Tag: Mindfulness

It Just Is.

(deep breath in, deep breath out)

The morning is turning bright, there’s a whirring with each passing car, and for a brief few seconds there is silence in the mind.

The eyes are now open and slowly scans the room. Each object is coming alive. It is seen as it’s own entity. Most importantly, it just is.

Going deeper into the meditation each object is now seen as it were from a 3rd point of view. From a stranger’s point of view seeing this room for the first time. These objects no longer hold the same, close memories to the heart, but just memories as they were. It just is.

The room continues to be scanned and every picture, card, book, candle, lotion, clock, is seen as it just is. There are aspects of the human personality in each one. A spectrum of emotions come up as the mind observes the time of acquisition for each object. And again, it just is.

There is peace. There is peace in knowing it just is. There is peace in knowing none of these or all of these don’t make the identity, state of being, or who I “think” I am.

It just is.

Friday Focus – 1/27/16

How do we want to remember our lives?

I was struck by a passage in one of the books I am reading, “The Mindful Path through Worry and Rumination: Letting Go of Anxious and Depressive Thoughts“, by Sameet M. Kumar Ph.D.

This made me think, through what lens have I been remembering my past? Through what lens am I living my life NOW? And finally, through what lens do I want to live my life in the future? At the end of the day, how do I want to remember all this?

I come back, again and again, to reminding myself of the infinite power we have within ourselves to choose our thoughts.

If your current state of being is one of anxiety, worry, fear or chronic stress, ask yourself the question – what am I predominately thinking about? Very often what we think about induces your state.

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Compassion As An Aspect Of Surrender

Many times I have spoken about surrendering all attachment in difficult times. Most recently I mentioned how surrendering allowed me to make healing in leaps and bounds toward complete recovery from adrenal fatigue.

Perhaps it’s the peace that comes with complete surrender that allows for the body and mind to heal. When we give up hope (in a sense) of any outcome or attachment to any ideal (or not) situation, we allow ourselves an opening, a space in which we can feel the immense presence of the moment.

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Are You Aware Of Confirmation Bias?

Did you know that in every moment you actually have the power within yourself to choose what you want to think about? In previous posts I’ve written a lot about how important it is to, yes, CHOOSE your thoughts.

Did you also know that you and the person next to you, on average, have 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day? And furthermore, did you know that 95% (some even say 98%) of those thoughts are the same exact thoughts you had yesterday?!?!?

I don’t know about you but when I first heard this fact it was astounding to me. And when I heard it the second time around it made me stop everything I was doing and truly take it in.

Something changed within me when I decided to pause and truly think about this.

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Connect To Your Heart In Minutes

Have you ever gotten so stressed from life, whether from work, family, relationships, obligations, that you feel disconnected from yourself?

Lately, when it comes to transforming stress, I’m realizing how important it is to take a step back and stop feeding the stress…and ultimately the story. Furthermore, I’m realizing there is power in the NOW, the present moment, to stop feeding the vicious cycle of stress.

One practice that I thought was particularly helpful is called Quick Coherence, a technique from the HeartMath solution. It involves three simple steps which I explain below:

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hrv

Experimenting with Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

In recent years I’ve heard of heart rate variability (HRV) time and time again. It was the newest thing to the quantified self but I had no interest… until now.

First, what is HRV? In short, HRV is an indicator of how well your body is managing stress. Over time, your personal HRV should be able to tell you whether or not you are ready for an intense workout, or if you should take it easy and go for a walk instead. If working out isn’t your thing, it can also indicate whether or not you have other stressors in your life, such as that big project you’re on at work, relationships, or simply taking on too much. Remember, your body doesn’t know the difference between mental/emotional/physical stress so it truly is about how well balanced you are with your life.

So why the sudden interest in HRV? Well, after experiencing adrenal fatigue, and knowing how I actually like the feeling after a hard training session, I thought it would be nice to find a way to measure A) how well my body was managing stress, and B) get a second opinion on how “ready” my body was to train for the day. While I’ve gotten a lot better with intuitively knowing when to rest and when to go hard, I also found that it’s pretty fun geeking out on this sort of thing too  🙂  Who knew?!

Before buying any gadgets I decided to first do my research. After scouring the internet and reading every article I could, I then read Mark Sisson’s Primal Endurance: Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency and become a fat burning beast!.

Here’s what I ended up purchasing as part of my arsenal. We’ll see how it goes in the next few months:

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Friday Focus – 1/6/17

The new year is here already and it’s crazy to me how fast the holidays just flew by this year. The holiday lights are coming down in the neighborhood and I can feel the city settling into it’s new groove.

Over and over again this week I keep coming back to the theme of owning your own happiness.

For example, as if it were a test, yesterday I was speaking to a customer service agent and I was taken aback (almost speechless) by the cut offs, short answers, and overall tone of this person. Despite all this I decided not to wallow in anger and reminded myself that we all own our own happiness.

Sure, something not so pleasant happened. It was an event. But does it mean you have to stay angry? Continue reading “Friday Focus – 1/6/17” →