Schvimmbadd!!

Hello! I hope you’ve had/are going to have a good day. This morning I hauled myself out of bed, ate breakfast and did my first meditation for the day. It was a short one, but very good (compared to last night’s) — this one instilled calm and structure and had a repetitive and soothing quality to it. I noticed this on reflection. It was one of the ones from Owen’s recommended list

So today I was going to go and check out two stores in Prenzlauer Berg – Paul’s Boutique and St George’s Bookshop. The former sells a huge selection of used stuff and the latter is (probably) the largest dispenser of english language books – both new and used – in Berlin. I needed neither shoes nor books but that was my plan regardless. That is, until I went into work and Amelia told me that Paul’s was cray-cray expensive. So, I changed my plan to include free things and free things only.

Today started off with me trotting over to a friend’s house to get my bike and then taking a leisurely cycle home only to run into Josh and Izzy from work. We went to an op shop and I got new (waterproof and incredibly dorky) shoes. Win.

Then I went sightseeing which in the autumn in Berlin is one of the prettiest things I think anyone could do with their day!

To kick things off (on my way to collect my bike) I noticed some pretty crazy looking cat pictures in the window of my local Bio Market. As someone who doesn’t mind cats occasionally, I snapped some pictures:

Fucking wild, aye!?

Then I took a picture of the glorious day that lay ahead. Cold, but brilliantly clear!

And then, when I got to the bike I found this little guy perched on the handlebars!

After I saw Josh and Izzy I gave Amelia the t-shirt that we chose for her. She liked it.

Ok, now I was onto my day of journeying. I’m just gonna bombard you with the things I saw including the brandenburg gate, the tiergarten, the russian monument, a jewish memorial and some tall-ass monument thingo.

And then after all that I went swimming with Amelia! My knee was STILL hurting so I just flailed around and flopped about in the shallows. Yay! This is the pool I went to:

So that was my day. I meditated again when I got home and this evening chose a 10-minute breath exercise focusing entirely on the breath. I chose it as I noticed I was impatient to meditate and get it over with, mainly cos I’m meeting Amelia and Tania for TACOS in like 20 minutes… After noticing my impatience I also noticed that I was able to gently bring myself back to the moment and remind myself that I was in this present moment and to not try and change it. So I chose a simple-sounding meditation that wouldn’t be too much to take in, and would hopefully leave me feeling grounded and calm. It did.

Mood: Happy, a bit tired after my big day riding around like a crazy person, and after my swim. Excited about going to hang out with friends and positive overall. Pleased that I meditated and was able to bring myself into the present pretty easily.

Anxiety: Very low. Calm and present, feeling grounded by the meditation and able to bring myself into a state of presentness pretty easily. This does seem to wear off the further away from a meditation that I get but at least I’m aware of it

Positive events: Saw amazing sights, went swimming and am going to meet up with friends. Win!

Negative events: Still have a sore knee but other than that it was a good day.

Mindfulness practice: A ten minute practice focusing on the breath. Left me feeling very calm and grounded. This is the link and it’s the Ten minute mindfulness of breathing practice by a guy with a really nice sounding irish accent. The only tiny quibble is the fact that the silence between meditation guidance is ‘synthesized’ meaning that they inserted ‘fake’ silence and it’s a little disconcerting. But other than that – a great practice!