Author: valeriecameronmerritt

How was today?  What are two things that happened in your life today that you feel good about?  Write those down if it feels like a positive reinforcement or talk about them if that’s more accessible to you and your style.  Thinking about this is great but it will be even more rooted if it’s put to screen, paper, or person.  Play those two things up and feel good about them as you turn your attention to one thing from today that you’d like to improve.  If you’re someone who comes up with a multitude of things to improve, pare it down to only one; that is enough for any given moment.

Let yourself gently focus on change and how that may look and feel if you move forward with this improvement.  How will your life look if you don’t move forward with the area that you want to improve? How important is it to change?  What are the benefits of taking a step toward the improvement tomorrow, or the next day, or next week?  How can you envision the first active step and set an attainable goal?

 

What can you do today to appreciate yourself and honor your soul?

What would bring you joy and nourishment?
How can you carve out time for exploring the aspects of yourself that call to be noticed, heard, and lived?  How can you allow unseen parts of yourself to come forward?

Photograph – Rachael King

Satya is a Sanskrit word that means truth.  It is a virtue applying to one’s thoughts, speech, and action.  In upholding Satya, we may be faced with coming across differently than our culture dictates as polite or desirable / acceptable to honor ourselves and what is true to our individual nature as well as what is true to Ahimsa.  The idea of Ahimsa is to do no harm, to view others as the self and us all as a whole; causing harm to another is also causing harm to self.  Being untruthful or disingenuous to play into cultural expectations of niceties is a falsehood and energy drainer that is harmful to the overall vibration of humanity.  With Satya being naturally tied to Ahimsa, it also means that our words, thoughts, and actions should do no harm through unkindness or violence.  Perhaps there are times when Satya is silent and unsmiling to show no harm in a mean word and also no harm in a false niceness — to sit right at the middle of those in a neutral place.

How would your honest presentation look to the world if you stepped outside of societal conditioning?  What aspects of your life feel true to you and what feels off, if anything?  Are there masks that you’re wearing to feel loved or valued?  How are your relationships lining up with your truest expression?  How can you shed any false beliefs or storylines that keep you from being fully inline with your truth?

photograph by Cindy Weaver, Santa Fe, NM

An idea to lighten the approach to your weekend:

How would your weekend look if you made it a goal to approach everything with curiosity?  How would this change your waking up, your meals, your interactions or your lack of interactions, and any other activity or bit of happenstance that comes your way?

Curiosity can help you to be more accepting and less judging.  When you can take a view that is outside of your mind working to categorize and judge based on past experience, you open yourself to new ideas and possibilities.

Stay curious about whatever shows up and remember that in curiosity we allow ourselves to un-know things so that we can open to knowing them in a new light.  You may be surprised at how this changes so many things!

 

 

 

 

“ Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another, which both attracts and heals.” – J. Isham

Dirgha or 3 part breath is a breathing exercise that you can do in any setting and time to feel centered. It’s calming and restorative.

Imagine the mid body as a container divided into 3 sections: naval, rib cage, and heart center up through the collar bones.  Even though divided into 3 sections, the breath you take in and release will be one continuous action of inhale with a pause followed by one continuous exhale.  The breath  stays steady while the mind does the visual work to guide the breath deep into the physical body with quiet awareness. Controlling the inhalation and exhalation in this way will work to create a gentle focus and ease.

Guided Script:

Breathe deep into the naval and lower back behind the naval center.  Continue filling with air into the ribcage and intercostal muscles of the back.  Let the breath fill your heart center and lift into the collar bones while your shoulders stay at ease and relaxed.  Pause for a moment.  Release the breath gently and slowly from the naval area first, on a slow steady stream.  Release from the ribcage slowly and gently. Let the breath release from the chest, upper back and collar bones.

Repeat as desired.

