Holiday Yoga

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”  -Thich Nhat Hanh

What are doing today?  Probably working.  Some sort of working.  But  your mind isn’t there.  It’s not in work mode this time of year.  Family just left, more family comes soon, the kids are counting down the days til winter break, and you’re tired, really tired.  You have to gear up for just a little bit.  You have to stay strong and smile and be ready for the next wave of craziness.  Prep time for a month.  Money is tight but somehow it grows this month.  It has too.  The kids have to get presents.

Can you slow down this month?  Think yoga for the mind.  Maybe you just do the same things, but with more pondering.  You are more thoughtful.  You are not going to get all whacked out of shape.  You are going to be calm this year and prepare for the Christmas season.  In yoga, you pay attention to your breath. This makes you aware of your body.  You are not thinking about all that has to be done, but you are only concentrating on what you are doing at the moment, breathing.  Can you imagine if we approached the holiday season this way?  You would be calmer already.  Now is the time to prepare.  Make your list. Plan.  But then don’t add 50 more things to it.  You are not a superhero.  If you add three things to your list, you better drop a couple off.  Don’t do Christmas cards this year. Or rather, send them by email.  Listen to your body and only do what is important for you to accomplish this holiday season.  It does not matter what the rest of the cul de sac is doing.  Do your list.  Do what matters to you and your family.  Then rest.  Enjoy.  Pay attention to one thing at a time while you breathe in the holiday season.

Align your Life

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”  -George Bernard Shaw

O happy day.  Saturday.  Still recovering day.  Slow motion day.  Thinking day.  Planning day.  Plotting day.  I think I will give myself all of December to figure out 2010.  I will give myself a month to set my goals.  I mean I already know them, but I need to tweak them.  Do you know what you have ahead of you this year?  It’s up to you.  Do you just take life as it comes or do you decide that you will take life the way you want to?  I just learned something this morning.  Listen again.  I mean I think I am…listening.  But maybe my ears were plugged.   You have to be ready for when the time is right.  When the world speaks to you.  Be ready when the word comes.  But, sometimes the world isn’t ready for you yet.  You might have to wait for it to understand or direct you, but you still have to go on doing what you’re supposed to do.  Sounds dumb maybe, but it’s not.  Just keep on doing what you know to be doing.  And in the right time, you arrive.  Ha. you say.  Arrive?  I didn’t think we arrived in this world.  Well, maybe it’s just the first pit stop.  The water stop.  The re-fueling stop.  But you do.  You arrive there.  Finally.  Random thoughts today.  That’s okay.  Sometimes you take just a little bit from a story.  There is just one point that you need.  Take what you need from my rambling.  Be clear in your head.  Ask for wisdom from the wisdom source.  Plan your year.  Plan your goals.  Align your life with that plan and go forward today.

Learn to Celebrate

“The spirit of Celebration is essential to the art of life.”  -Shelley Steinley

Today begins the holiday craze.  The madness of buying.  Of preparing. Of doing.  Every year I vow that I will not get caught up in the craziness of it all. I set my mind aside for a minute to remember what is important.  I evaluate.  Before you get caught up in the madness of the holiday season, think about why you do what you do.  What is this time of year represent anyways?  Why do you celebrate?

I celebrate life and love.  I give because of love.  Because I am grateful for life and the people in it that make my world a happier and better place.  I celebrate because  it renews me inside.  What you give you receive.  So if you give joy and love and a spirit of celebration then that is what is returned to you.  Celebration makes you young again.  It rejuvenates the soul.

Celebrate what you have to be grateful for.  Give to those who have blessed you.  But remember  that you don’t need to do it all.  You can’t.  Set limits for yourself.  Make a list.  You wouldn’t think it but, I love lists.  I don’t think my brain works without them.  So write your list.  Write it and stick to it.  Remember that your attitude will make or break your holiday season.  So remind yourself daily that what matters is people.  And you.  You matter.  Be good to yourself.  Do what you can.  Stick to your list.  You don’t have to be someone to everyone. Just be you. Smile. Live.  Learn to celebrate.  It will renew your being.

“Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness,
universal to all ages and all faiths.
At whatever straws we must grasp,
there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.”  -J. Robert Moskin

Put a bit of thanksgiving into each day of your life.  When we are grateful we draw goodness back to ourselves.  When we are depressed and down we draw depression back to ourselves.  The body draws unto itself what emotions it gives out.  You have heard it said before to write a list of all that you are thankful for.  You’ve probably done it at least once in your life.  But do it now.  Write down all that you are thankful for.  You have so much.  Life is hard.  We have difficulties, problems, and situations, but if you focus on the negative you will just get more negative.  Today, focus on all positive.  In everything.  No matter what.  Find the good in the situation.  Because it is there.  Rise up.  Today is a fantastic day.  Be with family.  Love the children.  Smell the turkey.  Eat the pies.  Breathe in fresh air.  Walk in sunshine.  Let your mind be renewed.  Don’t worry.  Live.  Smile.  Love.  Be grateful for life.

Life crossings

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”  -Andre Gide

I had this dream once a very long time ago but I have never forgotten it.  I had to cross a river or I would die.  I was alone.  It was scary.  It was dark.  I was standing on this big tree that had fallen and was now used as some kind of a road that led up to the crossing place.  A rope was thrown to me.  It was my turn.  Somehow, I had to figure it out.  Life.  I was petrified.  But I went anyways.

What is your river?  What is the crossing in your life?   Everyone has different ways to cross the rivers that occur in life.  There is no right way to do it.  Every situation is different.  Every person is different.  Every brainwave is different.  You cannot watch what others do and somehow expect that your life should be the same because it cannot.  Your upbringing, your personality, your likes and dislikes, your beliefs and your calling.  If you listen to your internal compass you can know how to cross the rivers of your life when you come to them.  Because you will come to them.  These life crossings. These life life trials that give us the opportunity to either grow or stay the same.

Listen.  I guess I always say that.  But, the older I get the more I’ve learned that I have to listen to myself.  If I don’t,  I pay for it.  Today, remember that you have the power within yourself  to be brave.  To discover.  To grow and to learn.  To adventure into life, carving the path that only you can take, and believing that you have it within you to trust yourself on the road of life as it plays out before you.

Jump in

“Action is Eloquence.”  -William Shakespeare

Do.  Sometimes we sit for so long trying to figure out if we should do it or not.  Just do.  Be.  Live.  Think 3rd grader.  That’s Autumn.  She just does.  She lives. She breathes and exists pure realness.  If she wants to do something it is immediate.   She doesn’t wait.  Waiting a week for a birthday party is like a century for her.  So if you are sitting and pondering your life and wondering why sometimes it takes so long to get to where you want to be, it’s because of how you are.

We all drag our feet.  We all hem and haw.  We poke along because we are afraid.  It’s time to act.  What have you got to lose?  Nothing really.  But you have everything to lose if you don’t.  Time doesn’t wait for you.  Time waits for no one.  Jump into your future.  Jump int0 your life.  Only you are responsible for where you are and where you want to be.  Get going.  You have a lot to do.

Hail Sunshine

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.  Sunshine on the water looks so lovely.  Sunshine almost always makes me high.” -John Denver

I went running first thing when I woke up.  It was Sunshine-ing out.   I smiled as I ran.  My dog ran alongside watching for squirrels every step of the run.  I got home.  My heat doesn’t work.  Well.  It works but it needs to be replaced,  so I’m a bit leery of it.  I opened the curtains in my bedroom for the natural heat.  Sunshine.  It poured in.  It warmed my body, mind and soul.  It shines into the spaces that are dark and damp and cold in my life.  It illuminates.  It brightens.  It lifts.

Thanksgiving week begins today.  Are you ready for it?  It can be a hustle and bustle week.  A frantic what side-dish is missing week.  A don’t have enough room in the oven, don’t have time to make the pies, guess I won’t dust,  and have the mother-in-law you hate week.  Smile and be fake week.

