[Licacivelip]

Really it's been slow going for me. I originally bought a book (The Everything Buddhism Book) which seemed to be more of an overview and basic concepts. I'm slowly readying through that.

I have also read a bit online about the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. I need to re-read and study those - I don't think I have a good grasp on that yet.

I have mostly been focused on simple meditation - focusing on breathing. I have also been trying to be mindful of how I am treating people and how I react to things.

This does seem to have made an impact on me in a short time. I have been much calmer throughout my days. Much less stress and frustration. I don't get upset at other people while driving - I do have to keep telling myself I cannot do anything about others only myself.

For example - my parents live about 2 hours from my house, and driving there and spending the day with family used to stress me out and frustrate me (for various reasons). Yesterday I drove myself and my sons to my parents. Spent the day with family and drove back. My wife fully expected me to be a ball of stress when I got back. Arriving home after 8pm - I was calm and virtually stress free. My family hasn't changed all that much. They still got to my trigger points but I was able to internally brush it off with that's how they see things and I need to worry about myself and kids and not how they see me.

I honestly was really surprised. I'm not sure what to attribute this to - but work as been the same way this last week. I'm much calmer and the things that used to stress me out and frustrate me had a much smaller impact on me.

I plan on continuing with my breathing meditation and reading through the book I have. After that I guess I will need to figure out what comes next .

--Chris