allowed me to view all people, no matter their hardships, as people and not diagnoses. It has become impossible to have a sense of humor about some of the things that society thinks is so funny about people who are disadvantaged in any way. Did I ever laugh or make cracks during my internship about some of the things I saw/witnessed? Yes, I did. But when you see things happen all around you that would normally disturb you for months if it happened to you on the street, you have to find insignificant non-threatening things humorous. And the people I worked with, no matter how sick they were, also had a sense of humor about themselves as well. I am being quite tangential, but it has been so long since I have blogged that I don't quite know where to begin.

Finally, I do have to add that while doing all of this "growing," I am also planning a wedding and becoming an auntie!! Yay!!

So, I am back, folks. It's on like Donkey Kong!