Compare
Posted: December 31, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, cycling, exercise, family, free range, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, holidays, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, New Year, New Year's, Omaha, paleo, passion, perspective, pilates, running, sports, Thought, trail running, walking, What the Hell, whole foods, WOD, writing, yoga 13 CommentsMy beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world-
A former hockey coach once pulled me aside during practice to tell me, “Don’t beat yourself up comparing your abilities to the other players. There will always be players better than you, and worse than you. The most important “thing” is to ask yourself right now: “Am I improving?”
What the hell did that coach just tell me? Seriously old dude, I’m 19, in peak physical shape, my sh!t don’t stink and I’m playing the best hockey of my life …
Fast forward 19 years, and what my caring coach so passionately shared with me – Not comparing myself to “others” is often easier said than done. Open up your heart and eyes this morning and take notice of how we are constantly being bombarded by advertisements preying on our insecurities: You have been a bum all year, You are fat and out of shape, You ate one too many eggnog cheesecake(s) within the past week. Our addiction to social media feeds our jealousy by creating the illusion that other people are living happier, more fulfilling lives than our own.
On this, the most vulnerable day of the year (for many caring people). I implore you to stop comparing yourself to others, and instead compare yourself to the person you were one year ago – right now. Are you happier, more confident and peaceful?
Daily Meditation:
Getting in tune with our true wishes, our deepest wishes that lie underneath our insecurities and envy? Is hard work, and it’s certainly not cool to boast about on FaceTube. What the hell am I trying to say? Setting an intention this New year … Is pretty damn cool!
Alive, I
Posted: December 23, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, christmas, compassion, Contentment, cycling, Everyday life, exercise, family, Festivus, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, happiness, health, hipster, holidays, hope, kettlebell, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, passion, perspective, pilates, recovery, running, Silence, trail running, whole foods, writing, yoga 16 CommentsIn Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves-
How different would everyday life become, if we embraced silence?
…
Over the course of writing this blog-o-thing I have adapted a leisurely pace in life … Attending more yoga classes, spending more time unconnected from the web and partaking in long, flowing bike rides without a care in the world.
As Festivus and winter set in, the bikes resting at ease in the front bedroom. I turned my attention homeward, focusing more on the events of my daily life. It truly is possible to attend a silent retreat, where my only interactions with my surroundings are with a smile and an attentive ear. I stopped listening to the radio while driving, the TV stays off when I get home from work and magically … My son and I are reading more in front of the fireplace.
It is such a relief to be free of “noise” … The stillness in my heart is based solely on silence rather than a frantic beat or change in tempo.
I have begun to notice in this “silence,” the crunch of salt on the walkways leading into work, the rustle of a few stubborn leaves in the breeze, a red tail hawk gliding past …
Silence has kindly given me clarity and inspiration.
Daily Meditation:
Be kind your body and heart today …
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.
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.
CultFit 