20220402

I’m trying to start back into some form of daily meditation as that sort of mindfulness practice can really help you to keep the mindset you want to have. For example I have anxiety and have been working to mitigate its influence on my life as much as possible. I use headspace and I looked to see if they had anything about it and naturally they did. The one I went with was pretty short and it was weird because at first it brought a lot of my anxieties to the surface, which made me feel pretty anxious - seemingly not really what I had wanted from this and I started to feel some regret from having picked it. Trusting the process I kept with the meditation though and I am glad that I did. It transitioned from this awareness stage to one of releasing the tension in your body that had built up around the awareness. Doing this release step really did help me to feel less of the anxiety and become more comfortable with the events that were driving it. It was an eye opening experience for me in our embracing the anxious feelings is uncomfortable, but you can do it in a way where you acknowledge the feelings and can them let them go through this meditation process of tension release throughout your body. This must sound silly to read, but it worked for me and I’ll take that.

I had another similar epiphany while doing squats. I’ve noticed that my core is the biggest bottleneck to lifting heavier weights and I realized something that’s been bothering me for a few weeks that I hadn’t been able to understand. When I get to my lowest point in the squat its hardest for me to start getting back up, but once I reach a certain point it gets very easy. My core was really important at the beginning part of the push to get back up and I wasn’t exactly sure why that was. I did notice that my balance was not resting my weight on my heels but rather the middle of my foot. You want the balance on the heel as that allows you to push up with your legs. I realized that while I have squat shoes that help to deal with a lack of ankle flexibility, my ankles are still not flexible enough to be able to have my balance on my heels in my lowest spot. So, now I know the next big thing that I have to work on in order to lift heavier weights. I’m not in any rush to lift heavy weights as I care more about doing it right to avoid injury + I still get a solid work out as is. But I like understanding all these various components that come into play to do a good squat - it really is a meditative practice in itself, which, to me, is another desirable quality of it.

Daily Listening

I think I linked this album but this track keeps sticking with me.

Daily Reading

Once again a busy day so no reading - need to be more mindful about making time for it!