St. Pat's...

The morning person that is me is having a difficult time being much of a morning person...this morning. I'm crabby, basically. And it's hard for me to process much information, especially like time frames and schedules...critical kinds of things while I'm here.

Stress has been an issue for me like a lot of people for a long time. In the past I never thought about it much because in my mind drinking always too care of that kind of stuff. In sobriety, it's been different.

I've written before that when I sobered up I did not have a clue how to deal with my emotions. Which was very true and that combined with the stress that comes from daily life these days, well it created a potentially dangerous situation for me...first it compounded the stress and second I just got frustrated. That was a perfect set-up to drink again. Thankfully that didn't happen...

But the interesting part of all that was I had to learn constructive ways to deal with all that and one of them was meditation. Not the sit on the floor or lay down kind but I would just close my eyes, breathe and focus on one thing.

This morning I posted on a friend's FaceBook wall some ideas for things to do NYC. He and his family are going there soon and he asked for ideas. As I was writing I suggested St Patrick's Cathedral and that sparked a memory...and this post.

In my early days of trying meditation to try and relax, focus and deal with stress...I would just try and focus on pleasant memories, visualize them and continue to do relaxation breathing...it was a struggle because my mind was racing a mile a minute. So I tried to eep it simple...Often I would visualize St. Pat's in NY, Westminster Abbey in London, the Old North Church in Boston or St John's Episcopal Church in Worthington, Ohio, my childhood church.

Looking back on that now I find it odd that I chose churches since I was so "anti-church" at that time. Yet I found a great deal of peace and serenity in those particular memories because I had found so much of the same when I visited those places. I actually still feel warm feeling today when I think about it.

For awhile I would spent a fair amount of time In NYC. And it's funny now that i think about it but whenever we would hook up with friends in the city, we would arrange to meet on the steps to St. Patrick's. So I have some nice memories of standing there, snow coming down and seeing friends make their way toward us through the crowds...a really neat memory.

I have a couple of lengthy tests today at the MAYO Clinic...I think I have an idea of what I may think about to keep myself relaxed....