One of my favorite quotes within my adulthood, “Be Kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.”  Plato.

This can be seen as a negative view of life, but it is no secret that many humans suffer every day.  We all suffer and break at different periods in our journey.

The positive can come by the kindness that each of us is capable of for each other.  At any moment, we can see a behavior as a display of human reaction.  There are endless reactions out there to witness.  Our ACTION is to be kind.  The rest is not our concern.  The why, how, when, and who is not really important for the most important action that can become a lifestyle.

Be Kind.

Decadance is alive and well in simplicity.  It takes about 5- 10 minutes to prepare this 8 ingredient dish and after that, the tender magnificence is left to the oven as well as resting time.  Please let this simple yet decadent dish of baked pears and yogurt create a little distraction in your life!

Baked Pears with Yogurt

Serves 4

2 Large Pears (any variety ) sliced in half and cored.

4 tbsp honey

4 tbsp lime juice (or water)

2 tbsp cinnamon plus more for dusting

1/4 tsp allspice

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/8 cup of water

8 tbsp plain yogurt

Preheat oven to 375. Place cored pear halves into a 8×8 baking dish. In a small bowl combine honey, lime, cinnamon, and allspice.  Heating the honey for a few seconds may make this step easier.  Fill each cored center (I call them pear bellies) with 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar. Pour the mixture over the pears.  Dust the pears with cinnamon.  Place in the oven for half an hour.  At this time add a 1/8 cup of water to the bottom of the baking dish.  Continue to bake for 15-30 minutes more.  Baste the pears with their juice and leave them to cool.  Leaving the pears to cool in the sauce will produce a rich, flavorful result.  Up to an hour or more of cooling time is recommended if you can withstand the temptation!

Place the pears in a shallow bowl or on a plate with 2 tbsp of yogurt joining the spice and sugar filled ‘belly’.  Spoon the remaining liquid over the baked pears and yogurt.

Enjoy!  C’est fantastique!!

Our bodies walk, sit and stand through our day with us.  They are actively participating in each conversation, surprise, hurt and smile.  Everything our brain, heart and gut feels our spine, core and chest holds.  It dances along all day to our overall emotional experience.  

When we have body awareness we can choose how that dance flows and how it feels throughout our minute, hour and day.  When we lack body awareness and stay constantly busy,  our body is much like a neglected friend.  This friend begins to complain and ‘check out’.  Our bodies atrophy in places and build tension and hurtful habits in order to be seen and heard.  It lives a sad dance along with our emotional roller coaster.  

Much like this tree, hunched over and frozen in it’s environment, our bodies harden to this neglect.  Body awareness, a flowing dance throughout your day can come when we simply begin to ask ourselves, ‘Why am sitting this way? How am I standing when I talk to this person?  How strong does my body feel when I walk into a room or when I stand to leave?’  

Begin a day stretching in bed and then let your body converse with you.  You can talk back by allowing for your own flowing adjustment, that is the conversation!!  Have a relationship, it is talking to you constantly, but lost in the buzz of electronics, traffic, family, TV and music.  We can show our bodies and the world a more confident, strong, positive person just by getting to know our own bodies again and changing our personal environment to warmth, acceptance and listening. 

 

To be present with self we have to listen to what we need in our physical and spiritual bodies.  Perhaps what you need is to be interjected in every part of the physical experience or it could be that what you need is a quiet space to process, to make sense of these experiences and then in time to participate in ways that align with your own truths.  Learn to listen to yourself and follow with actions that nurture and honor your needs.  Take care of the inner self as you would your outer. Self care is an important tool to have and to utilize.

 

2017 is here.

We are able to Chose,

Create,

Forge,

Discover our ways and patterns in a new way.

Peel away our layers and shed what is no longer serving us.

The only way you can do this is to

SIT

BREATHE

and LISTEN.

Then get up

rise with strength and lightness

 and DO.

Peace

Sometimes we plan to reach out to others in volunteer work, in deliberately speaking with the people who help us in everyday interactions, or with friends and family.  How about with strangers who happen to be standing next to you in line, on the same shopping aisle, or passing on a trail?  I don’t think too much about these interactions when they happen – I just have them.

