Zen

"The only zen you find on the tops of mountains is the zen you bring up there."
~Robert Pirsig

My Mum, sister Karen, and baby niece Melody flew from NH to OH to visit me this past weekend. It was a delightful whirlwind of baby baths in the kitchen sink, diaper changes, feedings with many, many spoons, and lots and lots of Graeter's ice cream for the grown-ups! It was my niece's first plane ride, and she's only six months old. My first flight was when I was 18, and I chose Paris, France as my destination (daring, yes?). I have loved everything about flying since that first jaunt to Paris: meeting random inspirational people in airports, trying to squeeze into a bathroom stall with a rolling suitcase, take-offs and landings, cocktail napkins with cheesy airline slogans, etc. But my absolute favorite thing is the window of time right after I breeze through security and arrive at my gate and right before my flight starts to board. Those are true moments of zen for me (please note: I always arrive 2 hours early, so this gives me plenty of time to just hang out). The only place I have to be is right where I am. I don't have any responsibilities to distract me like laundry or cleaning. I can just sit back and relax. I often people-watch, and I do a good deal of writing in these moments of presence. The announcements over the loud speaker serve as a lullaby to calm my nervous system. I am usually so jazzed up about flying to wherever I am going that it helps for me to have some down time to pause and reflect on the here and now. We have all experienced these moments at one time or another, and this peace that we discover can be tapped into at any time. The trick is knowing how to access it. I would recommend thinking back to a time when you felt centered and totally in the moment. Connect with your 5 senses to re-create the location, smells, colors, and energy of this moment in your mind. Any time you feel like you need a mini-vacation, you can tap into your inner zen moment without even having to get on a plane!

What are some of your favorite zen moments?

Choose love,
Grace

Joyful Abundance

My sister recently commented on my blog posting and asked me to write about "finding a balance between saving money and enjoying/living life to the fullest!" Here you go, Karen!

The consciousness and self-awareness books and information that I've read lately reiterate the same idea over and over again: You can have anything your heart desires! It is only your belief that you can't have it that holds you back from getting what you want. In simple terms, it's all in your head. I'm in no way implying that you are crazy for thinking you need to save money. Obviously, it's hard to live from a place of abundance if you are living "paycheck to paycheck" or just scraping by financially, but the fact of the matter is, the more you think about being poor, the more poor you will become. It's a simple cycle governed by the natural laws of the universe.

So I would rephrase Karen's question about finding balance between frugality and joy to be: "How can I change how I think about money in order to support the lifestyle that I desire?" I have a few ideas for you.

First, be grateful for what you already have. This helps you to experience life from a place of abundance, rather than a place of lack. Next, trust that there is plenty of abundance for everyone (more than enough to go around!), so there is no need to hoard what you do have (which links back to my blog about giving). Another important piece of this equation is defining the word "expensive". People often place different definitions on the same word. Perhaps you can change the word "expensive" to something like "valuable". This slight change in adjective shifts the meaning from "financially unreachable" to "something important to me that would be worthwhile to invest in." Then you could do a visualization or meditation on how it would feel to actually HAVE the thing that you want. The energy that you bring to the surface when you do this will create more abundance in this area. I also love creating discovery collages to help guide my subconscious thoughts toward my desired outcome. I have found them to be incredibly effective ways of manifesting my dreams. I created a collage before my yoga teacher training that has truly inspired me along the way. So cut out images of the things you want, glue them to a piece of paper, and hang it in a place where you can look at it all the time. Feel like those things are ALREADY YOURS. Say thank you. And let the magic unfold...

What language can you change to bring you closer to abundance?

Choose love,
Grace

Light

I taught my first yoga class on Tuesday night! It was both terrifying and exhilerating. I chose to weave a theme about light into my script for the evening. This was my introduction:

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Close your eyes, and visualize a small, glowing ball of light at the center of your being. It's about the size of a tennis ball, and it can be white or any color of your choosing. This light symbolizes love, space, comfort, peace and any other intention you may have for your practice. Now visualize the ball expanding to double its' size. As you move and breathe today, allow the ball of light to spread throughout your whole body. If you are struggling in a pose, breathe light into any areas of discomfort. Trust in your light. Be grateful for your light.

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Our inner energy, spirit, soul (whatever word you'd like to use to define the center of our being) is always accessible to guide and support us.

"...We do not need to bring our real Self, our higher Self, into existence. It has always been there, yearning to be out. An incomparable spark of divinity is to be found in the heart of each human being, waiting to radiate love and wisdom everywhere, because that is its nature. Amazing!" -- Eknath Easwaran (from "Timeless Wisdom")

We proclaim "Namaste" at the end of every class, which can be translated as: the divine light in me honors the divine light in you.

How can you share your radiant light with others today?

Enlightening Snow

Puffy white flakes descend from the sky like sifted flour. Icycles hang heavy on bowed power lines. I am blessed to have been given permission from my compassionate boss to work from home today. I am perfectly capable of navigating the roads in blizzard-y conditions, but today I am choosing to avoid the possibility of car or bodily damage today. The risk is too great.

So I sit stretched out on my futon with my laptop perched on my legs, fingers rapidly tapping the keyboard. I am facing the living room's picture window, and my periferal vision keeps getting interrupted by the pure whiteness of the falling flakes. I look up, and I am hooked. I sit mesmerized at mother nature's creative genius, and I begin to zone out. I am practicing dharana without even trying. Dharana is the fifth limb of yoga (there are 8 altogether, which when practiced together lead you to enlightenment), and it simply means meditating on an object. The possibilities are endless as far as what kind of an object to use. In my teacher training we practiced a meditation while staring into the flame of a candle, trying hard not to blink. Focusing on your breath (a popular form of meditation) is another form of dharana. It helps to bring you out of your mind and into a space of freedom, openness and lightness. I used to think that meditation had to be done in a cross-legged or lotus position, hands on knees, eyes closed, and you had to try to shut your mind off somehow. These expectations seemed very uncomfortable and pretty much impossible to me. But I am learning that there is a wide depth to meditation techniques, and this revelation brings me great joy.

All of my attention is focused on the falling snow, and I observe it without judgement, letting my thoughts flow in and out of my mind with gentleness.

What are some other objects that could aid in meditation?

Choosing love and safety,
Grace