Laid Back Day-Working on Projects

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Today I got up early and went running for 30 min. with another girl on the trip Brittany. It was still very dark but it was cool so good running weather. Then we had our Art of Living course from 6:30am to 8:30am. The course is really teaching us to find happiness in our lives. Some phrases they said that stuck out to me were "expectations reduce joy in life" and "memory clings to the negative". Also they talked about the difference between responding versus reacting. When we react, we might be too emotional but if we can respond with a clear mindset, we often can deal with situations effectively and as positively as we can. We did the sudarshankriya and it didn't feel as long as yesterday. We also did a meditation at the end where we visualized ourselves at different ages. It helped me to think about my future and what I want out of this lifetime. Dr. Antony Palack, an anthropologist, came to Loyola College and we had an interactive session with him in which we discussed American and Indian Culture and the different values that correlate to each culture. I really enjoyed this session because it made me realize I am very lucky to live in America but I am also very lucky to have this opportunity to see this beautiful country. He told us that people here have a saying "adhithi devo bhava" meaning "guests are to be treated like God". These sayings really reflect the character of these people. I am going to present my research experiment on meditation at a Holistic Healing Conference here on campus at Loyola College on July 7 so I'm going to use this free time to work on that a little bit.

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