But it doesn’t have to be that.  It can be a Sunshine-ing week.  If you remember to not sweat the small stuff week.  Doesn’t matter if all the silverware matches, don’t have the thanksgiving napkins or Aunt Marge is coming week.  Remember to have a let the Sunshine in week.  Open up the curtains of yourself.  Be you.  Be open to newness and life and love.  Don’t close yourself up or you shut out the Sunshine.  Let it melt the old ice that has built up in your life.

Be new.  Remember that each new day brings it’s own new Sunshine.  Believe it.  Wait for it.  Hail Sunshine.

Being You.

‘I’ve grown certain that the root of all fear is that we’ve been forced to deny who we are.” -Frances Moore Lapp

It’s our duty.  To be authentically ourselves.  Sometimes it’s difficult.  People don’t understand.  It would be a ton easier to just get back in bed and pull the sheets over our head and go back to sleep.  But we can’t.  We have to face our fears. We have to get up, go on and do our life.  If we don’t, we fail.  If we just throw in the towel then we didn’t do our job and we don’t get the blue ribbon in life.  We have to get back out into the world and accomplish our mission.  Sometimes it requires wearing blinders to the distractions.  Some people want to pull us down into the gutters of life.   If we stop and wait there and discuss what is going on in the gutters then we miss what we are supposed to be doing in the authentic part of our lives.

Perhaps you think I am talking hogwash.  I’m not.

Your life must be ventured into.  You can’t be afraid of the unknown.  Sometimes it’s dark, but you must walk there anyways.  Don’t stop yourself short because you are afraid. Don’t stop yourself short because you forgot your flashlight.  You might stumble and fall once or twice but you have to get up and go on.  Your eyes adjust to the dark.  Don’t be afraid of not doing it right.  No one else has the blueprints to life either.  That’s because they don’t exist.  You make up the blueprints to your life as you live.   Listen within. Walk boldly.  Speak your truth.  Love and move on.  You won’t be understood by some, but seek to be honest and authentic and you will be understood by those who are genuine, pretension-less and real.

Rain Sunshine Today

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” -Helen Keller

The world is waking up again.  It is still dark out.  It gets to decide how it will be today.  Will it be sunny?  Maybe rain. Maybe a bit colder then yesterday, because the winds decided to blow from the north to give us a small taste of winter.  Maybe it will start out one way and then change it’s mind and decide to hail.  Who knows but the gods.

Then there is us.  We get to decide how we will be.  Will we be sunny?  Or maybe partly cloudy. Overcast.  Cold.  Maybe like Chicago and we change on a dime several times throughout the day, always unpredictable.   It’s our internal radar.  We get to decide how we will be.  The outcome of our life is dependent upon the weather of our souls.  Our attitudes.  Our behavior.  What we think about and how we decide to be.  Today, decide to be sunny on the inside.  Light up your world.  Don’t carry the cloud above your head anymore.  Shake it.  Rain sunshine today.  It will change the way that the world sees you.  It will change the way that the world reacts to you.  And it will change the way that you react to the world.

It is best to be yourself

“It is best to be yourself, imperial, plain and true.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Again.  You are here again. Someone wants you to be different.  Someone does not approve of how you live your life.  Someone wants to mold you, to squeeze you, to shape you into what fits for them.  They will tell you how to act, how  to live, how to think, what to believe and what vegetables you should eat that night.

Be done with that. Be done with people that don’t understand you.  If they can’t step over the laundry pile that is 5 feet inside your front door without judging you, then they don’t need to have a place on the bleachers in your life.  The dishwasher is broken and the refrigerator leaks.  The children need to go to soccer and science fair is due on Monday.  The dog needs to eat and you need to pay bills.  You need to read, write, relax and exercise. You don’t have time for negative people.

You are here to be yourself.  To live.  To love. To experience life. To help others. To use the gifts that you have been given.  Do not let those who do not understand get in the way.  Listen to the still small voice within yourself.  Learn to trust it.  Listen to your calling. I’m not saying to reject people, but I am saying to reject negativity.  Reject ignorance and judgment.  Learn to embrace open-mindedness and love. Embrace uniqueness.  Embrace others.  Don’t judge. Be you.  Fly. Cut the chains that keep you from being completely yourself.