Dan Wraps Up His Morning Rituals (Part 2 of 2)

Last week I opened with the first two of my five Morning Rituals: exercising and writing in my gratitude journal.  Today I’ll conclude with the final three: repeating my affirmations, praying, and meditating.

Repeating my Affirmations: Placed in my journal is a sheet of paper with my affirmations.  These statements describe my present state or my wishes for myself for the future.  Alone in our skylight room, I repeat the affirmations aloud.   They include:

This is the best time in my life as I become more trusting and having more faith.

I do unto others as I would have them do unto me.  I do what I’d expect of others.

I believe courage is having faith when doubting would be easier. 

I do not distress myself with imaginings.  I make decisions based on what is reasonable.

I learn and see the good in others.  I see the joy in my day.   

I am resourceful, confident, and lead an exciting life.  I don’t have time to waste.  I don’t sweat the small stuff.  I don’t take extreme positions.

I trust in myself and the God within me.

I have faith that ultimately everything will work out.

My list evolves over time.  Sometimes I pause after each one and think how it applies to my upcoming day.  I am setting up my day to think what I am or want to be.

Praying: As I settle into a comfortable chair to meditate, I first pray.  In general, I thank God for looking out for Danny.  I pray for strength, wisdom, and courage and give thanks to God for the blessings in my life.  I pray for the good health of others.  Prayer really clicked for me when our minister said, Prayer changes the one praying.  Truly, a light bulb went on for me.  When I pray, I become more humble, forgiving, understanding, and aware.   I am the one who changes.  Our minister noted the words of the famous 13th^th century German theologian, Eckhart, If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.  I don’t prepare for outcomes; I pray for the strength, wisdom, and courage to deal with what comes my way.

Our First Parish Church in York

Meditation: This can’t come as a shock to readers of this blog, but I was trained in Transcendental Meditation based on the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1970s.  Yes, I was given a mantra.  Since Hannah and I had each paid $200 (that’s equivalent to $10,000 in today’s money), I meditated twice a day for twenty minutes repeating my mantra.  Often my mind wandered and I just went where it took me.  In time, I didn’t take the time.  Over the last thirty some years I would meditate a few times per year, but then I would often fall asleep.  By the way, my theory on falling asleep when meditating is that if you fall asleep, you need the sleep.  It’s the same way I felt about kids falling asleep in my class.  If they are that tired, let ‘em sleep.  You are probably thinking, No way, Dan, they would never fall asleep in your class.  Alas, a few did. At this point, I tapped into the second of the Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz – Don’t Take Anything Personally.  When I follow that wisdom, I am a happier person.  PS  I’m not always successful in doing that.

I always felt physically better during and after meditating, but I was just so inconsistent.  Then another minister mentioned the Sharon Salzberg book, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation – A 28-Day Program.  While meditating, I now focus on my breath.  I note my breathing in and my breathing out.  I even say the words to myself to keep me centered – breathing in, breathing out.  As Salzberg says one’s attention will wander.  Once I notice that my attention has wandered, I non-judgmentally bring it back to my breathing.  Every day before I meditate, I read a line or two that I’ve highlighted in the book to focus my meditation.  The book is gold.

With a morning ritual, I have become a daily mediator.  I love it.  I’ll sometimes meditate a second time in the afternoon.  Again, if I fall asleep, I fall asleep.

Do I have my act together now with all this daybreak peace and serenity?

Not quite, but I am on a happier journey to more peace and fulfillment and trust and faith in my life.

Dan Opens Up about his Morning Rituals (Part 1 of 2)

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.   Buddhist Proverb

I didn’t know it, but this past October I was ready and, son of a gun, if the teacher didn’t appear!  On a spring-like October day, my wife Hannah and sister-in-law Becky spent four hours of our Saturday at Willow Femmechild’s workshop, Create a Life You Love, at the Osher Lifelong learning Institute on the campus of University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine.  Ever have a workshop where you feel a good vibe and then bam, it clicks that this really is going to have something for you?  That was such a day for me.  I realized that a morning ritual was just what I needed to set my day off on the right foot. 

As I am want to do, I immediately started my five-part Morning Ritual the very next day: exercising, writing in my gratitude journal, repeating my affirmations, praying, and meditating.

