A small getaway

I am so gung ho about yesterday's Transactional Analysis (TA) meeting that I was itching to pen my thoughts as soon as I was done with my morning walk. Apart from attending the fantabulous session there were a couple of more reasons for the itch. First of all I was keen to test if I could use my sense of smell just like Pooh and Mammi could use it in yesterday's session. Secondly I wanted to implement the walking meditation that I learnt yesterday and lastly the fact that I was actually able to make good use of my sense of smell to feel the heaviness and the lightness at different places along the path of my morning walk.So here I am finally done with my morning chores of seeing bapu and beta to their respective office and school and sitting down to actually write about yesterday's experience.

Getting people together, co-ordinating the rendezvous and finally getting them to come together at times takes a little effort and sometimes it is as simple as sending out an email...It all started with enthusing people to attend yet antoher TA session. So all I did was send out a mail to our regular TA group. After some mails to and fro it was decided that we all meet at the beautiful Empress Garden at 10 am on Sunday morning. All except two of the group members were available.

So with high spirits we all assembled at the Empress garden. After scouting for a place we zeroed on a spot near a gazebo where a lot of benches were available and as such the spot was secluded. After quickly adjusting the benches under the trees where some sunlight could peep in we realized that Puzo was missing. Ms M made a quick phone call to Puzo and he was on his way. So the TA session started with Mammi, our guru asking all of us what is that we expect to learn from each other and also from the session. This was going to be the very first session for Ms M, Pooh and Puzo who was yet to join us. Ms M was curious to find out abt what the session was, Pooh was using this opportunity to take some time out of himself and I wanted the session to expand on analysing every thought and the action that follows and also for some guided interaction between members to encourage learning form each other's experinces.

Mammi then introduced the concept of using our five senses that can be used to interpret the mental make of people we interact with or even getting the vibes from our surroundings. So she left us with an exercise to use our five senses to soak in the milieu and went looking for Puzo who apparently had reached the garden and was wandering on the wrong route looking for us. We started feeling, seeing, hearing, touching and tasting our surroundings. Most of us were clueless about how to use the sense of taste when it comes to anything non-culinary. After settling Puzo I was quite amazed to see how Mammi and Pooh were in sync while noticing the difference in energies at two different bences that were just adjacent to each other. As for the rest of us the most prominent and the obvious senses that were most active were visual and auditory. Most of us felt a sense of peace and serinity from the surroundings that was a riot of the colour green. As the session continued there were aspects Mammi touched upon that were covered in the previous TA sessions like giving each other strokes. It was raining strokes for Ms M and Bhola was quite playfully annoyed at the lack of attention. After a little tomfoolery and after lots of strokes Mammi introduced us to yet another practical and very easy concept of walking meditation. In that we learnt to pay attention to ourselves as we take a walk, be aware of the muscles used in the activity, the feel of clothes on our bodies and the rythm in which we move as we walk. The idea of this exerice was to help us to teach oursleves how to focus quite like what is midfulness in Buddhism. This was followed by anaffirmation exercise. Mammi had brought along affirmation cards and all of us including my baby Remy picked up one at random. It was amazing to read Mammi affirmation that said " I am unleashing the gold mines within me". Equally apt was Pooh's affirmation that said " I am willing to spent more time for myself". Bhola's affirmation that read "Every cell in my body is getting rejuvinated" left him a bit confused.

With a lot of aaha moments, self introspection, soaking in the amazing things we had learnt and a generous peppering of laughter and pranks the session ended with a desire to catch up on the next meeting. All of us agreed to make the next one in Goa in the month of Jan. Until then I promised myself to implement all the I had learnt. The fact that I already implemented a few things today has left me with a sense of elation and achievement and I am unwilling to let go of the hangover.