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The Process to Love

Shining Positivity into your life has many layers. One layer is the possibility of watching your own struggle and shifting your perceptive filter. Watching yourself live and make mistakes doesn’t have to lead to self loathing or chronic disappointment in your physical or emotional self. ‘Mistakes’ such as putting your foot in your mouth, living out hormonal imbalance, maybe even internal tantrums don’t have to lead to beating your Self up every day. You don’t have to judge or assume labels such as immature or unworthy. Practice having just enough detachment so that your fumbles are much like watching a 1 year old trying to eat with a fork. See your learning as sincere, adorable, and clumsy; though seemingly unproductive, it’s truly beautiful. Your living and learning is a perfect process.

The scene is so often full of, “would have, should have’s, could have’s and if I could only!”. Pat those thoughts on the back and let them go. Allow room for understanding that, “When you know better, you do better.” We are all in a learning process, not a performance for your own line of judges to critique.

Moments tied together in what may become an endless stream of shaming ourselves, hating our bodies, or in fearing our own potential are a waste of energy and focus. Next time you are disciplining yourself for an action, thought or judgement, picture yourself speaking to the 1 year old who is just trying to learn how to use a fork to eat their waffle! Smile, sigh, laugh, take a drink, breathe… and try again. Be kind to yourself.

We are an amazing PROCESS.

Purposeful Rise: a choice to feel better

“The thought manifests as the word; The word as the deed; the deed developes into habit; and the habit hardens into character … as the shadow follows the body – as we think, so we become. ” -Buddha

Post by: Tracy Weaver, Life Coach, EFT Practitioner

All of your emotions, from the best to the worst, are valuable to you. They let you know where you are, what’s going on with you. So, please be easy about them – and you. When you are feeling low, depressed, angry, unappreciated, at least you know what direction you want to head in: feeling better!

Your emotions follow your thoughts. Thoughts always bring in more thoughts of similar kind, feeding the current emotion, making it stronger. When you’re feeling really good, milk your mood! Enjoy it! When your emotional state could stand some improvement, what to do? I mean, just try not thinking about the thing that’s got your attention. Unless you are an accomplished ‘meditator’, your active brain just isn’t going to let you. So what we need is some way to distract that ol’ “monkey mind“.

That’s it! Distraction! Get your brain off one scent and on to another! So okay, you want to feel better, and you want to distract your brain away from its current track of thoughts. Here’s a way. Purposefully turn your attention to gentle, general things you already know make you feel good. Non-challenging things, soothing things. Anything will do for starters. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.” I’m not kidding. If you are free to, go out and treat your physical senses to something that makes you smile and lifts your mood. As you do, you’ll naturally think about it. The first thought will pull in the second thought, the second a third, and as the happier thoughts continue and build, your mood will rise. Milk it, get in the habit of playing the game and celebrate the improvements!

I’m sure it sounds way too simple. But I can tell you from practice and experience that it works, reliably. You won’t leap wildly from dejected apathy to passionate joy. But, you can train your thoughts to move gently upward, a step or two at a time. As your mind gets better at this new skill, you’ll have a great tool to move on that new path upward to where you really want to live. And your thoughts will change.

Our Thanks to Tracy for contributing!

Present Mind Within a Busy Day

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” -Dalai Lama

You have probably heard many versions of this sentiment before. Quietly, you hope you are not living your life this way. We all have very different lives, work and past times with this residing theme in common – we are BUSY. When we are not busy we turn on the TV, read a book, do household chores, and it goes on and on. Remembering to BE in the Present Moment when this is not facilitated by a class may be difficult. The times dedicated to presence may be far and few in between all of the ‘stuff’ that makes up our lives.

Here is an exercise that anyone can do many times a day, every day:

Consider a brilliant part of existence – – –

Every few seconds, 24 hours a day something we take for granted is happening to every person alive. Do you know what this is? They are breathing. The breath, the inhale and exhale, is a small wonder occurring repeatedly in our daily living.

The next time you are unloading the dishwasher, filing papers, writing an email, driving to work, cooking a meal or sitting in a meeting – take note of your breath. Move dishes, papers or laundry with your inhale and exhale. Yes, this does mean slowing down your pace for a few minutes. It also means appreciating the task at hand and perhaps even enjoying activities you before thought of as menial. If in a meeting, be present by noticing how your inhale and exhale can make tiny shifts within your posture and then acknowledge your slow, calm breathing for a few minutes while listening to the meeting’s agenda. Having awareness of your breathing for a few minutes at a time gives your mind a break from its incessant darting between subjects. Presence with breath allows us to tune in to our body and to be aware of the story it is telling us all day. Often, we only hear our bodies when they yell and scream to us in discomfort. Noticing your breath throughout the day in small increments will calm and rest your mind leading to awareness of the mind/body connection. Use the breath to teach your mind and body to become interconnected, feeling what life is giving you in this moment. Many of us spend time immersed in the sorrows of the past and worries of the future. Five minutes from now is the future and the last conversation we had is in the past. Aim to be in the present.

Let us know how easy or difficult you find this and with what part of your day it was possible. For me, I find it possible with driving and dishes 🙂 ~ Jessica

(Valerie’s presence with breath is also in the task of dishes as well as clearing clutter and vacuuming.)