Resolution Time. Again.

I've already heard the words being spoken, those words that seem fundamental towards the end of each calendar year. "In January, I'm going on a diet! That's my resolution..."

When we make a resolution, we are making a promise to ourselves with the intention of doing something that yields change, generally in the direction of self-improvement. The fitness industry banks on us making these promises and anticipates the January onslaught of new member enrollments. They often will tempt us with a great deal for the entire year and in actual fact, know that a large percentage of the new members will stop attending within a few months. If people were able to hold onto their desire for change as of January 1, there would be more people than gyms could manage.

Why is it that we have such great intentions only to realize a few weeks later we've lost our way?

My thought for the week is to offer ourselves more compassion when trying to make a change. It is said that permanent change takes anywhere between 21-30 days to take hold. That translates into it taking time. We often lose our way because we become impatient with the process and perhaps don't see any change in the time we expect.

Change also takes conscious and consistent choice and practice. If we want to create a new way of being or doing, we need to practice it over and over again. You know, try it on. See how it fits. We need to shift the unfamiliar feeling to a familiar one and that takes repetition.

One of my favorite sayings is, "consistency is the key". If we go to a yoga class randomly, then what we get out of it will likely be momentary. If we want to invite a more centered way of living into daily life, we have to create ways of doing that...DAILY! The magic happens in the doing.

So if you are thinking about making a resolution I would suggest being clear on ONE thing. Design a plan that fits into your life and stick with it, without excuse, interruption or hesitation for at least a month. Avoid the trap of letting what you would like to shift, move down your list of priorities. Keep it in the top position until you feel that it's embedded--like brushing our teeth every day.

And if now isn't the time, then go easy on yourself and ask the inner critic to keep the noise down. In this moment, we are all as we should be; beautiful, unique beings with nothing that needs to be fixed.

Center your awareness into the middle of your heart, breathe into that space deeply and notice how incredible you are!

Happy New Year and may 2013 hold peace, growth, good health and deep joy for all of us.

Darkness To Light

 

 

Here in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting short and the nights long. The natural environment seems to be drawing into itself and shedding excess leaves and growth until a more opportune time to grow and bloom. We have just passed the Winter Solstice.

I love the idea of the Winter Solstice as it relates to light. The actual day in 2012 is Friday December 21 representing the shortest day of the year as it relates to the number of daylight hours that we see. From December 22 the daylight hours begin to lengthen.

We step from darkness into light.

Isn't that what our own personal growth is about? Gaining clarity about our own life path and purpose? Moving from ignorance towards greater wisdom? Turning inward to see our own inner light's radiance? We acknowledging the darkest moments of our soul as we step into our own light and expanding consciousness.

One of the fundamental teachings in yoga is that we are all born divine. This divinity possesses a radiance that is often referred to as residing in the heart center. Just look at a healthy newborn and you can't help but see that they are divinely perfect beings. And the thing is, that never changes...it never leaves us. What happens is that we simply forget. We travel through our lives and begin to disconnect from this notion of being whole and beautifully complete.

What our yoga practice does, is help us to remember. It helps us to still the distracting chatter of our mind and to celebrate the magnificence of our physical body so that we can connect once again to the light that dwells within.

Let's take a moment on as the Winter Solstice passes to connect to our inner radiance and all the potential that is sitting within.

The word Namaste' describes this precisely.

"The light in me, sees and honors the light in you. When we are both in this place, we are one."

Peaceful Solstice.

Our Place In The Universe

 

This past week was the last triad date of my lifetime, 12-12-12. I felt it to be quite auspicious and shared with my classes one persons take on its significance (from a friend of a friend of mine). Basically she said that it's a powerful time to connect in a way of supportive mediation to send healing to the planet, our loved ones, as well as ourselves. And it is part of the greater cosmic shift that is happening on December 21, 2012. This is said to be the end of the Mayan calendar and the doomsayers were saying it could be the end of the world (I don't believe that, but perhaps more of a shift in consciousness).

What is interesting is that this upcoming solstice has a particularly special planetary alignment with very distant stars as it will be right along the plane of the entire galaxy. "This precession of the equinoxes goes in a complete circle and happens only once every 26,000 years. In other words, the winter solstice moves 360 degrees every 26,000 years, or 0.01 degrees each year." (Greer Jonas, www.numbers4me.com).
Add the galactic and cosmic activity to the unsettled nature of the holiday season, I have a very strong sense that this was indeed a time to look at how we fit into the big picture of this Universe.

If you think about our physical presence on this earth and how we connect to it, the most obvious conduit is through our feet. The soles of our amazingly adaptive peds connect the souls of ourselves to Mother Earth. I think of this earth as being feminine, the Divine life giver as she offers us all that we need. It seems obvious but without the earth, we simply would not be. We have a truly physical connection to the planet, one which so many of us have forgotten about and become disconnected from. Many of our surfaces are flattened and paved over so the sensation of stepping barefoot on a rocky path has become a metaphysical rather than an actual physical experience. We no longer feel our feet gently kissing the earth, unless we intentionally do so.

And then I got to thinking about the vastness of the cosmos and how the planets and stars expand into infinite space, doing what they do as I go along doing what I do. In order to connect to this Universal energy and realm, I need to take myself there consciously.

We get so easily distracted and into our own lives that we step further and further away from the truly gigantic picture of being humans living on a planet. I start to freak out a little bit if I give it too much contemplation...how does anyone truly comprehend all of that space?

As a result, I offer this practice of connection and seeing ourselves in the big picture.

