“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Always work with it, not against it… This will miraculously transform your whole life.”  – Eckhart Tolle

 

With the practice of finding the positive parts of your life, year, month, week, day, hour, and moment, there is a gift living just beyond this that comes with absolute acceptance of circumstances.  The habit of practicing gratitude for what you appreciate makes finding positives easier which can in turn lead to accepting what is without resistance.  If you can become aware of your resistance you can welcome it with acceptance.  This releases the body and mind from struggle that hinders your ability to find solutions and to welcome change or the new.

Affirmation:  I accept what is

It’s really that simple.  The more you think and say this, the more apparent it will become as an integrated part of your reality.

Eckhart Tolle’s addition of ‘accept it as if you had chosen it’ removes any feeling of helplessness or victimization that could keep you stuck. This wording has changed my understanding of the degree to which we can embrace acceptance and I hope it will be helpful to you too.

Sat Nam

 

 

Advice can be useful to share with others when placed appropriately in the dialogue between people but it can also be a wasted moment when your listening would have better served the purpose of someone else’s path.  When we’ve been through something similar or our life has brought us to an understanding, we want to assist by sharing what we know.  The thing is, a person comes to know something when they are ready and it truly doesn’t matter what you say unless you are both in line with the words.  Receptivity comes with readiness.

Please don’t hold back from offering something you feel inclined to share with another but I want to ask you to try listening for a longer period of time than you think feels natural or normal before you offer anything.  See what happens…  I think you’ll find that others have the answers they seek inside of themselves.  Holding space for longer periods of listening helps to form a habit of self reflection that is far more useful to the process of the person in conversation with you.

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

We hope you find ways to slow down, feel connected, and appreciate your senses this weekend!  Each moment is yours to enjoy!

In my youth, I didn’t know what a boundary was outside of classroom expectation and even those were a challenge for me.  Excuse me, can someone explain what it means to be quiet again?  But there’s a person so close to me and I want to talk to them!! Hello person! What do you mean I can’t talk to the person next to me?  What if I just whisper one little something… 

At that point in time, I found little need to define boundaries and only exerted them when aiming to please or experiencing unkindness.

I began to understand boundaries differently once interacting on a deeper level in my teenage years within friendships and soon after, coupling. There are unspoken rules for interacting that when not observed, could push the envelope of comfort or lead to creating layers of complication for many people.  We may come to defining these things with time and interaction, if we don’t understand them to be necessary at first.  We find out based on our emotions and the emotions of our loved ones what will work in any given circumstance.

These days, I am coming to the topic after a time period of having a gigantic wall around myself.  I was only letting boundaries down when interacting with a long standing  friend or easily approachable female.  Luckily, I have arrived at a place of perceiving boundaries as flexible and not necessarily gender specific.

People can have set boundaries in place for differing reasons and it is important to respect these. Understanding and respecting boundaries is a mark of empathic socialization.  If you feel a boundary, it doesn’t have to be taken personally but should be observed for the need of another human expressed.

 

“If you must look back, do so forgivingly.  If you must look forward, do so prayerfully.  However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present gratefully.”  – Maya Angelou 

 

It is so easy to find yourself wrapped up in thoughts of the past and just as easy to fall into the trap of constantly projecting into the future.  Our challenge is often staying in the present moment.  Taking time to be grateful and focusing on the things that fill your body with gratitude can help with this task.

Get into your sensory system and find gratitude through your body.  Notice how you feel; notice the energy of you and how you interact with the objects around you.  Take note of everything you can observe and the energy outside of you.  Practice a visualization of merging the inner and outer energy with a constant conversation between the two.  If the word “energy” feels obscure to you, perhaps a visualization of light instead will be beneficial.  Getting into the habit of recognizing your inner energy or light and practicing this as unified with your surroundings can be uplifting, as it removes the feeling of isolation we often identify with in this physical form.

Gratitude and recognition of the interconnectedness of our reality can assist in making the importance of the present moment crystal clear.

 

 

In the coming weeks try to approach each day with curiosity, greeting every moment with a joyful expectancy for the good things you may find and experience.  At the end of the day make sure to release and make peace with what is, regardless of what has passed in the day.  Become the joyful greeting and the peaceful release.

AM:  I greet today with curiosity and joyful expectancy.

