Author: takeawalk44

 

I hope there is a time this weekend when you sit somewhere outside.

Listen for 3 distinct sounds.

Follow 3 birds in their flight across your sky.

Feel 3 breaths from complete bottom to the tippy top- through your lungs, muscles and skin.

Speak 3 gratitudes about your life in that moment.

Sit. Breathe. Be. Just for 3.

 

 

 

 

This quote from James Thurber keeps coming back to me in many forms:

“All men should strive to learn before they die; what they are running from, and to and why.”

This was painted on my bedroom walls as a teenager, along with about 30 other quotes.  It has remained one of my top favorites that I never seem to outgrow.  As I listen to spiritual leaders and move through life… this basic quote,  or something like it, keeps coming back. 

We must not run away from fear and stick our heads in a hole singing our favorite songs loudly.  The stimulating world that we live in makes this SO easy and convenient to do!

When you feel fear – sit with that emotion.  Give it your time and patience.  This is not an easy practice, nor a comfortable one… but you may find that the fears you sit with don’t actually exist!  They are about a possible made up future (not yet here and not yet living).  They are ‘memories’ or our past that also no longer exist.

We can shine the light of presence on fears and show them gently that they do not belong here, because they do not actually EXIST.  Therefore, as I have heard many times, it is a grade of insanity to be fixated and fearful of something that does not exist.

Are we all living on a spectrum on insanity?

When a wood pecker shows up, it can be a deep annoyance.  They can be destructive to a house in order to make their own home, however, when they are finding food and putting holes in your trees the opposite is true!  What seems like destruction and ugliness to your tree turns out to be the one thing that will ALLOW it to live.  They are reaching in to remove bugs that are slowly and quietly killing your beautiful tree. 

What do we see as a nuisance in our lives, that may possibly be saving us….allowing us to see priorities, slow down for beauty, even notice that you have a family to share life with every day.  These things can be taken for granted and go almost unnoticed as we sometimes deeply live in the past and future…out of the present.

What is your helper….what is allowing for life and what is truly destructive?

Change is the one constant, yes?  Ebb and Flow.  The dance we all are obliged to follow.  Some days are brilliant, easy and some days are disturbing, deflating.  Some days, events and moments make it all seem completely unfair, exhausting and lonely.

Change is coming.  Wind, movement, flow are always with us.  The dance keeps going, I hope you do too.  When you are able, smile.  Through it all…..BREATHE.

 

What snack do you love midday that is not only healthy for you but encourages you to focus on EVERY bite out of pure JOY?   These are the ways that we bring purposeful presence into our days.  That we know, see, and taste life as it is happening. 

Mine is pomegranate in the winter.  What’s YOURS?

Be Brave Enough to Bloom

 

 

One easy way of practicing a meditation or a presence within your day is to watch liquid.  It’s fascinating and like a fire, you don’t want to look away as your eyes and brain keep taking in the present movement’s evolution.  Whether it is carbonation, a lava lamp, a Calming Glitter Jar or colored vinegar and baking soda interaction….these are quick and easy ways to take quiet time and watch, absorb, find a quiet mind.

 

The Glitter Jars are great for ALL ages.  Here is a link to make one out of mostly household items: https://preschoolinspirations.com/6-ways-to-make-a-calm-down-jar/

My 7 year old son asks me this every night.  This is how we end the day at his bedtime and now, after about 6 months, he initiates it.  For months he loved to hear what I was grateful for each day and would ‘ditto’ those.  It seemed like a special surprise or treat anytime I said that I was grateful for HIM or a specific time shared with him that day.  Now he is catching on and has his own ‘gratefuls’.  This is not only a beautiful ritual to build into your day and your families but it actually reduces stress hormones, like Cortisol, in your body.  Other practices for bedtime that reduce stress hormones and prepare your body and mind for deep, content sleep are intentional breathing and less to NO screens an hour before bed.  

Try  breathing in through your nose for 4 seconds, emulate a slow sip to elongate and then breathing out thoroughly for 6-8 seconds.  Until your lungs feel truly empty.

Keep this up for at least 2 minutes as you first rest your head on your pillow and hands are on belly.

 

Sweet Dreams.