Wednesday Freewrite Examen

Two or Three Things I am Grateful For:
1) My job at OSU. Wonderful and kind coworkers and supervisors. Wonderful students that needed a "Mellow Midterm" Pilates workout.
2) Lifting weights again and doing OK (just cannot jump and bend as well when putting weight on my left leg).
3) Time of journaling in the morning. Things are coming into focus.

Review of the Day - Noticing where God has been. Where did I accept God's invitation to be loving, grateful, etc? Where did I turn away?

Getting Up - Week 22 of the Spiritual Exercises. Facing feelings. I am not sure what in my time with God precipitated a long journal about my feelings. It was so good to get those feelings out. I had some desolation in that, and I needed to acknowledge that. I need to keep on doing that. Ate a good breakfast and felt very fueled for biking and class. I sometimes forget and pay the price by overeating later in the day! I also listened to Dombey and Son by Dickens. Nobody does it like Dickens. His books are a time commitment but well worth it. Before going to class I graded some Cognitive Learning Assignments for my classes. I  wrote back to one of my stressed students about examining their day. She was excited to try it. 

Rest of the morning - No rain! I rode my bike. It was cold! I was going to do a Disney Day but after reading those Cognitive Learning Assignments from my students where most of them talked about stress, I thought they needed a mellow, breathing, slow-paced day. They can still get a great workout, but they needed to breathe. I had them all close their eyes, and 90% of them raised their hands when I asked who was stressed. Maybe even 95%. 

Middle of the Day - Went to weight lifting. It was life-giving. I have to say some of the people that used to be in the class are gone, and all the nice ones remain. :) There were some people in the class last year (graduate students and post-bacs who moved on to their career jobs) who were not always nice, and it is refreshing to have them gone. Yesterday, I paired up with the youngest woman in the class. We talked a lot last year about form (she has great form). She is a challenge to partner with because she is about 23 and in really good shape. I liked that so much though. She challenges me! (Plus she knows what she is doing when we do a circuit. I am sort of lost because we have a different instructor this year.) It is a positive part of my Tuesdays (I did not get in the Thursday class due to my silliness in the registration process.) I rode my bike home, took a shower, ate a fueling lunch (my personal training education says liquid nutrition is the best after a big workout and almost four hours of working out would be considered that), and rested. I had some correspondence to catch up on, booked my last flight to Boise in March (I will drive in May), listened to the Renovare podcast by the person leading us through Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila, and I watched the news about the Iowa caucuses (what a mess), impeachment, and the State of the Union. I think I also finished my episode of Downton Abbey (only my fourth time through). 

Evening - I recorded the State of the Union while I went out in the dining room and had another time in the Exercises. I love having privacy in the evenings to do that. I love P being home, but he works from 4-12 now. So I have those evening times. I meditated on Nicodemus visiting Jesus, and how appropriate to do that in the evening by candlelight! I also read a few pages of Interior Castle. After this, I read a few pages of Enneagram Transformations by Don Riso. So good! 

End of Day - I watched the speech. I thought if I recorded it, I would fast forward through parts, but I didn't. I watched the WHOLE thing and a little of the commentary afterward, but I switched to Downton Abbey and a mindless reality TV show before falling asleep. Another life-giving thing was NO OVEREATING. I recorded everything, and I think because I fueled properly in the morning, I was better during my "munchie time" in the afternoon (2:30-5:30). 

Regret - Watching the mindless reality TV show. 

Most Life-Giving/Meaningful Part of the Day - Well I have two today.

1 - Journaling my ill feelings. It made for a great day to release those feelings and to move on. I also loved putting on the full armor, which is something all of my mentors suggested for me to do. This was at the beginning of the day, but the Enneagram Transformations "releases and affirmations" were so powerful too. Type Two tends to "edit" negative feelings, and that is what I do. It was so good to privately journal them.

From all this, I will pray the Morning Affirmations (something I did for years but not done as much lately) daily and the and the "I now book. So I will do one in the morning and one in Enneagram Transformations ones in the evening. The ones in the Enneagram book will help me evaluate my day (How did I get that book in the first place? I think I had some digital credits that I needed to use up or it was part of the free books offered to me. I cannot remember but found it when I was reading Interior Castle.)

2 - Everything related to teaching Pilates - coworkers, the benefit to my body (self-nurturing), young people who are teachable and kind, doing something in my gifting. So that was so meaningful. Lord, what do you want me to know about that? "Keep it up." I have had some people try to pressure me to move up to where George is working, but we have never felt a peace about that. I wonder if it is because he is going to come back down here sometime soon. I am not sure. I hope so. I love my job. I don't know how long I will do it, but I certainly do love it!

I ask for the grace to see you in the next day. Now on to meditating on Luke 4:14-22 ("The Spirit of the Lord is upon me").