Yesterday I was in Lowes Home Improvement with my kids and I had firewood and a number of painting materials in the cart as well as a snow shovel and two sleds.  Last year my son broke our sled and I have been meaning to replace it as well as pick up a shovel.  It doesn’t snow a lot where I live, but we typically get one or two downfalls that keep the kids out of school for a few days and give us enough white fluff to enjoy the hills in our neighborhood.

A woman standing behind us in line looked a little excited and asked if I knew something she didn’t know.  I paused for a second thinking about all the things I may know and could share with her.  After the fleeting thoughts there and not responding I realized she was referring to the winter weather items in our cart and said, “Oh! No… picking them up for later.  You know what, because I’m buying them maybe it won’t snow at all this season.  I’m really wishing I had something magical to share with you since you looked excited …let me think – maybe I can make up something.”  I don’t think she was expecting that last bit.  She laughed and said, “It’s ok.  I thought you may have seen something on the news that I missed.”  I finished our transaction at the register and said, “Perhaps we’ll see a little snow soon!  Have a good day.”

As we walked away my daughter said, “There goes Mom, always making one second friends.  You have so many one second friends, Mom.”

This made me smile.  I don’t typically think of speaking with someone I don’t yet know as holding much value beyond those few words, and maybe this particular interaction was not that but it did coin a phrase I won’t be forgetting.  Yesterday, my daughter helped me to extend my understanding as well as connect to past events…. anyone could be a one second friend and who is to say what impact our few words may have.

I’ve certainly had a ‘one second friend’ say important things to me before…and on multiple occasions. Years ago, there was an older gentleman who told me to ‘be happy with what you have’ and I still count him as delivering a very important message to me that I needed to hear in that precise moment.

Be Open.  You could be an important moment for another person as they could be for you!

This being human is a guest house ….. so says Rumi.  I first came across the poem, The Guest House , two years ago.  It caught me immediately for the understanding of learning through life in every scenario.

Each guest is an emotion or an experience to clean us out or open us for the next.  Welcome each guest as a guide from beyond.

Recently I had a brief chat with someone about this poem by Rumi.  She thought besides being a teacher for what is to come, the guest house could represent welcoming the different aspects of our own character.  Allowing each talent, skill, or thought on self to sit comfortably together until all the pieces of yourself are so much larger than you could ever be in this physical form to contain them.  A meditation on harmonious interplay, on growing to accept every part that represents yourself can make you feel as big as this universe. Try it!

Rushing is such a popular lifestyle and it causes many emotions and outcomes except JOY.  We are in a season of JOY and yet what many people end up doing at a professional level is…rushing.  Here are a few ways that we can live within this season, remember it and enjoy it:

• Use a calendar to note 2-3 ‘holiday prep needs’that can be happily accomplished each day for the next 10 days.
• When you find yourself in the midst of 1 item, find a rhythm and match your breath to your activity, ex: wrapping, addressing cards, baking or planning a holiday get together.
• With a deep breath, take something off of your list that is never enjoyable as every holiday season comes and goes.  Let it go and feel the relief of not obligating yourself to possible empty traditions or expectations.
• Now with a deep breath add something to that list that might feel unproductive, childish or whimsical and SOAK IT UP!  SWIM IN IT and SING ALONG!

Everything that is important and worthy, will be accomplished with a clear mind and a deep breath.

I’ve only read one of Tolstoy’s works – Anna Karenina – and that, much like many things in life required wading through some slow sections.  However, taking time for the entire novel was worthwhile. Partially in jest, I tie him in for the weekend and an activity that lots of us enjoy:  roasting marshmallows!  I bet if Tolstoy  were waiting for the perfectly browned outside and delightfully gooey center, he would remind us of the virtues necessary in gaining the desired outcome…
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”

-Leo Tolstoy

 

A handful of positive quotes:

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”

— Willie Nelson

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.”

— Dalai Lama

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”

— Zig Ziglar

“In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.”

— Les Brown

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

— Colin Powell

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the starting place for being positive by ourselves and knowing when to let someone else lend a hand can be the most helpful non-action. Let.  Allow.  Be receptive.  Be grateful for what others have to give.