While on my walk, I was playing with focus meditation and tuning into how the wind moved the tree branches, how a crow landed on a light post, or how everything unfolded in the present moment. But as I zeroed in on the way the top of a tree swayed in the wind, I completely unfocused on everything else and walked straight into a parked Amazon truck. So, moral of the story, make sure you are not moving. 🤣🤣🤣

An email will go out tomorrow creating a game for filling the next two cohorts of this program—and where there is a game, you know there are prizes!!! 🙌🎁💥 Look for that tomorrow. In the meantime, to help you help me, I am going to start posting about this on The Facebook (which is where you came from). Let me know if you are okay with me tagging you in the posts (no more than every other day or so). You can forward it to people, and you can add comments that support whatever I am asserting in the post if it feels true to you. I can certainly tag you at whatever frequency feels right to you (including not at all, obviously), and I will not tag you without express approval here. Here is a sample of the type of thing. Each post will include a meme (duh) and tie it into the work we've been doing. This is tomorrow's post with the meme: In today's hyper-distracting world managing our attention feels like a superpower - sometimes it feels like it would be easier to learn to fly. That's one of the bigger, unsung outcomes of my mindfulness course, How to Live a Grateful Life in a Fcked Up World. Our ability to experience gratitude is directly proportional to our ability to direct our attention where we want it. By default, we are pulled to focus on the problems (of which there are more than a few these days), and besides being exhausting, it takes us out of the opportunity to sit with what's beautiful, what's working, and what we love about our lives. Imagine taking back the reins of your attention so that when you're with your family, you are fully with them. Imagine the increase in performance at your job if you were able to fully be present with what you were doing (and who you were doing it with) when you were doing it. I am offering new cohorts of this free mindfulness training: one for real estate and sales professionals on Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00 starting March 11 and one for Normies (everyone else) on Wednesdays from 6:00-7:00 p.m. starting March 5th.

Yesterday morning, I decided to meditate before starting my day—it seems to be the best time for me. I slipped into a calm, relaxed state rather quickly, though I had to pull myself back from wandering thoughts a few times. Afterward, I went straight to the gym. During my workout, I noticed my breathing—partly from exertion—and decided to focus on it. Then, I started paying attention to my body, specifically the muscles I was working. I realized I could recreate the same calm state I had reached earlier on the couch, but this time, while in motion. It was incredible. As I focused on each muscle, I could almost “see” it moving in my mind, stretching and contracting. I became acutely aware of the electricity flowing through my body, and the connection between awareness and movement felt euphoric. It was an entirely new level of mindfulness, one that surprised me. Fast forward to this morning—things felt very different. My mind was all over the place. “Wandering” doesn’t even begin to describe it. It felt like a bulldozer was shoving thoughts into my head faster than I could push them out. Staying focused on my breathing took every ounce of effort, and I couldn’t quite find that calm. I’m planning to try again later and see if I can reset. In the meantime, I’m curious: how are others managing to let go of judgment, especially self-judgment, when things don’t go as planned?