Had an interesting day today. Went to the local cancer support centre for a meditation/relaxation session and for a T'ai Chi class as well. When chatting to some of the others before and after, realised how much other people are going through, chemotherapy, different hospital treatments etc.
The meditation was amazing, the facilitator is really good, lots of visualisations which we are supposed to practise at home. Felt very relaxed. We're supposed to empty our minds and be still for five minutes a day. I have no problem emptying my mind, but it's the daily practice and fitting it in I wonder about.
The T'ai Chi/Chi Gung was lovely, like a dance. We had to pretend to be a white crane. It was a challenge to balance!
Got a few challenges coming up - tomorrow I have to decide whether to hold off on paying the beneficiaries of my mother's will until they return the belongings and diaries they took from her hospital room without my permission, or whether to pay them anyway and argue the toss about the rest. The probate manager wants me to do the latter. These beneficiaries are the same family members (maternal uncle and step-brother) who cut me off completely and told me never to phone them or speak to them again. So effectively they will be taking thousands of pounds from my mum's estate, while offering me some of the most massive insults of my entire life. My uncle in disowning me has taken a huge chunk of my childhood, cousins, aunt, family get-togethers and cultural activities, our ethnic language etc with him. Yet he is going to be paid for it. My step-brother who sent me some of the most horrible solicitors' letters I've ever had, is likewise going to be paid for that behaviour too.
I thought I could bargain and say that my step-brother could not be paid until he returned the diaries, but it seems I can't be paid until he and my uncle are paid. Whoa! Now the significance of meditation becomes relevant!
If I thought about nothing but what's going on with the will, I think I would very quickly end up in the loony bin. So I don't. I keep on with my classes and interests and everything else. I think it's keeping me sane.
My T'ai Chi instructor says there is an advanced Chi Gung practice called Eight Pieces of Brocade - what a gorgeous name - which he teaches in another class. I think I might go for that. The Chinese have a lot of wisdom. I'd like some of that. It might help me make the right decisions.
I'm off to a playreading now - variety is the spice of life at the moment!
