Anti-Tick and Anti-Stress

I've sprayed my garden clothes with permethrin--an anti-tick spray. Spring finally arrived yesterday, here in the frozen North. I still have a small glacier (a former snowbank, now frozen to ice) at the end of the driveway.

Spring has arrived. And ticks have arrived. They like it cool, which it still is, at night and in the morning.

I hung my gardening shirts and pants on hangers in the woodshed (or the garage) and then sprayed. I used up the entire can of permethrin. I left the clothes in the woodshed all night to air out.

Stressful thoughts "bite" into us and won't let go. We can apply 2 sure-fire antidotes: mindfulness and loving-kindness. It's good to "spray" these onto ourselves beforehand every day, but sometimes we forget. Sometimes the bite of the stressor reminds us: notice the emotion in our body; notice exactly what the stressing thought is. Is that thought really true? Really, really true?

A helpful mnemonic is RAIN:

• R   Recognize what is happening 
• A  Allow life to be just as it is
• I   Investigate inner experience with kindness
• N  Non-Identification.   

RAIN directly de-conditions the habitual ways in which we resist our moment-to-moment experience.

Protect yourself. Permethrin for ticks. And mindfulness for your mind.