 

 

One of the wonderful things about being mindfully aware of your present moment is that you get to be selective too!  Once you’re aware of where you are, what you’re doing, and what’s running through your mind, you can pause and select what is going to be next in your experience.  Let’s say you bring yourself into your present moment with a deep breath into the low belly and realize that you’ve been doing something on autopilot.  That will be the moment you can choose to stay with your action or thoughts.  In the decision to stay present, you are then able to choose the nature of your thinking and acting.  Is the thought or action helpful?  Is it positive?  Is it productive?  Could it be more of any of those: more helpful, more positive, or more productive?

Be awake to the moment before you.
Be awake to your life.

Affirmations for this practice:

I choose to be awake.  I choose to be aware. 

I choose to breathe deeply and notice myself deeply.  I choose to breathe deeply and notice others deeply.

I choose to be selective in my thoughts and actions, allowing more positive thoughts to come forward and be highlighted.

“There are only two responses to the world, fear or love. Your life depends on which one you choose.” – Deepak Chopra

Lots of people are looking to get outside more often now and perhaps counting on exercise as a release.  Something to think about when walking is your activity of choice, is the use of your foot.  Bring awareness to the way your feet connect to the floor and/or earth and take a moment to notice the tripod like design, three main points in each foot to bear the weight of you (assuming limbs are in place.)

It could be interesting to spend some time to walk around your home or outside without your shoes and to take note of how your feet interact with the surface below and how that interaction transfers into your ankles, legs, hips, spine, neck, and head.  It’s a simple exercise and the only task you have in it is to notice what naturally occurs for you.

If you want to get acquainted with your feet, here are some questions to ask yourself as you go through the process:

Am I using my heel?

Do I begin movement in the heel or elsewhere?

How is the arch of my foot participating or not participating?

What happens with the ball of my foot?

How about my toes?  Are they relaxed?  Do they feel balanced?

What happens if I begin movement from the heel, rooting into the supportive floor or earth below me, and let energy move from there across the arch and into the ball of the foot with an easy lift in the toes as my other foot takes the action?

Where does the movement of my walk begin? Is it in the knee?  Is it in the hip? Is it in the naval? What happens if I think of the movement as starting from just below the heart center, at the psoas muscle? Does my posture feel different?

 

During the days of VHS and recording shows from the TV to watch later and as many times as you wanted later, I recorded the mini series Anne of Green Gables.  I didn’t know what it was, not having read the books by L.M. Montgomery or heard about the storyline before.  So when I watched the tale of the orphan girl taken in by an older pair of siblings who wanted a hand around their farm,  it was a fresh unfolding that grew to become a beloved treasure in the box of VHS tapes.  I loved Anne as do many people who come across the books, movies, and now perhaps with the Netflix series that lays a harder edge on the original presentation; to use her words, I’d say she felt like a kindred spirit.  I made all of my friends watch this because it was an absolute favorite and the lovely one (Jess) that’s still hanging around and writing these blogs with me, can attest to that fact.  The recording from the early 80s is my inspiration for today, because there were two quotes that I first heard there that have stayed with me all these years: 

1.Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it… yet.

2.The Truth Will Set You Free.

Number 1 – I like having always been drawn to silver linings and optimism which is a part of my personality I’m forever grateful about, especially given the turns life can take.  Number 2 – has been on my mind a lot the last few weeks.  It’s traced back to the Bible.  I’ll add that to the end of this post where you can take a look and let it be for yourself whatever it is or is not.  I believe the indication in the Bible is pointing beyond what I’m aiming to share with you today.

For this day, I’m looking at truth through the reflection of others.  Connecting with others however you can now and allowing them to be a sounding board for your thoughts is a marvelous gift.  Being able to mull over ideas and plans with a supportive person can be very helpful! It’s possible to believe something to be true and not to see it otherwise until it’s said out loud – how many times and to which people can all shift the understanding.  You don’t have to have everything figured out on your own or know your mind before you speak.  It’s good to give space to explore yourself through others, while maintaining a healthy sense of where you begin and they end.  Truth can blossom and change through connection.

John 8:31-32

31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”