“Always follow your own truth in your own time.” — Frank Perry
You are the key to your best expression. No one else can tell you how to do you better or when something is in right timing for you. Align within before seeking outside yourself. Trust that what’s needed, desired, and/ or ready to be understood will arrive in the way that matches your current grooves when encountered.
We often think that smiles are the byproduct of pleasant experiences, humorous events, or happy thoughts. Those things are of course true. A smile can also be an act chosen even in a moment that is less than joyful for the purpose of triggering the release of good feeling stored in the body. It never hurts to turn your frown upside down. You always have the option to call on your presence of mind to guide you to your smile.
HOW LARGE IS YOUR HEART?
from How to Fight by Thich Nhat Hanh
“The practice of inclusiveness is based on the practice of understanding, compassion, and love. With understanding and love you can embrace and accept everything, and everyone, and you don’t have to suffer, because your heart is large. How can we enlarge our heart? Increasing our understanding and compassion makes our heart grow greater. Each of us has to ask the question: is there anything that we can do to help us open the door of our heart and accept the other person? How large is our heart?”
As the moon grows into it’s fullest expression over the next few days, how too can we allow our fullest heart expression? What can you do to make allowance even for what you do not understand? Can you let love work beyond needing reason and comprehension? Imagine the world full of love and bliss, being in a state of your utmost radiance, and connecting in fullness with others. What does that look like? How do you feel? What sorts of things would you do and say? Why not do or say one of those things this week and see how it allows your heart to shine more fully.
As the northern hemisphere prepares to enter winter solstice and darkness encapsulates more of the day, we can take cues from nature to rest as well as she does. Rest means to relax, to refresh, and to recover strength.
What does that mean for you? What truly recharges your battery? How can you sit with the eternal light within perhaps because of the external darkness? You are a light source after all. ✨
As you recharge how can your relationship to reception be unfettered and met with ease? Is it possible to let these last few weeks of the year soften and overarch with reception? If reception cloaks your every intention how may that change your listening, your giving, your cleaning, your festivities (if you’re partaking in those), and your relating?
Affirmation: I receive with ease
Sometime towards the end of summer I took my daughter and a fellow teen friend to the mall. Near the end of the outing I needed a bathroom break and the closest restroom had a short line of women waiting. I joined the wall of resting backs and side leaning shoulders. A hallway that may have been filled with idle chitchat seemed quieter under face masks and bags of purchases created little forts around each woman’s feet. When the door swung open to admit the next person in line the exiting woman peered out at the waiting people and apologized, “Oh, I’m sorry.” and she hurried past. Two more women joined the wait behind me, one with a back to the wall and the other erect with arms crossed. After some time the woman who was second in my wait emerged with one babe on her hip and another holding her hand. She too apologized to everyone as she stepped out. The pattern played on. I wondered why in the world these women were apologizing. Were we not all in line for the same reason? Are we sorry for another person waiting? Is waiting an inconvenience or perhaps simply occupying space? Who knows — maybe all and maybe some or none of that. What I did know was that I would not feel bad about a bodily need when it was my turn and I would not apologize when I stepped out.
When I did walk out, I decided to say, “Next!” with a smile that my eyes had to convey.
Women over apologizing isn’t a new topic. I remember reading about the issue in a magazine when I was a teenager — long before taking my own teenager shopping. No matter your sex, perpetuating unhealthy patterns is something we can all examine and decide to change if needed. Save your apologizes for when they’re truly meant and let your words carry their weight with intention. With attention to exactly what you are saying, you may have more joy in whatever comes next for you.
This is a guided breathing awareness meditation with pebble visualization for relaxation and insight. You can choose any intention or focus area ahead of listening to the recording. If you’re at a loss for what that may look like, you could consider ideas such as “I intend to see clearly my next steps.”, ”I intend to live with more joy.”, “I intend to release blocks around my self expression.”, or perhaps “I intend to connect authentically with others.” These are starting points, but feel free to move with any intention or theme. What you choose ahead will guide you best as you know you need.
For the exercise, gather paper and pen. Write your intention out on the paper and speak it aloud or in your head three times. Prepare yourself to sit comfortably in a chair, keep the paper and pen close by to make notes after listening to the recording. Start the recording and close your eyes. ✨🙏🏼✨
Link to Recording:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vvgPWyNmeniiNV-2tS5oEfWDG4jpnu9M/view?usp=drivesdk
(This recording has sounds not too far off in the background. With the spirit of mindful awareness, if you find yourself distracted by the background sounds, let that be, and gently guide yourself to focus on the sound of my voice. If you find your mind wandering, practice in the same way, with gentle guidance back to the voice.)
“If we see every situation as perfectly designed for our own movement and growth, and we can embrace every situation for where it comes from and where it leads us… neither [disparaging yourself] nor others… recognizing that all unhealthy thoughts, words, and actions are expressions of unmet needs… [you may] remain unfailingly affirmative in relationship to both [yourself] and others.”
Moore, Coaching Psychology Manual
“ A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.”
Emily Dickinson
What are you bringing to life with your words? Does what you’re saying match what you want to hear yourself saying? Take a moment, pause, and listen. Are you speaking from a place of not having what you want or from the place of having it all worked out?
What would it feel like to try on reality as you want and pretend it’s happening now? You may have to get into the world of make believe that was probably natural to you in childhood. Take anything that’s presenting in your life now and look carefully at how you think and speak about the topic. Does your thought and speech support the status quo or the desired result?
Example:
You want a sense of community at work.
From the place of not having what you want you may think and say:
“No one makes an effort to speak to each other. We sit at our desks and keep to ourselves.”
From the ideal scenario you may say:
“It’s so easy to connect with my coworkers. We are thoughtful about professional and personal needs. I’m so grateful that we all work well together.”
It may seem odd to say something you don’t currently see happening. Take it as a game or experiment if that’s the case and see if it shifts. Either way, you can revel in ideals for a moment or two.
Words from Carl Jung, 20th century analytical psychologist, in support of learning to shift and widen your focus away from what you don’t want toward what you do want to experience:
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble… They can never be solved, but only outgrown… This “outgrowing,” as I formally called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.”
What new interest could be on the horizon for you?
“Folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
Let joy be gathered, briefly held, appreciated, and gently released. Moments are meant to be fleeting but the joy you feel can go with you and create the foundation for noticing with more awareness, conscious savoring, and a deep appreciation for what life offers you today.
How can you give more of your attention to what brings you joy?
What will support and amplify your overall happiness in this day?
Presence and Positivity 