Exercising: Now in my sixties, I have at times balky but highly functioning knees; a few years back, I had physical therapy for the dreaded frozen shoulder.  But mainly a lifetime of exercising has served me well.  Now, each morning I stretch and stretch, lift some light five-pound weights, and do leg lifts for a total of 20 minutes.  Being committed (exercising five times per week), not insane (doing it every day), I am more likely to exercise if I am not an idiot.  I used to compromise these exercises by watching ESPN’s Sports Center as well.  Multi-tasking is a myth for me.  I wind up doing two or more things poorly.  Do you know what the best exercise is?   Yoga?  Running?  Pilates?  Maybe walking?  It’s the one you will actually do.  Find your own way.

Gratitude Journal: Once done exercising, I settle into a couch in our skylight room and take out my spiral notebook and write a list of gratitudes in my journal.  Such gratitude journals come highly recommended by Dr. Wayne Dyer, Sarah Ban Breathnach, and Tal Ben-Shahar.  I’ve been a journal writer since the mid-70s, thanks to Lynn Nelson, a mentor of mine at Arizona State University.  I began journal writing in earnest to prove to myself that I was a writer.  As a middle school writing teacher, I thought it imperative that I actually write if I am going to teach writing.  Wanting to write isn’t being a writer.  Writing does make one a writer.  During one stretch I wrote for 2000+ days in my journal without missing a single day (What broke my streak was forgetting til 130A one night. I sat up and realized what I had done or really hadn’t done.  At first bummed, but I then thought.  Damn, I am a writer.)  I am in the midst of my 140^th journal.

What to write in a journal?  Here are a few thoughts.  Write as if no one is going to read your words, otherwise the internal censor/critic makes a mess of the writing.  Let the creative self go; save the critic for revision.  It may be that you do publish from your journal but first write from the heart without an audience other than yourself in mind.  Certainly the events of the day and a reaction to them are starting points.  I often found I wrote best when I was struggling.  I had issues to deal with or troubles to address.  My journal was a refuge at times.  When our then four year old daughter Robyn was in the hospital for treatment for leukemia, my journal helped me record the moments of her life and mine.  Writing there insured that the experience would not be forgotten.  It turned out my journal writing during the years our family dealt with Robyn's illness became the basis for my first book, Sweet Dreams, Robyn.

Still there were times when I had trouble getting started.  Not anymore.  I take my spiral notebook and write the word Gratitudes at the top of the paper.  My goal is to fill the page and write five gratitudes.  I typically thank people that have come into my life in the past day or so.  I appreciate good weather.  I note the abundance in my life and that I can travel.  Regularly I include my wife Hannah and the happiness she brings to my life.  Tal Ben-Shahar quotes research that says that a close, nurturing, equitable, intimate, lifelong companionship with one’s best friend is a top predictor of happiness.  I appreciate I have the time and money to be a member of a local gym.  I am blessed to have a Sunday church to go to.  I am grateful that I’ve rediscovered the Serenity Prayer and that I play online Scrabble with family and friends.  I’m blessed our kids are happy people.  Many gratitudes are often simple; other times right from the heart.

It might be instructive if I copied a page from my journal, but I didn’t write the gratitudes for publication.  I write them for me to begin my day acknowledging the blessings in my life.  I start my day thinking of the good in my life.  It gets me in the mode of one of Hannah’s favorite expression, Life is Good.

What I think about and thank about I can start to bring about.

Next week Morning Rituals (part 2): Affirmations, prayer, and meditation.

Dan Remembers to Say Thank you

When I advised students at the University of New England who couldn’t wait to be done with college, I would crack, “Being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”  My point was to enjoy college life for all its worth.  The work-a-day world will always be there.

That said, I can’t say my College of Wooster (Ohio) college years were my best.  I thank my lucky stars that I did meet my wife-to-be Hannah there.   I was a suburban kid, growing up in Fair Lawn, NJ, just outside of Manhattan, NY.   For K-12, I went to Fair Lawn schools and grew up with the same kids.  Why, on my little cul-de-sac street of 16 houses, I must have had ten kids in my grade alone to play with.  We were the future boomers.   I didn’t realize until I went off to college there was a down-side to this existence. 

When I got to college, it was readily apparent that I didn’t know how to make friends.  I didn’t know how to initiate, to take the first step.  I had some dorm friends; I played on the tennis team.  But for the most part of college in the cold, dark, and often rainy part of northeast Ohio, I felt at loose ends when I wasn’t with Hannah.

