Stephen Castro-Starkey

My friend Mike said, “There is something wrong when the scariest thing about Halloween is the November election.”

while mowing the lawn
played tag with a grasshopper
could we be friends now?

Lawn mowing again. Lots of exercise and bits of meditation made for a lovely experience.

More exercise yay! Plus a bit of meditation. Very noisy mind tho!

My new inquiry: how much default mode network activity is too much? And: would answering this question and somehow training my brain to have the “right balance” mean enlightenment?

My mind is resisting all the systems I’ve been putting in place to nudge me toward health. Fascinating! I need to figure out what is going on. For now I’ll just keep writing about it in a gentle-to-myself way!

This morning's project was making more space for meditation practice. Feels good to be all set up!

The gray rainy day is definitely affecting my mood. 😂

Work circumstances have changed temporarily so my habits have to change too. Already finished my workout and about to go do some meditation hopefully in time for a shower and then I start work!

Feeling very good after having a gap in working out. The rowing machine has been a fantastic investment!

Also found time to meditate a bit thank goodness!

• ✔ Meditation 10min

"When our experience of mind shifts, so too does our experience of samsara." --Lama Justin

🤯

Looking forward to first class covering Mirror of Light, which promises to be a reasonable meditation program for busy people. :-) Like me!

• ✔ Ngondro!
• ✔ Rowing

• ✔ Yidam practice!
• ✔ Rowing

• ✔ Ngondro!
• ✔ Rowing 30 minutes
• ✔ 1x 7min workout
• ✔ DuoLingo

I was obsessing over how much it would take to meet all the requirements for the next empowerment. I’m craving it! Wondering if this is a sign I should let it go. Or watch the craving as I go with the energy and try to enjoy it without having to hit the goal? Do I think this yidam will be “the one” for me?

7min workout kicked my butt! I need to keep doing it!! But there was serious pain in my shoulder doing push ups. I need an alternative or modification.

Lost another pound. Also the scale reports my visceral fat level has gone down by a point to 11 which makes it well within the healthy range. Makes me happy!

Tried doing meditation right after Pilates. My thoughts were mostly preoccupied with things I wanted to do but there were flashes of awareness. Feeling positive. If I gave myself more time and posture support I might have a few more insights!

• ✔ Rowing
• ✔ Pilates
• ✔ Meditation

The morning as a bit stressful with a tornado warning but all is well. Did some things today:

• ✔ Rowing
• ✔ Standing Meditation
• ✔ Wrote some code in My Life to set the foundation for tracking recurring activities (habits)

Sat still for an hour with some Quakers today! It was lovely. The only weirdness was someone quoting the Bible, which felt a bit off-putting. Was good practice. Am I the only person who wants something like an Unprogrammed Quaker Meeting but without the Christian baggage?

Lovely meditation session after work. Yay!

Also today’s blood pressure measurement was a bit lower stress. I enjoy the 5 minute meditation I do beforehand and the self-reassurance that things are fine and we are doing this to be in control as much as we can. Not perfect tho.. my anxiety remains higher than I would like.

Today’s health related info. Kept it updated through the morning.

Was it the chocolate at night that made it so I had a bout of insomnia? Or the anxiety about our trip home? Who knows? 🤣

Just a short 10 minute meditation made such a difference. Today I was attempting to “wait with curiosity for nothing in particular.” Even with noises of people doing their normal everyday things all throughout the house there was a profound sense of peace.

Profound: “I think the word ‘should’ may stop us living full lives.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/24/ask-philippa-my-parents-died-and-my-brothers-do-not-speak

Meditated for the first time in a while. Feeling fantastic! Herein is an experience report.

Yes it appears I absolutely must get the tagging features working. My motivation is a bit low. Didn’t post once yesterday! Though I did close my exercise ring. Ended up doing a few ad hoc meditations as well but those weren’t intended to improve my mental health but instead work with stress I experienced due to my lack of stability.

I need to figure out how I feel about keeping animals in captivity. For wild animals, it seems like it creates great suffering so that some humans can get a little enjoyment. No brainer that this is generating negative karma.

But then what about domesticated ones? So long as their life with their human is better than it would have been in the wild are we doing the right thing? Is this karmically neutral? Hard to tell!

I really enjoyed my walk today with my husband! Didn’t close my exercise ring yet but we got some “us” time which I sorely needed.

Going to a day spa today! Starting to realize I should give myself the ability to upload images.

Fascinating experience sitting through a Catholic mass in Spanish. Excellent time to practice meditation!

I cannot express the abject terror of having your house sitter leave the back door open and your cats who are indoor-only sneak out. And the relief when your sitter successfully returns and corrects the issue, likely because your overly paranoid security system warned you of said back door being open within minutes of them departing. That was still a harrowing 10 minutes, though, knowing there was nothing I could do from Colombia!

This article on the weaponization of therapeutic language is quite helpful. I can now more easily pinpoint when someone is using inaccurate language to garner attention. An interesting intersection between narcissism and Machiavellianism.

New question: am I now falling into the same trap?

Talking about how hard it is to (re-)build healthy habits.