PMS = most should know what that is??? IHM = Irritable husband syndrome

So when my brain feels like it's in a pressure cooker I decide to let Carina help me decompress by going to her Body Jam+ class. I've written it before - she is a real inspiration and a marvelous teacher. She's got such fantastic body language - it's clean and gritty at the same time. When you jam, it's so not supposed to be picture perfect, which is why I fit in just fine :-).

It definitely helped, but I still had that sense of burden inside, sort of like when you wish you could have an hour-long "ugly" cry just to let it all out. But, nope, no tears.

So when the kids went to bed I got the incense, candles, and meditation pillow out and tried a zen meditation for about 10 minutes. This particular method allows you to accept all the feelings and sensations you are experiencing, you just don't judge them. If you start thinking, you become aware of it and label it, "thinking", and return to your breathing.

In the middle of it my eyelid started to itch like crazy. So I decided tonight that I would let it itch (acceptance) and keep my calm. It worked, and eventually the itch subsided. When my timer rang, sure I still have somewhat of a headache, but I really did feel better.

Now I am unfortunately not one who meditates on a regular basis, but I am going to make an effort to do it more often!

I met a woman while working today. She is an OT who works at a school for physically and mentally challenged youths. She's somewhere in her forties, with a fresh hairdo, sleek boots, and pretty cool green/yellow eyeliner that looked great on her.

We were trying out a new wheelchair back system for a kid with a brain injury which took a long time since I had to dismount his backrest and mount the new one into two different positions.

I liked this kid. He struggled with every word he said, but as long as he was allowed time to form all of his words, everything he said was just as adequate as it was friendly.

What does this have to do with beauty??

This visit took about 2½ hours. I'm racking my brain trying to recall if during that time I saw this OT offer any type of smile at any point. No.

In the Swedish language there's a pretty clear distinction between being "serious - seriös" and being "grave - allvarlig". For some reason though I find that a lot of people, especially therapists, teachers, or any other kind of experts have a hard time differentiating between the two. Or else they just don't dare do it. Like you will lose face as far as your competence goes if you smile or are too sociable. It seems like some people are very suspicious of generally happy people - like there's some kind of catch or else they will be drawn into a cult should they give in to the jovial pressure.

My point is, this particular OT would have been utterly stunning if she could have been open enough to her surroundings to at least offer some warmth by showing some teeth :-).