What was a bright spot in a up and down college career in Ohio were my Uncle Bill and Aunt Carolyn who lived in Toledo, some 125 miles from Wooster.  In the late 1960s, no one had cars so I would hitchhike to their place in northwestern Ohio for the weekend, often with my brother.  We made a sign for our hitchhiking that said, “It’s Mom’s birthday.”  Who could resist such a sign?  Fact is, it was a winner every time.  Truth be told it was never her birthday, but it did get people to stop.  To be technically correct, we had written May 2 in small print.   When we fessed up, the ones who picked us up always said, “I knew that.  I just picked you up anyway.”

Three hours of hitchhiking later we were in Toledo.  At the time, I never thought much about the dangers of hitchhiking.  I was with my younger, but bigger brother Richard.  It wasn’t until I was hitchhiking the West that its perils became apparent to me.  Once hitchhiking south in southern Idaho I was picked up one early Sunday morning by two cowboys who had been drinking all night.  Once I realized this fact, I tried to talk myself out of their vehicle as soon as possible.  They’d have nothing of it.  They couldn’t do enough for me.  No, no.  We’ll take you all the way to Utah!  Another time, when the guys who picked me up learned I had no money they kicked me out of the car in the desert north of Tucson, Arizona.  And then for good measure came back and egged me. 

Bill and Carolyn’s home was a haven.  There were always snacks and pizza for dinners.  This was before the time of designer college cafeterias that put Panera’s or Starbucks to shame.  My college food was institutional and sorry.  Bill has the gift of gab and Carolyn is the steady strength of the family.  After dinner, we’d play cards.  Oh Hell was a favorite game.  It’s similar to Mormon Bridge and one I’ll teach you when we next get together.  We played Michigan rummy.  We laughed and before we knew it was after midnight.  Eating, watching the games on TV, and playing cards happened all weekend.  It was a getaway when getting away from campus was what my lonely soul needed.

As I look back at it, I don’t remember thanking them in writing or with a call after all their kindnesses.  I knew enough to thank them as we left their house, but I have no recollection of following up with a written note.  Ah, the follies and lapses of youth.  Please forgive the youth in your life who are still learning their social graces.  Teach them for it’s not always so obvious.  They are works-in-progress.

So when my brother Richard proposed taking our Mom, now 90, to see her brother (Bill) and his wife (Carolyn) in Lancaster, PA, I jumped at the chance.  I’d seen my uncle and aunt (pronounced ahnt here in New England) at family gatherings, but it could be years between visits.  Now retired, it is easy for me to clear up my schedule. 

Though a three hour drive to Lancaster from northern Jersey where our Mom lives, we filled the 150 miles with reminiscing about Bill and Carolyn, checking in with each other on how we were doing with our Dad’s death the previous May, learning that each of us has a child who is expecting this summer (our Molly is due in July!), and talking health issues (colonoscopy talk is just endemic to our generation!). 

Carolyn and Bill looked terrific, maybe moving just a little bit slower.  They passed around the jelly beans and pretzels and welcomed us back into their lives.  We settled into a nice groove of old friends.  We lunched at the all-you-can-eat buffet at Willow Tree Restaurant and just fell into a comfortable catch-up after all these years.  I talked to Bill about his writing process, he being an Episcopal minister, who was preparing a homily for a Monday funeral.  Sports is always front and center with Bill and me.

Hugging them good-bye, our Mom, Richard, and I just beamed the whole way home.  This visit will be a memory for a lifetime.  Mom was thrilled to see her little brother as were my brother and I to be in the presence of three elders who have supported us in becoming who we are.

Oh, and I did write them a note, but today’s posting is my more elaborate thank you to Carolyn and Bill for all the ones I missed writing in the past.  

Hannah and Dan Bike the Legacy Trail from Venice to Sarasota, Florida

The traffic in Florida is going to get us.  I don’t mean literally.  I mean in a metaphoric psycho-drama of frustration sense.  Driving north from Sanibel to Venice, we get snarled in Fort Myers uber-traffic.  My love with our GPS is waning.  Clare (the Australian giving the directions on our GPS) takes us through neighborhoods and then wants us to go 18 miles on traffic-filled Route 41, home to Pizza Huts, Shell Stations, and Subways, when the I-75 freeway is just five miles away.  In the future I’ll be two timing our GPS with Rand McNally.

