The Meeting
Posted: December 19, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: American, art, blogging, christmas, compassion, family, free range, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, holidays, kindness, life, Literature, love, meditation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, passion, perspective, Poetry, simplicity, World Literature, writing, yoga 5 Comments…
After so long an absence
At last we meet again:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken,
And but few of us linger now,
Like the Prophet’s two or three berries
In the top of the uttermost bough.
We cordially greet each other
In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas
And many a Happy New Year
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes,
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.
Skating
Posted: December 17, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: art, beauty, christmas, compassion, Enviroment, family, Freinds, happiness, health, holidays, ice skating, inspiration, kindness, life, love, meditation, memory, mental health, musings, nature, Omaha, passion, Power Yoga, Self-compassion, Self-esteem, Self-Help, Style, yoga 3 CommentsCompassion is the basis of morality-
Here is the flat-out, honest truth you have been searching for your entire life: You are going to screw up eventually.
Everyone, You, me – the dude picking his nose in the car next to you … Make many mistakes, daily.
A few times in the not so distant past, I have lamented painfully about self-compassion. Self-compassion (loosely defined) is the extent to which you treat yourself with kindness. Self-compassion differs from the likes self-esteem (its critical to note this), which is how good you feel about yourself. Self-compassion determines how well you spring back from adversity during the course of the day. Like getting down on ourselves when “things” go sideways … Treating ourselves and others with kindness, makes it infinitely easier to recover from harmful experience(s).
Daily Meditation:
When our sole focus is intent on protecting our self-esteem, we can’t afford to look at ourselves objectively, honestly and with a pure heart. We fail to acknowledge the need for improvement, because it means acknowledging weaknesses, shortcomings and maybe – That we screwed up somewhere in our past …
Aburrimiento
Posted: December 16, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, Boredom, compassion, Emotion, exercise, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, hope, Iowa, kindness, life, love, meditation, mental health, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, perspective, running, Templeton Rye, trail running, twitter, writing, yoga 4 CommentsIs life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves-
With our attention spans dwindling every second this Holiday season, our impatience increases twofold.
Feeling stuck in the moment … Painfully listening to a co-worker’s weekend escapades in Templeton, Iowa, waiting in line for a cold latte that arrives ten minutes too late … The more agitated we feel and the more agitated we become. Stuck with no cell access in a morning meeting, no Twitter on our gadgets, our anxiety increases with the slow passage of time. What can we do during these painful moments?
My cure for “boredom” is to make life interesting, stimulating and fun. Maintaining an emotional balance also requires finding the time for “boring” meditation practice, resting my mind and body …
Daily Meditation:
Recognize your boredom this morning. This is all I ask of you before the Holidays set in, settling in to agitate and overwhelm us. When we start practicing now, before we sense ennui enveloping our bodies and spirit? Awareness is a beautiful antidote to boredom.
*It’s also a great method to not getting injured during the winter months*
Armonía
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, exercise, fitness, Forgiveness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, happiness, health, hope, Inner peace, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, paleo, passion, peace, perspective, pilates, running, Thought, trail running, whole foods, writing, yoga 6 CommentsOne of the keys to happiness is a bad memory-
What does our inner self sound like when it gently whispers to the world? My inner self, sounds like peace – and swearing, swearing then peace – something to that extent …
It’s interesting to witness someone in the throes of exploring the sound of their authentic self during yoga class, even while changing a newborns diaper (anything). Very often we will ask the instructor, a dear friend or our mother in law, what they think is going on: “Hey – Do you think I’m…?” they, too frequently responding with, “Yeah, you’re probably right …” Or, if we don’t ask, we just make assumptions based on what’s happening within our mind(s), based on the worst case scenario(s): “I guess I just suck at yoga … Damn dirty diapers!”
This deflating inner dialog leads us away from our true authentic self.
Peace, is calling us home through these trying moments in our lives. We can say “Fu*k it” and choose to ignore peace, continuing on the same path that created the resentment, the bitterness. We can choose to partially ignore it, and partially listen to it (men have perfected this tactic), leaving ourselves sitting perpetually on the fence, giving ourselves halfheartedly to the world …
Daily Meditation:
Or, we can choose to listen to ourselves, honor our deepest truth(s) and begin to do “things” – Differently.
Be well this weekend and please take care!
Love After Love
Posted: December 12, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Arts, blogging, compassion, Derek Walcott, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, Literature, love, Love After Love (poem), meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, passion, perspective, pilates, Poetry, Prose, relationships, Romance, simplicity, writing, yoga 15 Comments…
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.





