Today I am grateful for two amazing and healthy children. I try not to let a day go by that I don't remember how blessed we are to be healthy. Yesterday was a reminder of exactly how blessed. A friend of mine found out yesterday that her 5 year old son has cancer. I cannot even imagine how you would go through something like that. So today I will pray for sweet little Patrick and be extremely grateful for my healthy family.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Gratitude Journal Day 2: Health
Today I am grateful for my health. I appreciate that I can get out of bed independently and carry about my day how I chose. I can do whatever I want within my bodies capabilities.
One of the things that sent me down this health and fitness path this year was a patient I encountered last winter. Outwardly she looked very healthy. No grave disability, but she just kept complaining about how hard it was to be her and what "pain" she felt. I was touched very deeply by her. She couldn't do anything because of her perception and attitude. What was my excuse? Because I didn't "feel" like it? That is not a good reason. There are plenty of people in this world that truly cannot do because of physical limitations, then there are that will not do because of mental limitations. I was somewhere in between.
Today, I am grateful that I can and feel like getting out of bed early, doing my wonderful sun salutations, meditating then working out before I go to work. I am very grateful for my "can do" spirit that has overtaken me this year, and that I give myself this time each day before I serve everyone else. I am grateful I am whole, healthy and able bodied.
... and I got nothin
I had a wonderful opportunity to get together with some of my dear girlfriends tonight. Our lavish "Happy Hours" at happening Boulder hot spots have now been downgraded to meeting at someone's house and a sharing a bottle of wine (on sale of course!) after we and the hostess puts our kids to bed. I almost prefer these get togethers as I feel like we can pull back the BS and discuss some real topics, and we don't have to fight crowd noise, waiters and there's no tab to settle up at the end of the night. (Thanks for hosting E! You are always the impecable hostess!). I guess this is what mid thirties, married, mortgaged and a mother of two looks like.
Tonight we discussed our husbands and frustrations around the share of parenting/contributing/responsibilities. It always blows me away how personally we all struggle but with all the same things. It is some curtain of pride we all hide behind, but once opened, we all have felt the same way and have had the same fights/thoughts/frustrations! We all laugh at that slightly dramatized story of what happened because we have all lived it, been there, felt that. Well, except...
Me! I got nothin! I can sympathize, extrapolate that I would feel that way in that situation. I sat quiet through most of the stories, laughing, but quiet because I didn't have anything to add. Nobody wanted to hear how I got flowers at work this week, with a homemade card telling me how much I am love and appreciated. Nobody wanted to hear how I just was able to get away for a weekend to ... Meditate ... I had absolutely zero to add of why my husband sucked! I had nothin!
Thank you Heath Ryan Kahler for loving me , spoiling me, taking great emotional care of me. For being my partner, co-parent, best friend, confidont, lover, cheerleader, manager, and above all Husband. You are amazing and I love you more and more each day and every year. I don't even care that you don't know how to wipe down the sink after you shave and there is little hair fragments everywhere, or that you can't quiet get your sock ALL the way into the laundry basket.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Gratitude Journal Day 1: Alive
November 1st, 2013
Today I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful to awaken everyday and be given the opportunity to learn, grow, share, and struggle. Even if the day is a challenge, I try to keep the perspective of how fortunate I am to even be here!
Monday, October 21, 2013
My Weekend with Buddha
This weekend I was fortunate enough to get away for a three day meditation retreat. I spent Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday through lunch at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. (http://www.shambhalamountain.org)
My meditation practice began somewhere around two years ago. While struggling with post partum depression, I got involved with a research study at the University of Colorado. They were studying the effects of mindfulness and meditation practice on post partum depression symptoms. I had heard of meditation but had never looked into it as it seemed "new agey". My experiences were positive through this study, six months in length, but since then has become very hit and miss.
Last December, I set some pretty audacious goals for 2013. One was to become more present in my life. I don't want to "wake up" 15 years from now and realize I missed all the good stuff because I was so concentrated on all of the small details. I have found meditation to help me be more present in the everyday. Because of the variability of my practice, I sought out a retreat to help me with this goal.
I really didn't do much research into what I was getting myself into. Nor did I set many expectations for what I was to experience because I didn't want to be disappointed. I was not disappointed.
This picture was taken during my morning run on Saturday. The sunrise was FANTASTIC and will go down in history as of those all time favorite moments in life.
The property sits on 600 acres in the mountains an hour west of Fort Collins. I did expect to see fall colors all around but instead was greeted by several inches of snow. It was a beautiful mix of autumn and winter in our dual personality state of Colorado.
The retreat center is a Buddhist place, very much in a Tibetan fashion. It was kind of like visiting a foreign country. They have built an incredible Stupa to honor the founder of the property Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. It was very interesting learning about the tradition and culture around this place. The previous picture is the view down onto the property from the stupa and the next is the path leading too the Great Stupa. This proved to be my favorite place on the property. A small path through a stand of trees with a beautiful stream. So serene.
I spent quite a bit of time in silence and listening to the deafening quiet. Such a stark contrast from my everyday life.
