Day 365 ~ "Zen"... ummmm... umm

What I Learned About Me... from A to Z

What have I learned about myself this past year {blogging}..?  hmmmm... First off... I would like to make sure you know up front... I never had blogged before until I started this blog 349 days ago.  Secondly... I never intended on learning anything.  HAHA! LOL!  No but seriously... It wasn't my intention...   Check out what my intention(s) were/are here.

So here goes... What I Learned About Me... from A to Z

"Z" is for...  Zen.

Miriam-Webster defines zen as a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition rather than ritual worship or study of scriptures.  

However... what I am talking about is what the urban dictionary defines zen... a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It also is a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.

Okay... so now that you know what zen means... wink, wink.

Oh, I'm not saying that my life is all zen ... not by far... but I sure am working on it.  Yes working on it.  We can either focus on the negative or focus on the positive.  

I choose to focus on the positive.  Hey.. I'm not saying it is easy.  After all I am a survivor of depression (see... there's a positive statement).  As a side note... I think that depression is like alcoholism... {now hear me out...}  They are alike in the sense that you always have to work on not falling back into "old habits".  Once an alcoholic, that person survives it, however can never take a drink again.  With depression, you survive it and then need to handle sadness differently instead of allowing it to take over your life.

There are days where the negative tries to creep in... this is where the "work" comes in...  I get sad, bummed out at times.  Something will "trigger" my thoughts to think of my sons and what I could have done different [which I must accept as the past, which I can do nothing about today] outside of praying for them everyday... then I start missing them... then my heart aches for them... Then I have to stop myself.

Self stop!  wink, wink... seriously now... I have to force myself to think of both of my sons as healthy... that they're going to school and working... and leave the rest to God.  

So... I have come to learn that it's okay to have sad moments... the important thing is to recognize it right away and handle it different.  Get away from old habits.  Keep busy... focus on Calley... focus on my husband Dino... focus on how I can help my family... focus on how I can help my church... focus on helping those who are in bad times... focus on the positive in life.

Once I finally get all this down, I will have finally reached my Zen.

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.  ~ Buddha

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.  ~Martin Luther King  

Tomorrow... my closing post.

[here's to you finding your... ]

Peace...

0 days to go... {I DID IT!!!...  I can't believe it!...}

read about this count down in my "About my Blog" page

... for a, l & c.  you are my sunshine(s).

Images are courtesy of either google or Bing images.  Some images maybe labeled property of Carla Barilá Karam and of this blog- Taking Back My Life ~ Making it My Own.  US Copyright law apply  ©

Day 327 ~ "Z" Zealous Finale

The last letter of the alphabet is "Z" and here I've reached the final day of my Blogging A to Z Challenge April 2012.  

I did it!! ... and this is my zealous finale to my challenge!!  (gee, I hope I'm using "zealous" in the right context. lol)



I must be forthright.  Honestly, this was a great challenge. I loved it! However to call it a challenge is not quite what I would call it, only because I enjoyed it too much.  

A challenge is to arouse or stimulate especially by presenting with difficulties.  Okay, so I may have had to scratch my head on a few letters, I'll give you that.  

This challenge did add a few more words to my vocabulary...   But difficult, no.  (Big Smile)

I don't know what got into me, but all of a sudden I thought it would be interesting to see what I can find out about the letter "Z".

• "Z" is the 26th letter of our alphabet (also known as the Roman Alphabet)
• "Z" is referred to as Zed in England
• In mathematics, The letter "Z" designates the set of integer numbers, which contains positive and negative elements. Z = {... , -n ,.... ,-4 ,-3 ,-2 ,-1 ,0 ,1 ,2 ,3 ,4 ,... ,n, .......}
• ZZZ (or z-z-z-z) is sound of snoring, traced back to at least 1918.  (Sometimes "a tiny saw cutting through a log" [1948] would be used, and both the snore and saw would make the same z-z-z-z sound.) 
• "Z" not a native letter in Old English; in Anglo-French words it represents the "ts" sound (cf. Anglo-Fr. fiz, from L. filius, modern Fitz); from late 13c. it began to be used for the voiced "s" sound and had fully taken that role by 1400. 
• "Z" was referred ti as zed c.1400, from M.Fr. zede, from L.L.  zeta, from Gk. zeta, from Heb. zayin, letter name, lit. "weapon;" so called in allusion to the shape of this letter in ancient Hebrew. U.S. pronunciation zee is first attested 1670s. Other dialectal names for the letter are izzard, ezod, uzzard, and zod.

SO, do you know what I am going to do now?  wink, wink  I'm going to look for a new challenge.  {Big Smile}

 Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow. ~Kahlil Gibran

Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.   ~Thomas Fuller

Sources:
http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/letter_z.htm ; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=z 

Blessings,

38 days to go...  

... for a, l & c.  You are my sunshine(s).  

Images are courtesy of google or Bing images.  Some images maybe labeled property of Carla Barila Karam and of this blog, Taking Back My Life ~ Making It My Own.  U.S Copyright laws apply.  © 2012