incense

The Wolf of Walker Street

In Doing The Deed by Holly Walker

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I keep having a recurring dream that my dad is dating Wolf Blitzer. What is wrong with me?!? I need to dust out the cobwebs of my mind.

Today’s good deed: MEDITATE FOR 10 MINUTES

This is just weird. My dad has been married to my Mom for 54 years. Clearly I have a lot going on in my head. I’m hoping meditation can help straighten it out.

There are hundreds of benefits to meditating: increased focus … reduced stress … enlightenment. I hope getting Wolf out of my brain is one of them.

Years ago I saw Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk, speak in San Francisco. I could tell he practiced meditation just by looking at him, but I had no idea that Hanh had written so many books or had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. I just thought he was a really peaceful person with a lot of lovely things to say. He said,

“Meditation means to look deeply, to touch deeply, so we can realize we are already home.”

That sounds nice. Home. A home without Wolf Blitzer, that is.

Not only do Hanh and Buddha back meditating, but now Clever McSmartyPants people do too. Studies from Harvard University strongly suggest that meditation promotes “neuroplasticity.”

Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist, used MRIs to measure brain activity on people who practiced meditation. She found significant positive changes in the regions of the brain involving learning and memory, empathy and compassion, and stress. Click here for her Tedx Talk at Cambridge.

Huh. Okay. I’ll give it a shot. Click here to watch Oprah giving tea meditation a shot. Side note: You know Oprah ain’t gonna take one hour to drink that little cup of tea! She’s got $*#! to do!! And she fought really hard not to give Hanh a Get-The-Hell-Outta-Here look! Ha!

I’m going to try Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s method. I like this guy. He’s so peaceful he’s almost sedated. Maybe he’s drunk.

Today’s good deed might chill me out and encourage me to do more good deeds.

Okay.

Just sit down. Let my thoughts go. Listen to my breathing.

Feel my breath. Let it be.

Let the thoughts come through. Don’t label them.

Wolf Blitzer.

Let it go.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Photo (Flickr CC) by Kevin Poh

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Holly Walker

Ms. Walker made her acting debut at the tender age of 8 in For Spring is the Season of Happiness. She almost turned down the role of Mother Nature (she wanted the role of "Spring") until she found out Mother Nature had the most lines. On that day, a diva was born. Holly has traveled the world performing comedy. She has been to more than 40 U.S. states and over 30 countries worldwide. She is an alum of the improvisational companies Boom Chicago and The Second City. Holly currently works on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore as a writer and performer. She has been a part of the Rebel Storytellers family since 2009 and hopes to be with them for many years to come.
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