UPdate

School has officially begun and I, my friends, am taking a math class for the first time since i was 15 years old... that's like 25 years people. okay, it is 7 years but still, it feels like a very long time. I really like my teacher is the good news. she is very funny and makes math a lot of fun. i decided to go into the class thinking to myself, "oh man this is going to be a great class! i'm awesome at math!" instead of what my brain wanted to tell me: "i suck at math this is going to be hard."
all about attitude. so i am doing well so far.

ugh, i can't believe i just pulled the "it's all about attitude" card... i hate when people do that. i just want to be like, "no! okay sometimes it is just fine to have a crappy attitude for a little bit. or a lot a bit. what ever you want. it's your life. and you get to feel however you are feeling. And if you are hating how you are feeling, than make a change to alter it. whatever you feel is valid."

I am already such a therapist. I'm going to drive my kids nuts one day... "and how do you feel about that?"

I'm still working at the Elementary school but i got moved to work with the Kindergardeners. it is a BLAST. (i'm laughing out loud right now) because they say the funniest things! THEY actually DO like my hair which is funny, because the 1st graders sure didn't. Just a warning to all you parents out there... be careful what you do and say in the safety of your own home because your kindergardener WILL tell their tutor about it. ;)

I babysit quite often for a family and i love it as well. i have gotten to the point where changing a poopy diaper doesn't make me gag! which for those of you who know me, know that that is a HUGE accomplishment.

Today i taught the kids the beginning stages of loving-kindness meditation. It's the best meditation I have ever learned. It is scientifically proven to change the chemistry in your brain towards self-love when practiced frequently. these are the phrases you repeat while in a calm, relaxed, meditative state:

May I be safe
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May i be at ease

try saying those to yourself very gently and kindly and see what you feel inside. it's pretty awesome. so now my little kids i babysit are learning how to love themselves too! :)

I am available for hire people, i am available for hire.

A little more about Loving-Kindness Meditation:

"it is a fact of life that many people are troubled by difficult emotional states in the pressured societies we live in, but do little in terms of developing skills to deal with them. Yet even when the mind goes sour it is within most people's capacity to arouse positive feelings to sweeten it. Loving-kindness is a meditation practice taught by the Buddha to develop the mental habit of selfless or altruistic love. In the Dhammapada can be found the saying: "Hatred cannot coexist with loving-kindness, and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based on loving-kindness."

Loving-kindness is a meditation practice, which brings about positive attitudinal changes as it systematically develops the quality of 'loving-acceptance'. It acts, as it were, as a form of self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion. Of all Buddhist meditations, loving-kindness has the immediate benefit of sweetening and changing old habituated negative patterns of mind."

http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_in.htm

Who wouldn't want to feel this kind of altruistic love toward themselves? I think we have enough self-hatred, self-critical, not feeling good enough, down on themselves people in the world. why not try something new?