Today marks the beginning of the second week of our in-place retreat. While the first week focused on letting go of something we normally cling to or crave as a means of examining our mind, the second week is intended to pay attention to those things that we want to avoid for some reason or other. Our practice for the second week will focus on doing something that is wholesome to do, but that we resist doing because we don't yet like it. Pick something that you think is healthy or wholesome for you to do, something that you can benefit by doing each day, and then do it each day for a week.

Examine where the resistance to doing it comes from. Don't analyze it in terms of psychology. Just notice if the resistance is fatigue, boredom, laziness, fear, criticism, etc. Tackle something that is realistic, e.g., spending 10 minutes a day exercising or doing yoga, if you normally don't do and don't like to do those things. Or read to your child once a day, or ... be creative ... but do the same thing everyday for a week. Notice how the mind will help you forget to do it, will help you create "reasons" why you shouldn't do it, and will complain when it starts. Notice how the resistance changes when you act, when you finally start doing it.

The basic idea is to see and understand the sequence of events that hinders you from changing your life, even when supposedly you want to.

Comments of one participant from last weeks emphasis:

My attempt at forgoing something was to completely give up snacking or eating between meals for a week. I was mostly successful, but failed several times at least momentarily. I didn't have as much difficulty with willful snacking as with finding myself with a "bite" in my mouth and then remembering that this was snacking. Sometimes I spit it out the bite. Other times I did not. But two things surprised me. One was the lack of conscious awareness at the beginning of the event, and the second was that I was genuinely irritated a few times by the intrusion of awareness that disrupted the bite (and its enjoyment) that I found myself in the middle of. So for me it came down to mindfulness and choice -- willingness to be aware of my normal habits -- and willingness to consistently choose to interrupt the habit once I was aware. I didn't like making this choice when I was hungry, and when I "agreed" with my rationalization that I "needed" the food and that it wouldn't hurt me.

After a while I could see this pattern again and again. And just that seeing helped. I knew the routine. And I knew that urgency of moment would pass if I made the right choice.