This week’s guest blog is by Kendra:
My 14-month old son, Trent, has recently developed a new scream so incredibly grating that it defies description. It’s times like these that I am glad I have a mindfulness practice.
When I was in my early 20’s I lived in a Zen monastery for several years. Back then, mindfulness meant hours & hours of seated meditation and spending most of my time in silence & contemplation. Mindfulness meant bowing silently to my fellow monks instead of mindlessly asking, “hey, how you doing?” & raking the courtyard with such precision that every rake mark was parallel.
About a year ago I read an interesting article in a magazine about a rat study that showed that rats that were deprived of sleep died sooner than rats that were deprived of food. Wow, I knew sleep was important, but I had no idea that going without it could actually kill animals faster than going without food would.