It’s been 335 days since I began this blog, this journey, this cycle of change and growth. 335 days.  A bit less than 47 weeks. 8040 hours, give or take. More than 482,000 minutes. Time measured, time spent, some of it wasted, all of it precious, and limited; I am living a more deliberate, mindful life than I had been living. I continue to practice new skills, continue to refine new practices that I value, and that seem to enhance my every day experience. There are a lot of small changes in the way I experience my life, the qualities I bring to my relationships, the value I place on the experiences of others, their challenges, the lessons they offer me when our paths cross along the way.

Now there is time to consider it all as the end of the year approaches.

It has long been my practice to take time on New Year’s day to consider the year past, and the year unfolding ahead of me. An hour or two, at least, to really put some attention on whether I achieved my goals, where I’m headed, what I can improve, what my challenges are. Funny, I’ve been doing that since I was about 14… it wasn’t as helpful a practice as it could have been, because for so many years I let my thinking self control the agenda, the tone, and the outcome, and left no room for my observing self to bring stillness, calm, and insight. Light without illumination, in a manner of speaking. This year I have come so far, and much of the journey on a very different path than any before. I’m eager to sit down with myself this New Year’s Day, look 2014 in the eye and say “Let’s do this thing!”

I slept badly last night. I didn’t, however, experience the stress of ‘how will I get enough rest to…’, which often complicates the bad sleep picture by throwing additional anxiety and something rather like ‘performance pressure’ into the mix. It was a pleasant relief to realize that just getting up and doing something other than ‘trying to sleep’ would be inconsequential to the day that followed.  I feel groggy and fatigued, predictably enough, but the morning is pleasant and comfortable in spite of that.  I’m an analyst by trade, which had tended to foster a rather simplistic notion that somehow ‘data fixes everything’ – if only there is enough of it. It hasn’t proven to be the case in practice. I spent years gathering sleep related data on my own experience: hours of sleep, hours disturbed, the nature of sleep disturbances, when they occurred by type, where my hormones were, my diet, exercise, medication, even details about the weather or environmental conditions, all sorts of stuff. I carefully analyzed the data for trends, looked for patterns, even found some; none of it mattered, because none of it had the power to affect the outcome in my experience. I struggled with missing pieces, undeveloped skills, correlations I wasn’t aware of, didn’t recognize, or didn’t understand were relevant. In my experience of my own life, mindfulness beats analysis for enacting change and improving my experience, easily. It’s not even close.  2013 has been the year that mindfulness became something, for me, and I, in turn, am becoming someone I enjoy being – sleepless nights and all. 😀

This morning seems a nice one to take a moment for gratitude, and a smile. The path isn’t always easy, and sometimes I still feel like I’m walking in the dark, banging knees, shins, and heart on unseen obstacles, but I no longer fight the needful journey.

Where this really started, back in 2010, and a moment of gratitude for the love of the man who shared it with me, then, and remains with me, still.