Ways to Increase Connection

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Note to Self...

 

Be honest. It will clear the obstacles from your life and allow others to give you the support you really need. It will bring back your voice, the one you lost many moons ago. It will bring to you a great sense of relief. There is a surrendering in honesty. A surrendering, not of your personal power to an external force, but of your own inner monster to your next most radiant Self. Surrender is the foundation for personal power. There is a saying: you are as sick as your secrets.

 

Acknowledge what you want. The objects of your desires are not what cause suffering. It is the suppression of the desire (a self-denial) or the identification to it (the great illusion) that causes suffering. Our desires guide us to our bigger hungers. An unquenchable desire for material things may mean a misdirected hunger for intimacy and true connection to others.

 

Embrace Tantrums and Mistakes. Tantrums are okay. Kids have them, and then they move on. As adults, we carry them for years. We don’t have them because they make everyone else uncomfortable, which makes us uncomfortable. The result is that our upsets come out sideways. I’m sure you’ve seen sideways. Very scary. As human beings, we are loaded with emotions. They are there to be paid attention to, rather than dismissed, like the dashboard of our car. More often, we stuff our emotions, and we identify with them, letting them dictate who we are, and then we use them to criticize, judge, and enroll others in our stories. Have an honest tantrum and get it over with! But this doesn’t mean use someone else as a punching bag. It means express that you are upset, hurt, and angry. Mistakes? Take the “wrong” turn and you will learn something new. I know. I am queen of making mistakes!

 

Go for Satisfaction. This may make you uncomfortable, but it will increase your Bliss Factor. It’s much less comfortable living in your own skin knowing you’ve walked past a plethora of opportunities. And there are plethoras. You owe it to yourself.

 

Laugh. As often as possible.

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Anecdote to Stress, Fatigue and a long To-Do List

Historically, when I felt anxious, overwhelmed, and completely stressed out, I would go into my soft addictions, which, for me, are eating, talking on the phone, and napping. The one thing I can tell you for sure is that I never felt replenished or energized afterwards. My stressors did not go away. In fact, the monsters grew.

What to do? I am stressed from work and need to step away. Yoga and meditation would probably feel great, but I can’t get to a yoga studio at the moment, and I am distracted by the housekeeping duties that my house nags, and I know I ought to move my body to get my energy flowing…

How do I find nourishment when I am feeling low energy and in scarcity mode? Can’t I nap first and figure it out in 15 (actually 60) minutes?

So I tried something new. I started by drinking a tall glass of water. I realized that I was thirsty after all and didn’t even know it. Then I started picking up the stuff, from where I call the “hotspots,” where things tend to accumulate: my workspace, the kitchen counter, the dining room table, and so on. I turned on some of my favorite yoga music, connected to my breath, and put away one thing at a time with no other thought than the task at hand: this book goes here. these go there. I sprayed and wiped my countertops with my preferred Bliss flavor of the day until I got them clean and shiny. Somehow I forget how good the aromatherapy makes me feel. I proceeded to put the dishes away. The shoes. And so on.

The next thing I know, not only did I find parts of my house cleaner and less cluttered, I also found myself cleaner and less cluttered… I moved through my emotional disarray. All at once, I took care of my space, I moved my body, got intimate with my stuff (finding gratitude for what I already had), got my yoga and meditation in by being in the moment. Mindfulness. I like to call it Pure Presence.

I read somewhere, “studies show that mindfulness can be helpful in stopping ruminations over things that cause stress.. it helps people keep from dwelling on negative thoughts. Mindfulness can also be used to decrease anxiety over the future. It can provide a break from stressful thoughts and allow you to take a mental break and gain perspective, among other things (I found this in my notes, but without a source– I apologize).

I found a great quote by Winston Churchill who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Indulging in soft addiction is sort of like stopping in hell and anesthisizing myself. Feels good for the moment. The problem is, once the numbing is gone, I am still in hell, and it is looking bigger than ever. Homecaring is choosing to keep on walking, and mindfully “cleaning house,” on all levels. It connects you to your space, your abundance, and it also crosses off multiple things on your to-do list, which is an excellent added benefit!

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How To Be Alone

I found this fantastic YouTube video this morning called How To Be Alone, written by Tanya Davis, so I wanted to share this with you. What I discovered is that when I am alone, I don't miss a whole lot because I have the space to connect with everything inside and outside of me. Then when I am with others, I come from me.

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Relationships

I am who I am and that is that,

I am who you are looking back,

You are who I am, can you imagine that?

-Guru Singh Khalsa

 

Do you know what makes relationships so fun? Knowing that the other person is simply a reflection of you. There is no ‘other person’. Which means, in essence, we are playing with ourselves. Ha-ha!

Relationships are mirrors, reflecting the current status of our relationship to Self.

When I am disconnected with myself, so are my connections to others.  Likewise, when I am fully in my own space, my connection to others couldn’t be better.

Everything is feedback.

What I experience through my relationships reveal if I am lying to myself or if I am living authentically; if I am giving myself away or if I value myself. This awareness is a gift, for it allows me to change something in myself when I don’t like what I see in the other person, or in my connection with the other person. It is like realizing that I am in a dream, and then finding that I can control what I do in my dream. Taking control of our dreams gets easier with practice. Same of our lives. Anyway, I am all that I have in my control, though my thoughts and actions seem to ripple out and affect change in everything else around me. More feedback! Sometimes I like what I see, and sometimes I don’t. On the other hand, to try and change another person is like trying to comb my hair through the mirror… gotta laugh at myself for trying.

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Role of Relationships

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I am who I am and that is that,

I am who you are looking back,

You are who I am, can you imagine that?

-Guru Singh Khalsa

 

Do you know what makes relationships so fun? Knowing that the other person is simply a reflection of you. There is no ‘other person’. Which means, in essence, we are playing with ourselves. Ha-ha!

 

Relationships are mirrors, reflecting the current status of our relationship to Self.

 

When I am disconnected with myself, so are my connections to others.  Likewise, when I am fully in my own space, my connection to others couldn’t be better.

Everything is feedback.

What I experience through my relationships reveal if I am lying to myself or if I am living authentically; if I am giving myself away or if I value myself. This awareness is a gift, for it allows me to change something in myself when I don’t like what I see in the other person, or in my connection with the other person. It is like realizing that I am in a dream, and then finding that I can control what I do in my dream. Taking control of our dreams gets easier with practice. Same of our lives. Anyway, I am all that I have in my control, though my thoughts and actions seem to ripple out and affect change in everything else around me. More feedback! Sometimes I like what I see, and sometimes I don’t. On the other hand, to try and change another person is like trying to comb my hair through the mirror… gotta laugh at myself for trying.

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It's that simple

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Trusting the possibilities that change offers

Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote, “the only things certain in life are death and taxes” left out one thing: CHANGE. It happens whether we like it or not. Even when we decide not to make a change, we change, and everything around us changes. That's why things that served us once no longer do. In fact, we expect it. We expect expansion and growth. Can you imagine if, day after day, a flower bud remained a flower bud and never bloomed? And things must also come to an end to make space for new beginnings and new possibilities.

Resistance to it is what I find so curious. Why are we so inclined towards choosing the safety net that we clearly know causes us pain and, at the very least, atrophy?

We tend to focus more on the possibility that things may get worse; that we might fail. We lack trust in our own power to make things great. So we don’t act, and we stay alive for another day, month, year, decade, lifetime, filling our minds, and more accurately, every cell in our body, with justifications. We feel dis-ease.

When something no longer serves me, as scary as change may be, the idea of that very thing staying the same for the rest of my life, or even for the next few years, or months, is even scarier. At times, downright horrifying. It comes down to choosing one type of scary over another. Choosing safety, I find, is disempowering, because typically, it cost me something really big: a part of me that wants to live a powerful, authentic life. Letting go and choosing change, assuming it is in line with my truth, is Empowering with a capital E, because I trusted myself and the process. I listened to, and surrendered to my inner voice.  And that’s the thing. No matter what happens, when my fear is harnessed and I make the leap, I’ve made a huge deposit into my own Empowerment.

Stepping into the unknown can be a bit scary, it is exciting as well. I find that the very idea of it, when a big one is called for, changes the very pattern of my breath, causing my heart and belly to ache.  I am scared shitless. And I feel more alive. Facing the unknown can be like facing death. In fact, it seems many of us would rather face death than the unknown. What we are talking about here – change – does not usually translate into literal death but the end of a part of our world as we know it and into a new one. It translates into a chance at feeling a wide range of emotions (this is a positive because what is the alternative?), experiencing new things, growing, expanding, getting rid of dead weight, and dare I say, becoming happier and more satisfied. And perhaps getting what we want in the process.

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Creativity and Being in My Element

In my research over the past couple of months, I keep running into Sir Ken Robinson, who is known as an internationally renowned expert in the field of creativity and innovation in business and education.

According to Robinson, we have a very limited view of intelligence, and that we confuse it with academic ability. We have a tendency to place creativity and intelligence in two separate categories when, in fact, creativity is fundamentally linked to intelligence. “Education as it is structured today is geared towards the industrial era,” and in light of current economics, “imagination and creativity is what we will need more than anything else in today’s world.”

At every moment, we create. In order to create harmony in this world, we want to create harmony within our world. In order to create harmony within ourselves, we want to be in line with our true nature. Robinson calls this ‘being in our Element’.

To find my element, I pay attention to what inspires me, what makes me want to get up in the morning, what causes me to forget about time and what nourishes me. I also pay attention to my fears, hungers and justifications. More often, my fear has nothing to do with a lion running after me, and more to do with going out of my comfort zone because I am afraid of the unknown, afraid of not being accepted, afraid to fail, or perhaps to succeed. This is important to note, because it means my fear is something to harness rather than to run away from and hold me back.

To live in my element and create what I desire, I make intentions, and I keep my focus on my intentions as my guiding force, then I surrender to the creative process, holding on to my discipline, and at the same time, I ask myself, “am I having fun?” Because if the answer is “no,” I know to realign. The more I stay in my element, the smarter I become. Because when I am in my element, that is, in my own space, I love what I take in and what I share, and I retain everything and see different sides in everything. And it’s fun. In contrast, when I am out of it, my IQ, my EQ, and all of my other cues feel completely downshifted.  

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Creativity and Being in My Element

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 In my research over the past couple of months, I keep running into Sir Ken Robinson, who is known as an internationally renowned expert in the field of creativity and innovation in business and education.

 

According to Robinson, we have a very limited view of intelligence, and that we confuse it with academic ability. We have a tendency to place creativity and intelligence in two separate categories when, in fact, creativity is fundamentally linked to intelligence. “Education as it is structured today is geared towards the industrial era,” and in light of current economics, “imagination and creativity is what we will need more than anything else in today’s world.”

 

At every moment, we create. In order to create harmony in this world, we want to create harmony within our world. In order to create harmony within ourselves, we want to be in line with our true nature. Robinson calls this ‘being in our Element’.

 

To find my element, I pay attention to what inspires me, what makes me want to get up in the morning, what causes me to forget about time and what nourishes me. I also pay attention to my fears, hungers and justifications. More often, my fear has nothing to do with a lion running after me, and more to do with going out of my comfort zone because I am afraid of the unknown, afraid of not being accepted, afraid to fail, or perhaps to succeed. This is important to note, because it means my fear is something to harness rather than to run away from and hold me back.

 

To live in my element and create what I desire, I make intentions, and I keep my focus on my intentions as my guiding force, then I surrender to the creative process, holding on to my discipline, and at the same time, I ask myself, “am I having fun?” Because if the answer is “no,” I know to realign. The more I stay in my element, the smarter I become. Because when I am in my element, that is, in my own space, I love what I take in and what I share, and I retain everything and see different sides in everything. And it’s fun. In contrast, when I am out of it, my IQ, my EQ, and all of my other cues feel completely downshifted.  

 

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Being in the Process

I had recently completed 1000 days of two 31-minute meditations. What was really cool about embarking on this sort of commitment is that I couldn't focus on the finish line; it's just too far away. I took it one day at a time. There is so much joy and freedom in letting go of the need to get from point A to point B in such a hurry. I knew about the benefits of doing the two particular meditations, but what I did not know is that I would also receive this incredible gift of cultivating the ability to enjoy the process. The present moment. Yesterday afternoon, I slipped into a funk. I intentionally curled up into a ball under the covers and allowed myself to feel what I felt for exactly 10 minutes. I reminded myself to breathe in, breathe out, exhaling out the funk. When my timer beeped, I looked around at all of my blessings and smiled a smile of gratitude. Then I said, "what's next?" and I moved on.

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Communication for Pure Presence

At Pure Presence, between me, Tricia & Jenilyn, we had agreed to post weekly. So far we've posted one this month, thanks to Jenilyn, and the topic that we've dedicated for this month is Communication. None of us have called each other on the missing posts. Isn't that a riot?

Once upon a time when I worked in corporate, one of my fellow associates shared with me the story about his daughter who hid her report card from him in fear of the consequences. He said to her, "the sign of maturity is in one's ability to share bad news." To this day, I have carried those words with me, and they have nudged and guided me, because I really want to be mature, most of the time.

For me, I find it challenging to share even good news, like the gifts I see in others. Have you ever tried expressing to another person your acknowledgment or gratitude for him or her?

What is hard to communicate is revealing anything that let's another person in. Usually it's the thing that makes me really uncomfortable and offers me little idea where this risk is going to take me. It makes me fear death of some sort because the feeling is, I am not going to survive this. Yet paradoxically, when I can pull away from my drama and witness what is really going on with me, I see that this very act of communicating brings me to life. I go into Pure Presence, and obstacles begin to dissolve. Even if the result is not what I hoped for, I feel fully and everything is flowing inside of me.The Universe takes over and gifts me with blessings my analytical mind could never conceive.

Tricia- you're up next week.

 

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Food, Space and Hunger to Experience Fully

If I have an addiction to anything, it is to food. I love to eat.

Yoga says silence awakens us to what is in our subconscious. Silence is Space. This is why many of us have noise continuously turned on in the background- music, television, white noise, anything. Just don't bring on the subconscious-- it freaks us out to know what's there. The news is much more palatable than our own buried thoughts.

Our own Jenilyn took a week hiatus from words, which include reading, television and radio. Talk about creating space! An empty stomach also creates space. If you are anything like me, television has no power over you.. it's food. Not surprisingly, I am a grazer.

Try not eating. The space and the clarity that comes from it is POWERFUL. And the dullness, the maya (illusion) fades. You are left with inner voices of Truth that prompt change. It can be so scary, the urge to eat will likely come. Or, as with any other addiction, you will find other distractions. Drink anyone? Shopping? Recue others? 10 mile run?

What is the clarity I am hiding from? Perhaps I ought to find a way to directly satiate my hunger. I hunger to matter, to be loved, to make a difference, to be touched. To experience fully. Yeah. I can do that. Can't I?

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Healing, Passion and a Cure to Stress

A friend just forwarded me an AWESOME article called: the suck factor of life balance, + passion as a cure to stress by Danielle LaPorte.

LaPorte says: Getting "balanced" is not the remedy to stress. Passion is. 

Here are my favorite parts of her article:

If consensus is overrated, I think balance is too. I have no interest in living 
a balanced life. I want a life of adventure.
- Chris Guillebeau

In the end, the quest for balance is bogus. Love your burdens. Love them hard. And when your loves knock you down or your weak ankles trip you up, stop worrying about balancing - 'cuz you're not - and bounce.
- Kelly Diels

Life balance. Low fat cheese. Walking shoes. Small talk.
Life balance. The term makes me feel bloated and late for my own party.
Life balance. Stressful.

The pursuit of balance makes us juggle. It puts us behind (always behind,) makes us guilty, neglectful, imbalanced. It's as useful a concept as original sin. You can never get it right.

If you want to do great things, striving for balance is a losing game. I don't think remarkable artists, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs, or generous souls set out on their giving journeys with the aim to be measured and harmonious. Meeting your potential is inherently full of tension (creative tension.) Trying to be balanced about it is onerous and futile.

This is not a balanced life. But it works. And the more I pursue my passions, the more uncomplicated my life gets, actually. There's not much in my life that I resent. And if resentment builds, I'm swift to get it off my plate. It's not the imbalance-ness that stresses me, it's doing meaningless things that aren't taking me where I want to go.

When passion is a priority - passion for family, vocation, for meaning - your energy intensifies. And when your energy is more focused, more, "aimed", you begin to care less about the things that don't really matter. You avoid crappy jobs, you stop over-controlling your kids, you nag and complain much less - with everyone. You get the help you need to pull off the important things - whether you're a CEO or an aspiring freelancer, and that support takes the form of a house cleaner, a VA, or a friend or mentor to jam with.

REFUSE TO BE BALANCED
When you refuse the banality of balance and go for full on life (which includes full on productivity and full on stillness,) you'll see the inevitable mess of it all as something more beautiful and purposeful - full of peaks and valleys - an adventure. The climb can be rigorous, grueling sometimes, but the air is cleaner, and the view will blow your mind. The fruit you'll find on your own tilted path is so much sweeter - and there's so much more of it to share.