Stand barefoot with a sense of good posture. Bring your awareness into the bottoms of your feet and visualize sending giant cables of light down through the floor, through the earth's crust and into the center of the earth. Feel as if you're connecting your cables into the heart of the Mother and that she sends whatever serves and supports you back up through these channels.

Now pull your energy up from the earth and through your body. See an opening at the very crown of your head and send another cable of energetic light up through the ceiling, into the clouds and out into the earth's atmosphere. See this cable expanding beyond the gravitational boundary of the earth and out into infinite space.

As we stand with our feet firmly grounded into the center of the earth and our energy reaching into infinity, it starts to feel as though we are the conduit between a solid physical realm and a less definitive celestial one. We are part of it all with this pranic life force flowing not only around us, but through us.

Our place in the Universe is as a complete individual, yet we are also completely connected to and part of the whole. To show gratitude, how about slipping out of those shoes to go kiss the earth with your feet?

Don't Worry...Be Happy!

 

 

Do you worry? Do you find yourself awake at 3 am, staring at the ceiling, unable to find a comfortable position and ruminating on what seem to be a thousand possible scenarios for your life? Or you hear news about a story that's happening some place a far distance away in the world and you find yourself unable to stop thinking about it? Do you have frequent conversations with someone who says how worried they are about so and so?

This might be you or someone you know...a worrywart. Not sure? Here's how Random House Webster's Dictionary defines worrywart:

"a person who tends to worry habitually and often needlessly".

Earlier this week, I was speaking to my wise chair-centric yoginis, one woman in her 90's and the other in her late 80's. I asked them if they were "worriers" and they both had similar replies. "I used to worry, but I've learned that it really doesn't help anything or make a difference. Whatever happens, happens and worrying about it won't prevent that from happening."

When we worry, our thoughts are projected into the future. This futuristic thinking is often no more than an embellished storyline that is getting created in our imagination. What percentage of what we worry about actually happens? I don't have stats to back up this answer, but many people say that a very large percentage of what we futuristically ponder never happens. NEVER! Wow! That seems to be a lot of misspent energy.

And according to the definition, worrying is a habit. That's right, just like smoking, or over using a word or phrase (like, ya know), it's a pattern that is learned. The good news is, if it's something we've learned, we can un-learn it. The challenge is to recognize when we actually step into a habitual pattern. We can't change something that we have no awareness around, so becoming aware is a huge first step to altering our behavior.

The definition also states that it is often needless. The time and energy we direct towards a situation that is completely ineffective to altering the outcome is wasted time. Life is precious and zooms by so quickly, so why not convert some of this worrying energy into recognizing what we DO have the power to control and what we don't.

I do believe there's a difference between worrying about and thinking about something. The worrying element tends to have a negative pull connected to it, whereas simply thinking about an issue has a more neutral response. It's something that we can think about and then let go. Worriers tend to cling onto the issue, creating higher levels of anxiety than perhaps the situation actually warrants. And perhaps the act of worrying is the worrywarts way of showing they care or a way they express their love for someone or something.

My thought for the week is to turn this expression of care into self-care by letting go of the charge associated with worrying, most often over something that we have very little control. Acknowledge that the uneasy feeling arises, find a breath and another way to be supportive of the situation. The result could be the lesson of greater freedom and acceptance. And as the catchy jingle reminds us, "Don't Worry....Be Happy"!

The Gift of Gratitude

 

 

It's official. It's the holiday season. We've just passed Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The lights of the season are sprouting up in my local neighborhood and the number of emails offering special deals and sales is prolific. It's that time of year when we start to think about what to give to others.

When I was a kid, it was all about what I would be getting for Christmas. I used to sit with the JC Penny catalog on my lap, flipping through the pages at all the things that I really wanted for the holidays. I would fold the page, circling the item and move on. I wanted to ensure that my Mom had a good idea of what was on my wish list. Looking back...I had no boundaries. I wanted it all. Anything that I found the least bit interesting would have a dog eared page. On Christmas morning I would awaken in the pre-dawn hours, sneak out to see if anything had been placed under the tree with my name on it and then sneak back to bed. Invariably, I would get not one item from the battered catalog. Not one.

Now don't get me wrong, after all the gifts were opened, I would sit amidst my stack of stuff completely satisfied without a backward glance at all of those unreceived marked toys. And my Mom was a great gift giver. She was thorough in making certain all of her four kids received the same number and value of gifts. Looking back, it was seeing her joy in giving that now means the most. She would sit on Christmas morning with a satisfied glimmer in her eyes to see the delight in ours.

This leads me to my thought for the week. Showing and sharing gratitude. This past week, my end of class reading was around the theme of recognizing that we are never too busy to be grateful. Just think about the last time someone publicly acknowledged a specific thing that you did. Or when you received that handwritten thank you note in the mail, or perhaps someone sent you a link to something that was brought up in a recent conversation. How did that make you feel?

With the infusion of technology in all aspects of our lives, we have lost the art of connecting directly with people. We are bombarded with numerous emails, tweets and posts every day that we have lost the fundamental practice of simply responding. It's maddening to send an email, text or leave a voicemail to never hear back from the person. Yet, if we did we would realize that this not only feels that we've been heard, but the residual impact is powerful.

The time it takes to respond, to be grateful, to acknowledge or say thanks has a far greater impact than we might think (or remember). And nobody is THAT busy that doing so is impossible. It only takes a short amount of time to tap into gratitude and let others know about it.

So for this holiday season, give the gift of gratitude. Not only will it feel great, but people might even thank you for it.