centering down

week 2 of my happiness project was met with some pretty big events, which made my focus on meditation a little bit of a challenge. last week my goal was to work on "centering down" which, according to richard foster is: 

 "a time to become still, to enter into the recreating silence, to allow the fragmentation of our minds to become centered."

ironically, this was also the week that my brother nathan left for australia for a year, the last week of official shifts at my current job, and the last week that luis had in portland before he left for nyc for school.

bam. 

so it was hard to feel successful about the week, being that it was crazy emotional for me and trying to center down in the midst of that was a mean joke.

but i did get some good thoughts out of it, even if i didn't meditate. as i was perusing the chapter about spirituality in the happiness project, i read about how gretchen read memoirs of catastrophe. and then it started to all make sense. 

she says that one of the best ways to appreciate life is to contemplate death. 

i feel like i had to grieve about this past week about the momentous changes that took place. i am totally stoked for all this change: nathan, luis, and i are all embarking on new adventures shortly which is very exciting and a little bit overwhelming. and in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed, there's always discipline, psalms 119: 33-40, and happiness to make me feel better. 

(and ice cream, good girl talk with anne, and a wonderful supportive husband and family) 

onto week 3!