What makes for successful, happy people?  I think persistence and resilience are two such characteristics.  I married a woman who has them in spades.  Midday, with temperatures easily in the upper 70s already on this mid-January day, we are in Venice, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico seeking a place to rent bikes.   Our first effort looking for Beach and Bikes takes us to a neighborhood and it seems like Clare (said Australian GPS Woman) is messing with us again.  Unbelieving that we should be in a neighborhood of homes, we stop at a convenience store, get their phone number, and talk to the owner who says he only delivers bikes to hotels.  That explains the home address.  We give Clare a pass.  He does direct us to Beach, Bikes, and Trikes but only with the vaguest of directions. 

Parking in downtown Venice, we stop at a beauty salon for directions.  Less resilient and persistent than Hannah, I suggest that we could walk the beach in Venice for an hour or two to get our exercise rather than aimlessly search for a phantom bike rental place.  Hannah will not be deterred.

Hannah has read about the Legacy Trail, a trail created by Rails to Trails that goes ten miles north from Venice to Sarasota, Florida.  Determined to make this afternoon an event, not just us filling the time walking the mushy sand of Venice Beach, Hannah remains focused.  We eventually find Beach, Bikes, and Trikes and learn that they only rent by the day and it’s $28 per day.  Too rich for our blood.  We just want 3-4 hours of exercise. 

They do say that back in town is Beach Destinations, so Hannah has us press on.  Parking in the downtown we give it one last chance and hit pay dirt.  Brian has two classic Huffy one-speeds for us to rent for the afternoon for $8 each. 

Huffy bikes 

Crossing the bridge from the Island (downtown Venice) to the mainland, we take the Legacy Trail at the Venice Train Depot.  True to what you’d think of as a rails-to­-trails trail, the path is straight as the cliché arrow and flat as a Florida landscape.  This straight shot ten miles north begins in the wealthy bay areas of Venice and travels through Florida scrub land of pines and small palms. 

Every few miles there are benches for sitting and relaxing.  Crossing a few main streets, we notice one that has a traffic light specifically for bicyclists. 

Over ten miles, we don’t cross more than three or four streets.  It can be a bit monotonous but it does take us away from the busy streets, traffic lights, and the rush of vacationing snowbirds. 

Reaching the turn around, we settle in on the benches for Clementines and baby carrots.  Warren (not his real name) with a husky voice, which he later tells me is because he had throat cancer, talks nonstop.  Word without end, Amen.  Soon I find a pause and just stand, give Hannah “the look” to put her socks and sneakers back on and save me.

One-speeds into the wind are an anaerobic exercise, a struggle, not an aerobic workout.  A ten miles trip that took 50 minutes with the wind takes nearly 60 minutes into the wind.  We’ve had our work out for the day and look forward to a final night in Florida ready to head for home in the morning, though snow is in the forecast for Maine. 

Ultimately in our quest to see if being snowbirds in Florida for two to three months in the winter is in the cards, we think not.  Yesterday’s relentless traffic was a sign that Florida is not for us.  Our inner voice speaks.  You two are country mice.  There is no small town New England here.  What were you thinking?  Stay where you are happiest.  Build your community in York.  Thirty years ago you left the hubbub and congestion of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area because of traffic and busy-ness.  Worked out pretty good, didn’t it?  There was a reason you ended up in small town America.  The upper 70s and sunny that you’ve had each of the past seven days is not enough.  Clearly, Florida is ideal for others, many others.  [Oh, you couldn’t resist one more shot, could you?]  It’s just not for you two.  

We all have to find our own way and ours is not in the Sunshine State.  

Dan and Hannah Bike Sanibel Island in Florida

If there is a more bike friendly island in Florida than Sanibel Island and its sister Captiva, we don’t know it.  Perched on the southwestern Gulf Coast off Fort Myers, Florida, Sanibel is the tranquil tropical garden spot of Florida.  For a mere $6, we take the causeway bridge from the mainland to tropical paradise. 

