Find a penny, pick it up. All day long, you’ll have good luck.

What can you do with with your pennies to bring joy into the lives of others?  I like to leave them here and there for people to find heads up.  If I see one on tails, I’ll flip it and pass the turning of luck to the next person who spots the omen.

If we look at currency as belonging to the whole of humanity, we can allow the exchange of pennies to become expressions from the heart while we share good wishes with other observant souls.

To physically practice leading life with your heart, posture is key.  A gathered back and a curious sternum, held high by a long torso.  The line between your belly button and you sternum can be lengthened just by bringing your awareness to it, and then your back has help gathering.  It all works together.  

A Pose that you can practice to strengthen the muscles and let your heart reach out, is Locust.  Laying on your belly, continue to keep your gaze on your mat as you lift your head, shoulders, chest and arms.  Simultaneously, lift strong, engaged legs until your body is gently rocking with your breath on your upper thighs and lower torso.  Release and rise with your breath.

Now sitting, lengthen this front torso line, draw your sternum up and proud.  Draw your skull back away from screens, stacked on top of your actual heart.  We tend to lead with our heads (figuratively and literally) while walking and sitting and this is very straining on our upper backs and lower necks.  As your skull sits back onto its nature place in this stack your shoulders can release, shoulder blades can guide themselves down and the entire back will strengthen and give a curve back that can release these hard working muscles as well.

Now sit and feel this strength in your posture.  Tall, Proud and the way nature intended for our spines to live.

When in doubt – don’t.  Pause, when you need.  Give yourself time to know, when knowing is not immediate.  Stop to listen to your heart and follow the direction you find there.  You can’t go wrong when you’re able to balance being mindful of others with  being attuned to your own rhythms, passions, and internal promptings.

Our First Teacher is Our Own Heart    -Cheyenne Proverb

How we end our day is very important.  As you sleep your brain will do it’s very best to process unresolved events and ‘personal logic’.  Your body will hold what you have left from the day and this can leave us waking up with soreness, irregular sleep cycles, upsetting dreams and sore, clenched jaws.

Here is an option to set yourself up for a positive mind waiting to dream and a relaxed body ready to relax and let go of the day.

• Keep a Gratitude Journal by your bed and write 5 pieces that you are grateful for within TODAY.  It can be as simple as breathing or that bedtime is finally here!  Writing them down, instead of just saying them to yourself brings this process into deeper thought and insures the ritual will happen regularly – just by having to open a journal and pick up a pen.
• Lie on your back with hands on your belly and begin to breath as low as you can.  This requires a release of your abdominal muscles for your inhale and a tightening and squeezing of these muscles for an exhale.  If your lower back feels discomfort, fold a decorative bed pillow under your thighs to ease the lumbar curve.
• Once your breath is in your belly and your belly is flowing with ease, count your inhale and exhale.  3 or 4 count for each inhale and each exhale.  The number isn’t as important as the nature of balance.  So pick one number that feels good on inhale and exhale, leak or push air in order to help this balance happen.

Sleep well this weekend.  Recoup.  Rejuvenate.  The practice of Living and Loving will happen in a new way with better sleep.

Carve out 10 minutes or more for yourself to enjoy the calm within.  Can you leave the electronic world behind, the news, and any worry you may be carrying for designated time to sit with yourself in quiet? Mindfulness about shutting off from the outside world incrementally may prove to make you a better focused and active participant there when you return!

dis·cern·ment
dəˈsərnmənt/
noun
1.
the ability to judge well.
2.
(in Christian contexts) perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual direction and understanding.

Regarding a previous post on moving through life with a fresh perspective and not bringing judgements along for interaction, we can also consider discerning what we want to allow.  Judgements about the experiences we want to encounter are different than jumping to conclusions about a person,place, or thing that we cannot know without experiencing for ourselves and sometimes can still not know as change is ever present.  When choosing direction, it is helpful to be discerning.  The actions we take create our path in body (to a point – not to speak on illness or trauma in this post), in mind, and soul.  Of all the options, which way will you go today?

What you receive is in direct alignment with what you create in your thinking, in your offerings, and in what you allow.  The starting point in direction of what you receive lives in the mind.  Taking time to clean up your thinking is worth the return.  When thoughts arrive in your mind that do not line up with the feelings you wish to experience, practice letting those go.  You may not be able to stop the thoughts from presenting but you can dismiss them with little time spent lingering there. It’s prudent to be selective with what you allow in your head; it is part of your sacred space.  Practice being receptive to thoughts that feel best and notice how it changes your overall presence.  There’s a warm ray of sunshine hiding behind that cloud of thoughts, just waiting for you to let it in!

Post by:   Tracy Weaver, Life Coach, EFT Practitioner

The “Be Your Own Best Friend” trend has certainly gotten off the ground and it is all psychologically very sound. You are the only with one with you 24/7, and hopefully you do know yourself better than anyone else.  Being your own critic really isn’t good for you or your health and yes, you can learn how to be inwardly loving and positive to yourself. But all that isn’t actually what got me going on finding ways to be good to me. It was the timeless comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

At one point, Calvin wrote letters to his future self, posted them, got them back in the mailbox the next day and read them aloud to Hobbes. The idea always tickled me and many years later, I decided to do some friendly things for my future self, things that would make me feel good when I got them or came upon them.

One is easy. I love music and so I occasionally find a used music CD online and buy it. Then I forget all about it which, in my case, is really easy to do. A few days or a week later I get a padded envelope in the mail with something new to listen to, a nice surprise for that evening. I also do this for my wife and occasionally other folks. Just a nice little surprise in the mail, and something new to listen to that evening while making dinner.

Another is setting up the coffee for the morning before I retire. I’m picky about coffee, so I set it up just as I want to find it in the  morning. I’m also an early riser, waking up ready to do things while daylight is still a couple of hours away and the house is cold. Since my wife does not share this habit, I lay out whatever I’m going to wear in the morning in such a way that I can easily pick the items, figure out what they are, how they are oriented, and get dressed quietly in the dark without falling over hopelessly tangled up.

I’ve found it’s fun to do for myself and that my future self appreciates it! I don’t go overboard, just a few thoughtful little things. I wonder, if you were to try something like that, what would your future self most appreciate from you?

You are Loved

You are Loved

You are Loved

Show what you know.

Show it to EVERYONE.

Everywhere

in every way you can imagine.

This Day of Love can be a Year of love

and then a Life of Love.