I am sitting here enjoying the irony of this great morning...my usually brave (but always sweet) dog, Hailee, refuses to come back into the bedroom...she's afraid of all things, a mosquito!!

For some reason every time a mosquito gets into our house it likes to hang out in our bedroom...and it seems that as soon as we lay down to go to sleep it will start buzzing about, keeping us all awake. Even though my husband could sleep through just about anything, I've never been one to tolerate distraction, and so as soon as I hear the buzzing my mission to "seek and destroy" the little pest begins...and the whole process scares the heck out of Hailee, especially because the high ceiling requires use of a stool and broom!! So through the years every time she hears a mosquito buzzing she knows what is coming and gets really nervous, standing at the door and begging to be let out of the room while I go into attack mode!!!!

But today an amazing thing happened - I was laying in bed doing my morning meditation when I heard it...that distinct buzzing of a mosquito!! I know Hailee heard it too because she was sitting up in bed, in that high alert mode dogs get into. But instead of allowing the buzzing to "drive me crazy" I decided to not let it bother me. It was one of those, "this is ridiculous...I am not going to worry or think about this right now... things" and amazingly I was able to put the thought aside and refocus myself on getting back to that peaceful and quiet state of meditation. What is remarkable to me is that I have always been so easily distracted, and it is such a great feeling to find that after working hard at letting go of allowing little things to interfere with my peace of mind, that practice really can make "perfect".

Now I admit I have more work to do - Hailee has not yet achieved the same level of inner peace, and so she was still intent on getting out of the room...and after a while I found it impossible to stay in that peaceful place being distracted by the mosquito AND the dog..after all, I am a work-in-progress, but glad that I really am leaning to let go, learning how to redirect my thoughts, and to not be so bothered by the little stuff!!! :-) ~Andrea