Causeway Bridge heading to the mainland from Sanibel

Some ten years ago, Hannah and I first came to Sanibel Island for the annual meeting of the American Reading Forum (ARF).  At the time, I was in an epic battle for promotion at Eastern Connecticut State University, my first fulltime university position, and then later for tenure at the University of New England, two division 3 schools where teaching was the primary focus.  But not so fast my friend.  Those of you thinking of a career in academia pause just a moment and hear me out.  Do you like to write for publication as well as teach?  Are you willing to be a graduate assistant as you bide your time for the big break into the ivory towers?  From my vantage point, academia advancement is a publish or perish proposition, make no mistake about it.  That said, teaching at the university was my dream job.  After twenty years in public schools, working with preservice teachers was the second entrée of my meal in education (I get the metaphor is a stretch, but you got to admit I’m trying [and not in the annoying sense, I hope]).  Throughout, my colleagues were supportive of my efforts to grab the brass ring of academia.  (Metaphor overdose alert)

While there, I learned that the American Reading Forum had an annual meeting, in of all places, Sanibel Island.  Presenting at ARF was win/win for me.  It was a warm winter place to take Hannah as well as a chance to build my vitae (academic resume).  Truth be told, I wasn’t what you’d call an academic’s academic.   I just wanted to teach.  But I did want a mini-career at the university in my 50s, so I paid my dues and wrote and presented.   Anyway, someone had to go to Sanibel in December!

In past trips to Sanibel Island, Hannah and I walked the beaches picking through millions of shells beneath our feet.  The warm Gulf water is home to manta rays, which we saw mere feet from the shore’s edge.  Morning walks on the Gulf-side beaches and seeing the sunset in the evenings over the water defined tropical paradise for us.  Soon our friends Rich and Mary, then later Steve and Amelia would join us for a few days in Sanibel.  One treat you must give yourself if you come is to breakfast at the Island Cow.  With these good Arizona State friends and wives, we had breakfast outside in January!  We have come to expect 70s and 80s every time we come to Sanibel Island, be it in December or January.  We have not been disappointed.

Today we cross the Causeway Bridge on to Sanibel Island and head for Billy’s Rentals  on Periwinkle Drive, the main drag.  For a modest $12 for four hours we rent six-speed bikes with fat tires and front baskets for our lunches.  Rarely do you see anyone wearing a helmet on the bicycle paths which are usually away from the traffic.  The bikes are slow going and made for exploring, not for aerobic exercise.  Most bikes have bells and riders are uniformly considerate.

In town, the 12 foot wide bike trails weave next to the main road and then head north where the bike path narrows on the Sanibel-Captiva Road towards the Ding Darling Natural Wildlife Preserve. 

Though those in cars are charged $5 to drive through the Darling Preserve, hikers and we bicyclists are charged a single greenback (i.e., a simoleon).  Alligators in the ditches by the parking lots and herons and egrets galore in the bays are all a part of the four mile one way roll through the park. 

Alas, the four mile road through the Preserve is less than friendly for bicyclists.  Its bumpy, gravelly texture makes for a jostling ride that makes us pine for the smoothness of the island bike paths.  Truth be told, we did some major bellyaching about the bumpy road and swore we would never bike it again.  Walk or go by car!

Back on the bike path which narrows to six feet across, we ride side by side for easy conversation.  In my quest to understand if a few months in Florida would be for us, I think about a young man I saw just playing guitar under a tree.  Fun fact.  I took up the guitar years ago, abandoned my pursuit within months, and stuck to playing the fitness game.  So activities that take time to learn and develop, such as improving one’s golf game or learning a new instrument, would be ideal for being in Florida.  I still wonder how I’d fill my time productively away down South.  Hanging out just isn’t enough.

As we head north into Captiva Island we ride in a 2-3 foot bike lane where the vehicle traffic is a pedestrian 25 mph or so.  Nothing says paradise like queen palms and the Queen Bee (Hannah B).

Captiva Hannah

Hakuna Matata means “no worries”

Our lunch of Spicy Italian (Hannah) and Tuna (Dan) Subway subs in a resort courtyard in front of the gated community’s barrier refuels us for the ten mile ride back to Billy’s - into the wind. 

Sanibel/Captiva is an escape from the North’s cold and the mainland’s traffic.  Later we cross back over the Sanibel Causeway Bridge, grit our teeth, and go one-on-one with the afternoon traffic.

It’s time to head for home in Maine.