The course was taught by one of the great teachers at the center. He taught us about form, technique and the different kinds of meditation in the Tibetan tradition. It was an amazing time to meet myself, and get to know me on a deeper level. There was no distractions.
I read, multiple times a day, for an hour, in the quiet! I had a whole meal, sitting down, that I didn't prepare, and got to drink my tea hot! I got to carry on conversations with incredibly interesting women about adult topics without being interrupted or distracted. I got to go to bed, when I wanted, and slept like a "baby" for 8 hours straight. It was a pleasure to then get up at 6 and go for my morning run. If nothing else, those experiences were worth the cost of the whole trip.
I didn't have any great meditation experiences until the last day. It was difficult for me to completely let go. I kept getting in my own way and having thoughts from previous conversations that kept me from releasing and relaxing. I spoke to the instructor towards the end of our session on Saturday and asked when I would know that I was, for lack of a better term, a good meditator. When would I know that I had a good practice? He stated, in a very Yoda kind of way that I would know when I knew. Thanks!
They gave us a book as part of this course written by the son of the founder for the SMC. "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham. I am part way through it and love how he describes meditation. He says that a lot of us begin our meditation practice like a beginning gardener. We throw some seeds on some rocks and expect for them to sprout. When they don't we get frustrated and give up. But through meditation we are like great gardener's who pick the weeds, till the soil and create a great top layer. Through meditation, we continue to prepare our soil, then our lives and our everyday activities, if mindfully practiced, plant seeds in that great soil. With this process beautiful things can bloom. This is a great way to describe how my practice was prior to this retreat. I just kept throwing seeds onto rocks, and a couple of heartyer seeds had kind of, sort of bloomed, which had kept me interested. This past weekend I put on my boots, and my gloves and really dug in. My soil is now well tilled and with continued practice I hope to see some beautiful flowers start to bloom.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Mission Statement
On this track to self improvement I have come across the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey. It is a incredible book that has helped me really focus my life. In this book, the author charges everyone to develop a personal and family mission statement. I have been working on this for months and have been stalled many times. Dr. Covey states that you don't write a mission as much as you detect it. He was right. Yesterday while doing my bike ride portion of the triathlon, my mission statement flowed out of me like water. I felt so alive and full of life, that I started thinking about it and boom, there it was. So...
"I exist to LIVE this life to the fullest, to selflessly serve others with my WHOLE heart, and to die with NO regrets"!
Heath and I have also been working on our family mission statement. We thought about making it one or two sentences, expressing the essence of our family. That seemed difficult to have children understand and be able to repeat. Since this is our family mission statement, we needed it to be a little more tangable. Heath came up with the great idea of having a acronym. That seems like a great way to keep it simple, and have it easily remembered and apply it to our lives. Heath and I refer to our family as Team Kahler, and that seemed to be a good acronym to fit our mission statement into.
We took a drive to Estes Park today. Since my personal mission statement was now intact, I felt that our family's mission needed finishing. We seized this opportunity, and our family mission statement is as follows:
T - Teamwork
E - Earnest
A - Attitude
M - Magnanimous
K - Kind
A - Active
H - Honest
L - Laughter
E - Equality
R - Respect
Teamwork is work done by several people with each doing a part that contributes to the efficiency of the whole. Earnest is a seriousness in intention, purpose or effort. Atitude is a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state. Magnanimous is a showing or suggesting a lofty and courageous spirit. To be kind is to be sympathetic or helpful in nature. Active is to be engaged in full time service. To be honest is to be marked by high integrity. To laugh is to find amusement or pleasure in things. Equality is to be like in quality, nature or status. Respect is to hold others in high or special regard.
So there it is, my and our family's mission statements. It is my hope that these can keep us focused and help us develope goals that are in line with our mission.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
I came I saw I TRIed!
They say your first Triathlon is like your first hit of heroin, addicting and a high that you chase for the rest of your life. Well, I would have to agree. I feel AMAZING!!!!!! I did really well, surprised myself and had a great time doing it. 2 hours 2 minutes and 12 seconds of hands down the most amazing personal experience and journey I have ever experienced. Meeting my husband, falling in love, getting married and having two wonderful children are all incredible experiences, but they involve so many other outside things and people that they are just different. This Tri was all about...ME!
I started this journey so many years ago and today it all culminated in me completing something that for so long seemed completely unlikely and dare I say impossible? 4 months ago I hadn't ran in more than 12 years, and my only running history was gym class in high school. I only ever remember having run one non stop mile. 4 months ago, swimming 200 meters was ALL I could do, and had never swam in open water. Top it all off, I hadn't sat on my bike in more than 6 years. Today, I swam more than 750 meters in a reservoir, biked 12 miles and then ran a 5K! I didn't run the whole thing but I did run almost the entire 1st mile (all up hill), a good portion of the 2nd and the ENTIRE 3rd mile! This on the heels of a freak injury Friday where think I may have broken my pinkie toe
I have overcome so much, faced down so many demons and truly learned to quiet that voice in my head that makes me doubt myself. The lessons I learned from my journey this summer will serve me well going forward the next 60 years.
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