Tag: The End

^{(Title image: Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash)}

Yesterday was officially the last Sunday of Advent 2025. Today brings me closer to the end of a difficult year. Ehhh, maybe the end of a difficult eighteen months, given that my dad passed away in July of 2024 and I’ve been dodging tough stuff since then. Change is hard and there was a lot of it.

But after all that, here we are. This reminds me of those “things will turn out okay” adages. Sure, in retrospect you can look back at the maze that you picked your way through and see the clear path. But that’s not what it looks like at the start. It’s a series of twisting turns with no guarantees that you’ll get to where you hope to be by the end, and that you won’t suffer in the process.

No doubt, it’s much nicer being at the end point and having the luxury of saying, “yep, I survived that.” Reminds me of my last chemo infusion or radiation treatment. The hard stuff is over and now we coast to the finish line.

With the last Sunday of Advent, I finally exhale. My thrice-hourly bells (from the Plum Village app) not only remind me to take a deep breath, they make clear that in between those breaths my breathing has been shallow. The realization that I put an imaginary checkmark beside my deep breath (like, “ok, I did my duty”) but then often return to being a spaced-out mess…hmmm, that’s quite humbling.

In the context of mindfulness, we speak of “remembering” and “being awake” to this life. I spend so much time skittering around like a caffeinated squirrel on an ice rink that it seems I need to be taken by the hand and brought back to my senses. The good news is, the present is a very calming place to be because it’s uncomplicated. You only need to deal with that singular point in time that is “right now”.

So this past Advent was a reminder to myself not to get caught up in what’s coming up, not to wallow in what I should have done differently in the past but to pay attention to where I am.

Ok, What Now?

In the interest of riding the groundswell that I’ve established, I’m going to jump on a free course from Deer Park Monastery’s website called Essential Practices of Mindful Living (https://courses.deerparkmonastery.org/c/essential-practices-of-mindful-living). After pressuring myself with time-intensive certifications over the past years, this is a pleasant change. The online course is self-paced (i.e., no rush, no stress) and teaches topics with which I’m already familiar…but I’m a believer in repetition. Practice, practice, practice

So why am I talking about it now and not on New Year’s Day, as is customary? Because I’ve learned that the best time to start strengthening a habit is now. Not at some arbitrary point in the future (like a certain holiday), but right now.

Onward!