Daily Notes (12.30.22)

This is the first post in what will be a personal experiment.

We’re down in Marco Island, Florida for our annual New Year’s trip to warmth. Last year we decided for as long as possible we’d leave Indiana after Christmas for warmth, sun, and a beach for New Years and for our first trip we visited the Dominican Republic. It was a great trip and it was the first vacation I can remember where I totally unplugged, did the minimum amount of work necessary (checking emails for clients’ needs), and just relaxed and enjoyed the time with Ang and the boys. For me, it was one of the best vacations of my life.

Naturally, we were all excited as 2022’s trip to Cancun approached…

And then Southwest happened.

The night before we were to leave we determined our first flight to Houston was cancelled and we had no way of getting there to catch the Houston to Cancun leg of the trip. Just like that our trip to Cancun was cancelled and I was devastated…more so than the boys, I think. I’m not proud but I had a few moments of being angry and disappointed but then Ang reminded me that that’s not me. I refocused my energy to the fact that we were actually home when we got the news (Southwest didn’t inform us of the cancelled flight until the middle of the night) and not stranded somewhere without our luggage, which was the experience for many. We went to bed after exhausting all options for getting to Cancun and cancelling our hotel reservations (shoutout to Riu for being so kind and refunding the entire balance even though we didn’t meet the deadline—we will be visiting the hotel in Cancun at some point) thinking about what we could do in Indiana to make our vacation time fun and not fall back into the normal daily routine which we all needed to escape.

The next morning Ang and I hopped on our computers and started looking for places we could drive and find the warmth we sought and we landed on Marco Island. We told the boys, packed up the car, I squeezed in a quick workout, and then we took off for Florida. After an overnight stop in Valdosta, Georgia we finally reached Marco Island on the afternoon of the 28th—I should have been a few pina coladas deep by then in Cancun, but with a sunset like this, it was hard to complain.

Marco Island would do just fine.

THIS EXPERIMENT

Yesterday morning I went down to the beach for my morning routine of Wim Hof breathing and meditation. It was during my meditation that I decided to start writing some of what I write in my journal each day—lessons learned or things I’m working on. I’m not sure why or what this public sharing might lead to but for some reason I really felt the need to start a daily writing. I don’t expect these daily notes to be as long as this post but I had to set the stage for how the idea came to be.

I also wanted to share the experience on the 29th that I wanted to share and spawned the idea of a daily writing—I wanted to make it it’s own post but my blog dates each post and I didn’t want the 12.29.22 post to have a date of 12.30.22.

Silly, I know but it would have drove me crazy.

THE GENESIS

While meditating on 12/29 I was using my go-to app, The Open app and was only using the timer function since I had the waves crashing in the background to focus on. This particular meditation ended up being a test—it became a challenge of my ability to refocus after a distraction. Since I was sitting on the beach there were people walking by, talking, setting up their chairs for the day, and other noises you’d expect to hear on the beach in the morning. Instead of shooting for a clear mind, I focused on listening to the waves crash…the waves were my anchor and instead of having thoughts pop into my mind, which normally happens during meditation, I had noises fighting for my attention. As soon as I became aware that I was focusing on the distraction I would shift my focus back to the waves and what I noticed was really cool and exciting. When I’d focus on the waves they would appear to be louder…the crashes were the dominating sound when I was focused on them, but when I’d turn my attention to the people walking by or the attendant drilling holes for the umbrellas the waves would become quiet.

My goal was to get to a point where I would ONLY hear waves—to find the ability to totally block out all other noises. I did not accomplish it but progress was made.

Before my 20 minutes were complete I had one final challenge…myself. In what I have to guess was the last three or four minutes, my body became my greatest distraction as my legs fell asleep and that tingly feeling was calling for my attention. I found distracting noises easier to focus away from but my the feeling in my legs was harder to ignore. I was eventually able to get back to focusing on the waves but it was a greater challenge which made me realize that often times WE are our own worst enemies.

When I got back to the hotel I wrote down the experience in my journal and thought how it would be cool to share these experiences on my personal site. I could easily keep these thoughts in my journal but something was telling me to put this in a public forum and All About Your Benjamins and PRST didn’t feel like the right spots.

So now I’m caught up…

The goal is to write each day, at least each day that I have something worth sharing and that’s it. No specific theme, message, or desired outcome.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC