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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?
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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 …
Lies
Posted: December 20, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Asana, blogging, compassion, cycling, exercise, failure, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, happiness, health, kindness, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, paleo, passion, pilates, Practice, running, Self-compassion, Self-esteem, Self-Help, Spirituality & Religion, whole foods, WordPress, yoga 8 CommentsFailure is the condiment that gives success its flavour-
Search “self-help” this morning using your WordPress reader, and you are likely to find a billion posts listed under “self-esteem.” Let’s be fully open and honest – The sole purpose of these posts is to not only tell you why your self-esteem is suffering, but rather to guide your delicate heart to more of it.
Why is this so?
Self esteem is considered the pinnacle of true individual success. How can we possibly get ahead of the next person in life, unless we intimately believe we are perfect, and perfectly awesome!
In order to be perfectly awesome? We live in quiet terror of making mistakes in life, and we feel utterly devastated when we do. Our defense mechanism is to refocus our attention on the “things” we do well …
Stroking our own ego, relentlessly until our hearts forget this horrible episode of not being “awesome” and moving on to “something” more satisfying.
How does this relate to yoga practice, cycling, running and whatever else?
It’s important to understand, when I discuss self-compassion during a post … I’m discussion what self-compassion is not. Some folks like to think self-compassion is giving yourself a break, taking it easy. In essence self-compassion is simply accepting responsibility for, YOU. The difference lies not in where we end up during a flow of poses (the flow of life), but in how we process the ups and downs of the journey, our path in life.
Self-compassion is a willingness to look at our own mistakes and shortcomings with kindness and understanding – To err, is indeed human.
Daily Meditation:
The “trick” in life is to allow ourselves to make mistakes without feeling humiliated … Tune in and take notice of your abilities, your actions, and evaluate what needs to be done “differently” next time around.
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!
Am (I)
Posted: December 11, 2013 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Alternative, blogging, compassion, cycling, exercise, gluten free, happiness, health, Identity, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, paleo, perspective, pilates, Power Yoga, Practices, Question, recovery, Religion and Spirituality, running, self, trail running, whole foods, writing, yoga 8 CommentsNothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known-
Who are you?
A simple question, asked so very often, implying that there is actually a plausible answer. Almost as if our being were a fixed “thing” …
Who am I?
The irony that lies neatly at the heart of this question, is that the more we seek to identify who we are, the more fragile we are likely to become. The emphasis shouldn’t be on discovering who we are but on creating what we would like to experience in life.
Who defines you?
Our identity should be seen as an evolving process, rather than a static snapshot in time. Embrace a flowing sense of self – You.
Daily Meditation:
How different would life be, if rather than asking who am I … We contemplated how we’d like to engage and live – Life?
CultFit 