21 Day Meditation Challenge...Day 1!

Today is a big day with lots of firsts.  Today is the first day of B-School {YAY!!  Getting ready to head there now.}  It's the first day of Week 0 for my last open to all round of my tarot class In The Cards.  It's also the first day of a new 21 Day Meditation Challenge with Deepak Chopra, the Chopra Center, and Oprah Winfrey as part of her Lifeclass series.  I LOVE the Chopra Center meditation challenges and this one, themed Perfect Health, comes just in time for me.I have been having some pretty horrible, self-inflicted health issues as of late.  Back in November I started having odd stomach pains and cramps.  The kind that wake you up in the night and then keep you up for hours.  The kind that you sit there thinking back to what you ate before bedtime or what you had for dinner so you can vow to never eat that again because you figure it's given you horrible gas that's causing this pain.This happened almost every night for a the week before Thanksgiving.  The night before Thanksgiving it happened again and I seriously debated not going to see my family that day because I'd gotten little sleep and felt like crap.  I started doing some reading and found that I was having a lot of symptoms that were consistant with gallbladder attacks.  It soon went away though and maybe happened once or twice between then and early February this year.  When it came back it came back with a vengeance and was happening 3 or 4 times a week.Let me just say, I have learned to take after both my parents when it comes to my health.  When something is wrong I rarely go to the doctor and just assume it's nothing and it will pass.  Or I take a nap, because naps will cure everything.  Or I sit up all night watching infomercials wondering and worrying about what horrible disease I might have that's killing me.  That rarely has ever lead to a call for a doctor's appointment in the morning, by the way.This is definitely something I learned over the years from my parents and never broke away from, even as an adult myself.  I just hate going and my experiences are usually never really helpful.   At the end of 2011 I did go to the doctor's after having numbness in one leg that was getting progressively worse.  After 3 doctors, {literally} over 15 MRIs, and a series of x-rays, a neurologist decided "it must be a pinched nerve and it will eventually go away."  All of that and two months of not getting any real answers to be told "it will eventually go away".  It did.  And this is what has reinforced my loathing of medical doctor appointments.But my gallbladder, if that's the problem, has been a bear to deal with over the last month.  After a late night fried fast food dinner and no sleep for almost 24 hours because of how much pain I was in, I determined I can't eat fried food any more.  Then just this past weekend slightly greasy pizza did it to me and for two day I was in pain.  So my presumed course of actioned, going vegan or at least vegetarian and conscious again is a must.That's where Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey come in.  Today is Day 1 of this new 21 Day Meditation Challenge that focuses on Perfect Health.  I recently got a copy of Deepak's book Perfect Health and have taken a keen interest in ayurveda.  I had decided that with the start of this 21 day health based meditation work I would start making the mental shifts to make the physical changes at the end of the 21 days.That's the important part, the mental shift.  And sadly it's the part that I think most people looking to lose weight or make health changes sort of blow past in order to get to the "real work".  But the mental shifts and the inner work are even more important.  If your head isn't in the game you're going to get nowhere fast!With the first meditation today we focused on starting the journey to perfect health by working on accepting that our natural state is one of health and that anything like illness or dis-ease is simply a temporary state that we can shift.  When our minds shift we can also shift our physiology.  Accepting that level of power over the self is huge and that's where the first week of meditation sits.Each day there is a quote, a centering thought of the day, a mindfulness exercise, a message about the basis of the meditation and the meditation itself.  Today we meditated with the mantra: 

[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"] Om Bhavam Namah

I am absolute existence.I am a field of all possibilities.  [/fontpress]

The meditation time was lovely but I have to admit, I've fallen into meditation disarray these last few months.  I've been either really busy with something or not feeling well {hence why I'm doing this} so this was how my meditation time went...[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]I really need to unload the dishwasher.[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]I have to remember to reply to John in that Facebook conversation.[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]B-SCHOOL!!![fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]When does that new Alkaline Trio album come out?[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]I really should have had a green juice instead of a bagel for breakfast.[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="20px" lh="22px" color="#00540D"]Om Bhavam Namah[/fontpress]DONE!That's normal.  Monkey mind happens when we meditate and it's one of the reasons why I love mantra and mala meditation because I always have something to pull me back.  The trick is how many times I have to be pulled back!At the end in the mindful practice we are encouraged to set an intention for the 21 days.  My intention is to work on the important mindshift because after the 21 days I will begin the preparation to star Kris Carr's 21 Day Adventure Cleanse on April 15th {yup, I'm waiting that long so I can start after my birthday}.In the end today's first medtation was good and I'm planning to grab my lotus seed mala later tonight and do a round of my mala with today's mantra.  It's a good one. 

[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Julius Sans One" size="26px" lh="28px" color="#00A79E"]Om Bhavam Namah [/fontpress]

[box style="light" color=#ffffff bgcolor="#00A79E" rounded="true"]Are you doing the 21 Day Meditation Challenge?  How was your first day?  What intentions are you setting?[/box]