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Gratefulness uplifts the heart and brings peace to the soul.

By its very nature, gratefulness appreciates, and even celebrates what is now in the moment.

Desire can relax its usually contracted muscle that is forever looking longingly to the next moment for its fulfillment.

However, we cannot be naive: many things are simply not okay as they are.

It might seem paradoxical, but ultimately we need to embrace change and a larger kind of gratefulness–one that includes our creative spirits’ continual search and efforts to do whatever it takes to improve ourselves, the lives of others, and the world.

 

Magnanimous self-righteousness protects the rights of others.

However, petty self-righteousness is mesmerized by hurt feelings. Self-righteousness is a disguise these slighted feelings wear to justify being indignant.

Rather than being fooled by these antics of the ego, sit with hurt feelings.

Hurt feelings hurt.  Be with them and with any anger, fear, and sadness that may arise.

Do not allow them to fester.

Offer them to the fire of yoga, and they will be transformed in the crucible of love by the heart.

With such kindness to yourself and your pain, compassion transforms it like the alchemists once dreamed into gold, inexplicably growing the human heart.

 

There’s little in life that is as soothing as the rhythmic sounds of the ocean waves coming in… and going out….

It calms our frazzled nerves.  It is a salve for the soul.

With ujjayi breathing in yoga and meditation, you inhale and exhale through your nose and slightly constrict the back of your throat creating the sounds of the ocean.

Breathing in… and breathing out….

Waves crash… a light surf…

They, and all their benefits, are just a breath away!

 

One of the most important and supportive things you can say to loved ones:

I respect you and your journey as a fellow human being.

 

Our life really is a journey with our evolution of soul at its heart.

Life and all its challenges, twists and turns, and decisions appears so different from this vantage point–that we are all evolving souls.

Seeing us as egos relegates life to a barrage of petty reactions.  But once seen as souls evolving, life and its decisions take on a much grander purpose, more vibrant!

Yoga and mediation are tools to transport us to this different and majestic perspective.

I am never entirely positive or negative.  I am always a unity of both as is all life.

There are no cure alls for all that life throws our way.  I feel that I need glasses with a constantly changing prescription so that I may remain somewhat awake to this moment and not cloud or disguise it so much with all my suppositions and expectations and judgements.

Seek silence.  Feel it.  Savor and enjoy it.  But do not try to contain it.  It’s too alive for that!

Faith is a muscle.  What are some positive ways I can exercise and strengthen it?

I would rather be cared for than worried about.

Denying dark or negative moods, thoughts, or emotions is like saying there should always be daytime and no night, or just high notes in music, but no low.  It is a forever-doomed folly to try to eradicate the night.

You cannot save another from their own darkness as much as you would like to. You can be there for them; you can support them with your heart.  But in the end, everyone needs to find their own source of light.

Meditation has repeatedly taught me to attach less to my negative thoughts–anxiety, sadness, lack of courage, self-pity, pain….  To have compassion for them, to embrace them, and yet to attach less to them.

I have come, with practice, to realize these are passing clouds, dark ones in a vast blue sky of the mind.

They are passing–here, and then gone–to be replaced by new thoughts, some more uplifting than others.

The key, for me at least, seems to be to not obsess about these ominously dark clouds, these negative thoughts and feelings.

To love the depth of the sky and the mind with these rich complexities of hues and thoughts.

To accept and embrace all that comes to the sky or mind, including, and sometimes most difficultly, the darker thoughts and feelings.

To truly love them with compassion, accepting, gently holding them in the heart, and eventually letting them fade away.

To detach as best I can and not have them shape too much of my actions or words.

At times I thankfully realize I am not really any of these thoughts or feelings–negative or positive.

I feel myself, on these fortunate occasions, being the expansive sky, the thought-free mind.

I expand into it whole-heartedly watching the menajerie of clouds or thoughts at play, coming and going across this beautiful field that contains and holds all, with no judgement, for a time, in its stillness.

 

Conflict can be difficult.

Yoga can teach skills in negotiation and help in finding solutions that work for everyone involved.

Balance as in tree pose–Take the needs and interests of everyone involved and find a solution that mutually benefits, or balances the interest of those involved.

Tadasana–Stand in yourself, yet open to others, firmly rooted and rising up.

Witness state (in yoga poses and meditation)–Become the witness of conflict.  Respect and honor it as part of the process of solving problems.  Do not identify with and become consumed by strong and ephemeral emotional states.  Breathe!  Be the witness.

Warrior–Be brave and true to your interests and needs while remaining balanced, respecting the interests and needs of others.  Have honor.

Savasana-Let go of agendas; step out of your previous fixated viewpoint for a moment or two, and come back refreshed having given space for new solutions to arise.

Namaste–Bow to the higher power or best in you and me out of mutual respect and love, honoring the wisdom that uplifts and benefits everyone involved.

Namaste!

In between the breath as you inhale, and exhale, there’s an almost imperceptible pause or gap.  Similarly, in our busy mind, there’s a gap or space between our thoughts.

In meditation, with practice, these gaps expand.  The breath and the mind, inexorably linked, slow down.

As this once imperceptible gap expands, the mind and breath may even seem, at times, to stop.

This gap may grow to be an ever-expansive space.

Time may seem to stop… or not exist at all.

You can relax into this silence.

There only seems to be this moment, now!

Welcome to the space of the heart.

Meditate!

You are worthy; we all are.

You can’t tell me a little newborn baby is not worthy.

We all were that!

 

Perfectionism is a form of unworthiness, a particularly insidious form.

In the name of correctness, it wields heavy blows.

It accepts no one–not you nor me–as adequate; in the eyes of perfectionism, nothing can ever measure up.

However, playing with precision in something you care about is not perfectionism.

Free and joyful expressions, with whatever precision you’re capable of in the moment, celebrates and appreciates life’s expansiveness, and its complexities and nuances.

It is a tool to free yourself of perfectionism, one to openly explore this marvelous life.

Take care of this body, this miraculous organism we get to travel in and be for a lifetime.

Like any organism, it needs tending and care–good food, movement, plenty of water, rest….

Make your body your friend.

As it has problems, do what you can to support it and help it heal. Be kind and compassionate to your body, especially when it hurts.

And know its growth and deterioration are part of the same cycle of nature all organisms are subject to.  Illness and health are both lessons about life, if we are willing to listen and fully participate.

There’s no ride like it, nor any vehicle so amazing in all its functions and capabilities, and  its vulnerabilities and frailties.

This is life!