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On Health

When it comes to health, there are so many modalities, so many thoughts on this topic, so many ways to define it.
All I know is that when I am happy because I take care of myself and show up in my life -not for anyone else, but for me- then I tend to be less injury prone, less prone to become victim of circumstance, and less prone to get sick.
If I had to get to the core of what boosts immunity, I would say that it is in devoting to a practice that develops a high level of trust in knowing that everything is taken care of, offers a nurturing discipline to consistently show up for myself, and allows for a sense of humor that I not take anything too seriously. 

And to take long, deep breaths...

To good health, Everyone!

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what we do when no one is watching...

Download now or watch on posterous

Movie 355.mov (20120 KB)

...and nothing else is flowing.
(you can only laugh with us, not at us)

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Speaking of love... and my 1000 days

Many of you know that I am getting close to the end of my 1000 day meditations: Sodarshan and Sat Kriyas. It ends April 19. Already, I plan to continue on with Sodarshan because it is helping me through the critical transitions that I am currently going through in my life. It is grounding me in my own space. At this moment, the Sat Kriya is kicking my ass; it is difficult to get through and I can hardly take the physical sensations I experience as I practice it. How I know which kriya is doing what I will never understand, but I do.

Today, the Sat Kriya is once again blowing my heart wide open. The elevation is remarkable. The feeling of love overwhelming. Love of what? Everything. If I had to guess what it felt like to be on ecstacy, this might be it. But not really. The experience is pure, profound and expansive. It's not all joy, however. There is a small element of pain infused into it. Nothing devastating, just this feeling of connection to all that exists in this world. I don't know what to do with this energy, but it feels safe and grounding.I suppose the idea is to just let it flow and allow it to become a part of me.

My very first sensational experience since I've started the 1000 days was this heart-opening that I just mentioned which happened around day 120. Subsequently, as these meditations began to work on a different level, a different aspect of me, I literally felt myself "walking through" a door or passage into the next part of myself that was to be cleared, or worked on. It's been a while since I've experienced this walk-thru. Here it is now, the explosion- my circle back perhaps for A-prime. Could it be an accident that my son comes home with a song to practice for a school performance from Whitney Houston called "The Greatest Love of All [is happening to me]," a song I haven't heard in how many years? "I found the greatest love of all inside of me." I've run into a number of energy healers and lightworkers lately and the message to me is "take care of yourself," "nurture yourself." I've been doing that, yes. Partially. But take it to a whole new level, and I don't think I've even scratched the surface.

I feel more vulnerable and at the same time more in my power. I have never felt more at a pivotal moment in my life than I am right now.

My request to the Universe is to keep sending angels my way that will support my growth and love me in a kinder, more gentler way.  

Sat nam.

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Love and Tennis

I looked up the word love, and there was another definition besides deep affection towards another person. In tennis, love is a score of zero, or nothing.

I love that.

In yoga, there is this word suniaa, which means nothing. Zero point. This is what we, in our practice, strive for. And upon reaching this zero point, all at once we become everything. Within this nothingness, we create a new pattern of being, of greatness. It is at this point that we step into our highest potential.

In love, my ego, my boundaries, disappear, and I become One. With this world, I become We. When I am in love with a man, and he loves me, he and I become We. Time no longer exists and creation under the purest form of engagement, or ultimate pleasure, erupts. From what? From a simple desire to be touched, understood, seen, loved. And from a natural desire to expand, becoming nothing and everything.

A feeling (love as an emotion) becomes expression (love as action) and everything is permanently altered. The attachment, the oneness, the energetic connection is forged, both joy and pain infused together in playing out this day to day drama that is a part of life as a human being. From this point, the work towards balance as we seek wholeness within ourselves while supporting it in the other person is critical, lest suffering continues. I can feel him even when he is not with me because there is a connection. His pain becomes mine. His joy mine. Same with my children. Same with this world.

Love, in its quest, is human. Attained in its truest form- enlightenment. May we all engage in pursuit of this power that denies no one and could only bring joy and healing to us all. Breathe it in fully. Exhale it out, offer it back to the world, completely. Recalibrate. And play some Tennis with a capital T.

 

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JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

This TED Talk has been recommended to you by savitreekaur@gmail.com from TED.com.

Note from sender:
Tricia, ur blog & the close of our topic on prosperity ties beautifully w/ this. Rowling says "it is impossible to live w/o failing at something unless u live so cautiously that u might as well not have lived at all. In which case, u fail by default"

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html

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