I was really pleased to hear this story on NPR this morning. It’s about how the participants of the Occupy Wall Street movement are organizing themselves. Everyone gathers together every night …

I’ve been working on getting a daily yoga practice going. I thought it might improve my overall energy levels, and help with the chronic tension in my back and shoulders. But it’s been a “two steps forward, one step backward” sort of path. It’s especially on those days when I’m feeling pretty good that I tend to slack off. I think what the heck, I don’t really need it today. But then one day becomes two, then three… And I find myself feeling sluggish and tight again. Ugh.

So I’m re-experiencing firsthand what it’s like to try and get a healthy new habit going. It sure isn’t easy. How do we keep ourselves motivated?

We all take up these practices for a reason. We know they’ll be good for us. We think they’ll help deal with (fill in your pet problem here). And it’s perfectly natural and human to focus on results. After all, why else are we doing this?

This past spring, I attended professional training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) — a program started by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass Medical Center. Basically, MBSR is a way of presenting meditation in a secular context — for health, wellness, and self-awareness. It brings the transformative power of mindfulness out to the mainstream in a way that “Buddhist” things probably never could. I am now moving toward offering MBSR classes of my own in the Boston area, starting this fall.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work, here’s a masterful presentation by the man himself. Warning: it’s two hours long, but I found it very inspiring.

In the metta bhavana meditation practice, we imagine that we’re connected to all humanity and all life – and send our lovingkindness out to them. Here’s a graphic that offers a mathematical perspective on why this makes sense.

I have a long history of depression. And though it’s thankfully not a constant companion anymore, it still drops by for a visit now and then. This past week was one of them. Being in it again gave me another opportunity for practice. But it also showed me how far I’ve come. I now have the confidence that there’s a way out.

When these moods come lately, they go up and down, and usually pass away after a week or two. (Thank goodness! It didn’t used to be that way.) And all the things that seem so hopeless and overwhelming when I’m down suddenly turn manageable when the mood passes. Interesting, isn’t it? It’s not like my situation changes. The only thing that changes is the state of my body and mind. When the heaviness lifts, my world is completely different.

My friend Cecily recently lost her brother to illness. He had just turned 50 the week before he died. She is devastated.

Cecily is one of my best friends from college. We’ve known each other for 32 years. It’s that rare kind of friendship where even if months pass without connecting, we still pick right up where we left off. We’ve never lived anywhere near each other since graduation, but we’ve stayed in touch through all our ups and downs. It’s a friendship I treasure.

When she came to visit after her loss, there was something very poignant about it. It turned into something of a wake up call for me.

What an inspiring post. It’s the five things that dying people say they wish they’d done or not done, as they look back on their lives. Although I’ve heard these before, somehow hearing it in this way brought it home much more powerfully.

Regrets of the Dying
by Bronnie Ware

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

After tossing and turning through some sleepless nights, I discovered a few things about the discomfort at the root of my insomnia. Realizing that it’s always there on some level, it’s given me something real to work with, day and night.

I turn to look at my bedside clock. 3:18 am. Here I am again, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Darn it.

I really appreciated this article reminding us how to stay self-aware, considerate and authentic when we’re on using social media. Facebook and Twitter are great, but they are in the end tools just like anything else. Let’s be mindful about how we use them, both for our own benefit …

I just discovered a wonderful poet named Tanya Davis. Here’s a piece of a poem she wrote about New Years Resolutions, that I so resonate with. We can have goals and aspirations for ourselves, but let’s also be gentle with ourselves.