PM: I release the happenings of today with gratitude and love.  Thank you for this day.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  – Anais Nin

I first saw this quote about six years ago.  It was given to me, imprinted on a metal plate attached to a thick leather band and made to be worn around the wrist.  I remember unwrapping the box it was mailed in and running my fingers along the smooth grain.  I didn’t know what this meant to have more pain in remaining unopened than facing the risks of blossoming.

I had lived a fairly sheltered and untouched life at the point of receiving this gift.  By untouched, I mean gliding along easily without heartbreak.  I was in the fortunate position of staying at home with my preschool aged children, and spent the rare moments of downtime in that schedule writing poetry that I shared mostly with my husband at the time and occasionally a friend.  Besides this there was an interest in learning simple arrangements for piano as well as baking which I continue to appreciate for the ‘grounding’ it provides.  By grounding, I mean an activity that brings you fully into your senses and the here and now.  Music and poetry have always felt to be a different kind of meditation than baking.  All are channels but the latter a rooting in practicality that produces a tangible and interactive quality.

All of this I did as a task for the sake of the task, and it was not meant to be shared with others (except for the baking).  I felt it was safest to create in an environment without the opinions of others so not to be spoiled by critiquing or any analysis.  This idea came from the relatively short time period I spent with vocal performance, in which some experiences became spoiled by the mind.

So while not quite understanding what my friend meant in giving me this bracelet, I also felt aligned with wearing it.

Since that time period, there have been changes to life, namely the removal of the sense of security I felt in being part of a couple.  With witnessing the dissolve of a relationship that had been part of my life since my late teens,  I felt a lot of loss.  There have been long stretches of quiet at a time in life when activity and stimulation are the norm in our homes, and emptiness has also been a regular guest.  The reality I knew altered significantly in this withering.

Initially, I didn’t realize I was going to seed.  A way of being and doing and thinking died with this change – not all at once and not everything.

What I’m finding now is that some patterns were developed in keeping shelter during the ‘cold season’, that have to be shed in order to blossom.  I think I know exactly what Anais Nin meant by the pain of staying tight in a bud without allowing yourself to come fully into bloom.  In order to bloom, you have to have courage to push through the soil or the crack in the sidewalk or wherever you are planted, you have to allow nourishment and light to filter through, you have to trust knowing that may not be a safe thing to do, and you have to allow your unfolding without judgement; allow no opinion of yourself or your circumstances so that you may truly blossom into the existence that is rightfully yours.

 

 

 

 

 

Whether it is a break at work, eating lunch or right before bedtime when the day is quieting down.  Go outside and listen.  Find a noise or a sight that calms you and warrants your attention.  Give it 3-5 minutes of you undivided attention.

Find a:

Smell – Sight – Feeling on your skin – and let it be all that matters for 3-5 minutes.

There is a world outside of our brain loops, worries, successes and lists to check off.  We are missing it most of the time.

Go Outside.  Smile.

In the spirit of presence and SEEING.  progress through these pictures and at the end adjust your eyes to finding as many frogs as you can.

 

SEE

 

SEE

Find at least 15, which is my count.

and YES, this is worth your time.

 

 

Yesterday I stepped out to take my dog for a walk and came across a mom with a baby in a stroller and a young son next to her on a scooter.  Without reservation he called out, “Hello, Girl!! Hello!!”.  Coming from a young child this ‘girl’ didn’t carry the slant and sass that the word sometimes does.  I didn’t see another soul in the street and knew it was for me though I am a woman in her late thirties. To the mom I expressed how nice it was to be addressed in this friendly way.  The boy wasted not a moment more knowing that he had the power to make someone happy with this greeting.  He called it out again excitedly, “Hello, Girl! Hello, Girl! Hello, Girl! Hello! Helloooooooooo!”.

Reflecting on this, I appreciate how willing he was to do something that he knew another person liked.  I also appreciate how he didn’t hesitate to offer the greeting and how he didn’t question doing it again and again later.  This child did what came to him in the moment and he didn’t make judgements about how it sounded or what anyone thought once he could see and feel happiness in the action.  This child hasn’t yet learned the behavior of shutting himself down by caring too much about what others think of him or letting his mind tell him the 33 reasons he shouldn’t do a thing, which can drain you of your happiness and maybe others of theirs too!

I hope you will greet those you encounter this weekend with happiness and that you will do it with enthusiasm.  It may require that we all get out of our minds and into the present moment more without judgements, but perhaps this is just what we need!  Good luck with greetings and sharing as many happy hellos as you can this weekend!