I am a little stressed lately, even though I'm in Spain and I'm slowly, but steadily, making my way towards Portugal. The country where I hope to live from this year onwards.
So, why am I stressed?
For several reasons:
The weather. It is extremely unstable. Today, I felt like I was experiencing all seasons during one walk. Let me rephrase that: during one hour.
It started out cloudy with wind, then it changed towards sunny with few clouds, then windy again, then very cloudy, some claps of thunder in the distance and rain that quickly changed into hail. I found myself looking for shelter underneath a small orange tree.
Here's the tree:
![VGOS6400[1].JPG](https://images.ecency.com/p/4i88GgaV8qiGEw1xifwYz2xp7RJEnNpBZq7dn2K62TzdhPxj2mGkGHrmm5SigHL8iHtDq5W76hqPburiZAD2MPkHHzujUD22P9fcw2SKazXsVurhiMqHzLY5Tk?format=match&mode=fit)
The oranges aren't edible. I asked a Spanish lady about it, some days ago. Her little dog was enjoying himself, inventing his own little ball game with an orange that had fallen down from a tree. I kicked the orange twice. I didn't kick the dog. I'm not that cruel.
Me: "Se puede comer las naranjas?"
La Mujer: "No, son muy amargo."
Pretty much what I expected. They are very bitter.
The oranges, not the people.
Alright, back to my talk about stress. I'm already feeling better. (Daily) blogging is like free therapy. Therapy that you get paid for.
Yesterday, I found a two day young post by 
As I was trying to relieve my stress, I started meditating again, a couple of days ago. Then I found her post. Long story short, I felt I had to take part in this and hopefully achieve what I've tried to achieve several times before, making meditation as normal as brushing my teeth.
This is my reply on her post:
Lovely initative! I'm up for the challenge. I actually started meditating again, a couple of days ago, so let's say the first of March. I found myself struggling to make it through 10 minutes.
Even though I've never been really good at it, I have tried before - I know 'trying' can be one of the problems - but I never managed to really make it a habit. I am way more mindful than I was in the past though as goes for grateful. I would love to make daily meditation a habit though.
And just as you're talking about the devil (sorry for calling you a devil, dayleeo, you're far from that), I receive a notification from her, in response to my reply:
dayleeo (60) · 8 minutes ago
yes you're right its just like a muscle you have to practice with! Don't be so hard on yourself- 10 minutes is an awesome start!
funny you happened to start a few days ago at the beginning of the month too.. must be something in the air! make sure to share your posts on discord so I dont miss them <3
Long story short. This was meant to be a short post...
After finding out about this challenge, yesterday night, I installed the Calm app, that she talked about, on my iPhone and I made it through 42 mindful minutes. I did one session of meditation, a session about worthiness: to work on my self esteem/ self worth and I listened to a so called 'sleep story'. Unfortunately, the sleep story didn't really help.
My mind was racing. I lay awake for two more hours, even though it was already quite late, 1 AM, when I tried to fall asleep. There were so many thoughts going through my head, mainly about Steemit, my daily movie recommendations and how to calibrate my blog in such a way that it is 'more me' and might at the same time resonate with a larger audience. More on that later. I need to meditate on all this...
Yesterday was a good day. Combined with my 10 minutes of meditation, earlier that morning, I definitely did a good job.
TO BE CONTINUED
What about you? Do you meditate? Or are you thinking of adding this skill to your repertoire? Wanna join in the challenge? If so, make sure to check out 's profile too.
All these mindful pictures have been taken by me, in Madrid, Parque Templo de Debod and Parque El Retiro. Except for the orange tree photo. That one was taken today in Granada.