Creative Post Title

Today I would like to talk about life.

In massage school all of my teachers talked about being present. Paying attention to the muscles that you are working on. They called it 'listening'. I struggled with it. I was worried about doing the stroke right, looking at the clock, worried about the draping, my mind was everywhere.

One of the classes I took was Thai Chi. The instructors name was Clint. Clint is a hippie with long curly hair and a big bushy beard. His laugh is infectious, nobody doesnt love Clint. He was explaining Thai Chi to us and explained that it is meditation in motion. Thai Chi is what all the old people do in the park, slow moving weirdness. I love Thai Chi. Thai Chi also was the one way that got me out of my mind and into the present. Since the moves are done so slow it is close to impossible to think of anything else. Clint told me that if you are thinking about the next move before you have done it, you are moving to fast. He gave me a packet on meditation. I started to practice meditation, at first it was seconds that I could sit still and focus on my breathing. As I continued to practice it became longer and longer. I am still not very good at it, but, I am always improving.

I tried to put the practice of Thai Chi into my life. Standing in line with all of the angry people, I would take a few deep breaths and think about what kind of state my mind was in. Sure enough it was raging about everything. "Why isnt this line moving?!" "If they just got another person I would have been out of here 5 minutes ago!" I would stop and calm myself down, remind myself that I have been behind a counter working as hard as I could to keep the line moving faster. So I would breathe, focus on my posture, let my shoulders relax (they were next to my ears the first few times) un-clench my jaw, relax my forehead and accept the fact that I would be in line until I left. It made my life so wonderful. By the time I would get to the register I would be smiling and relaxed, the person would be fumbling for something and frantically apologizing, I would smile and tell them to relax. They would smile back and continue to help me very pleasantly and quickly.

While I was working at Starbucks one of my co-workers, Jaek, decided he would study buddhism, he then decided to put it into practice. Jaek is a wonderful person, he inspires me all the time to be a better person. I would watch him interact with people that I know he didnt like and smile the whole time. We would often talk about his practice and meditation. He started to go to the Zen Center for meditation. A few weeks ago I picked up some friends and took them to run some errands with me. A sound came from Jaeks phone and it got my attention. I asked him what it was, he told me it was his mindfulness tone. I was driving at the time and I noticed my shoulders were up around my ears (again) and I was in a hurry even though I had nowhere to be. I took some deep breaths and noticed it was a beautiful day, and I had just gotten paid. I smiled and asked him where he got it so I could get one too. I downloaded it for free from the android market. My mindfulness tone goes off about every half hour, it saves me all the time. Mostly when I am at home with my dogs trying to be the calm-assertive 'pack leader' without loosing my temper.

I would like to invite all of you to do the same, Jer makes fun of me for having the tone because it 'distracts' him. But that is the idea. To remind you to be present in whatever you are doing.

Also, Nate how are my paragraphs?