Category Archives: Life

LifeinOM: Slamming Doors and Opening Up

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There are days when I feel like I have been sent to live in my specific condo building as a test of my spiritual mettle.

When we rented this condo we were under the impression that it was a nice dog friendly building. After 9 months of living there, I can honestly say that I have never lived in such an unfriendly, anti canine establishment in my life. The owners and “the condo board” seem to detest renters and renter’s dogs even more.

And let’s just say that I am extremely protective of my 14 year old disabled lab, who seems to get blamed for every doggy accident in the building, even though he can’t walk without a wheelchair or harness. Next they’ll be telling me he’s caused the plumbing to back up and the garbage chute not to work. But I digress and hopefully once our year of torment is up we will be moving on to a less aggressive place in DC.

So why am I even discussing this unpleasantness, of course there is a lesson to be learned somewhere in here. There is one board member in particular, an old woman, who has no dog, no family and she literally patrols the building from early morning hours to late at night.

She is always in the manager’s office, she goes outside with her clipboard noting any trees that might be offending her, she knows where everyone parks and where everyone lives. I can be honest when I say that she is a miserable, mean old woman and although I do everything to stay far away from the negative energy she radiates, I always try to be nice to her because I NEVER want to become her.

I even held the door open for her last week. Which made it even worse when my husband and I were literally 5 feet behind her going into the building, she turned around and saw us and promptly shut the door.

Now I get it. We live in a secure building and we all have keys to get in so we shouldn’t be letting strangers in. This isn’t the first time I have had a resident who doesn’t know me close the door on me. But this women knows us all too well. She is constantly watching us and our dog so there is no way in hell that we are strangers to her or pose any security risk by being civil and holding the door for us. 

This has really been pissing me off all week, to the extent that I was coming up with all these different ways I was going to get back at her. My plan was not to slam the door in her face but hold it open and then let her know she did not do the same for me.

But when I was having my rant to my husband, he simply said let it go it’s not worth it. Then I got annoyed at him for a minute but I knew he was right.

Later that day he had a situation where he was pretty angry with an individual and the same kind of retaliatory thoughts were going through his head. My exact words to him were, remember the woman slamming the door – it’s not worth it.  He replied that he didn’t think he was so weak as to want to go back at someone who had really pissed him off.

These words stuck with me for the rest of the day because my husband isn’t a yogi, he’s not buried in spiritual texts but he totally nailed it!

We are weak when we go back at people and want to get even. We are weak when we let our blood boil, get enraged and start screaming and yelling.  It takes so much more strength to walk away and not engage. It takes even more strength to dig deep and find compassion for the person who is being an ass to begin with.

If you react, if you engage,  you are investing in that person’s anger or negativity and you are giving it more power. You are allowing to it grow inside you and effect your energy, your mood. You have allowed that person to invade your space, rather than protecting yourself, detaching and walking away.

So this morning when I meditated I admitted I was still pissed off about having the door slammed in my face. But instead of letting that thought take over my practice, I asked the universe to help this cranky old lady out in whatever kind way it saw fit. I tried very very hard to find some compassion and realized that life has to be pretty lonely and awful for her if obsessing about a building and harassing it’s tenants is all she’s got every day. 

When I left my building early this morning she was in the lobby bossing one of the maintenance guys around complaining about the weather. I looked at my husband and thought about his words. I was not going to be weak and get aggravated, I was going to smile and hope that the universe might be kind to her today, at least for the maintenance guy’s sake!

We all have people like this in our lives and it’s not easy to not react, let it go and be compassionate when someone has really pissed you off.

But in the end getting angry only causes one person to suffer- You.

So we take baby steps, we practice and we protect our positive selves by staying calm in the face of conflict, we practice opening up and letting go, we practice patience and if we do want to engage the other person,  we speak from a place of clarity and compassion. 

Not an easy task but that is why we just keep trying and do the best we can each day.

 

 

 

 

Meditation 101

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So you want to start to meditate because you’ve heard it can be good for you but you’re not quite sure where to begin. Or maybe you’ve tried it and you’re not really sure what all the buzz is about because you were just annoyed, anxious, uncomfortable and miserable.

Let me start by warning you right away. Meditation is not easy. In fact I can tell you that an advanced yoga class is nothing compared to trying to sit still for 10 minutes. So right up front I will say that it is hard and it is a process. You will never get it “right” so just let go of that now and just allow yourself to go along for the ride.

We’re a bit overstimulated here in America and I am sure you know many people, maybe even yourself that if they had to stay in a room by themselves for an hour sitting still with nothing but four walls and the truth, they would go nuts.

So if  you are a constantly going, mind racing, smartphone loving, multitasking machine,  it is even more important that you try this out.

Or as one of my teachers Darren Main simply put it, you meditate so you become less of an *sshole. Never a truer word was spoken-just ask my family pre and post learning to meditate.

So where do you begin? Let’s start with how to sit.

You have options. The most common way to meditate is sitting on the floor, which I will go in to in greater detail in a moment. But if it’s not possible for you , you can sit in a chair, one with a back that is upright. Not a Lazy Boy. Oh and while we are at it, no lying down either. You should be relaxed but not asleep. (although you may still fall asleep sitting up!)

If you can get down on the floor, sit in a comfortable cross-legged position. I strongly encourage you to sit on a pillow or some folded blankets. They also make fancy meditation cushions called zafus. Like this:

You want your butt to be on the pillow or blanket and your legs to be off. Your spine should be straight, not rounded but also not rigid. Everything about meditation should be soft and gentle, including your posture.

Bring your shoulders up to your ears tightly and then release them. Let any tension there release and just let the shoulders go. Place you hands on your knees, palms can face up or down just as long as the arms are supported.

Your head should be a natural extension of your spine. You don’t want the chin to be tucked down but you also do not want to crunch the back of your neck by looking up. Think about smoothing out the back of the neck and just letting the head sit atop your spine.

If you haven’t sat crossed legged for an extended period of time this posture is going to be uncomfortable. Your legs may fall asleep, your ankles may dig into the ground, your knees may ache from being bent and your back may throb from sitting up straight. I promise the more you do it the better this will feel. Also, there is a reason yoga asanas (poses) were
developed thousands of years ago – to get the body ready for meditation. So at the end of this post I will list some simple meditation warm up poses for you to do if you want to be a bit more limber.

Now that you are seated let’s move on to how to actually meditate.

It may seem like a person who is meditating is just sitting still with their eyes closed but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are many many types of meditation, you can really meditate on any topic from self-worth to letting go. You can use a mantra (a word or series of words you repeat) or you could use a candle drawing all of your attention to the flame. But the simplest meditation is just focusing on your breath. So we will start there.

Your breath is going to be soft and normal. If you’re a yogi, forget about ujjayi breathing, just use your natural breath which will become lighter and slower all on its own as you relax.

Your breath is your anchor. It is your focal point. You want to bring all of your awareness and attention to the movement of the air through your nose. This is the most challenging part because your mind and even your body are going to fight you at every turn.

Our bodies and our minds are constantly going so meditation is counter intuitive to everything we know. That is why meditation can be so difficult but that is also why we need it so badly.

When you sit and close your eyes you may figet. People play with their hands, their feet, they roll their neck, twist their spine, adjust their cushion 30 times, have an itch or need to check the clock.  This is one of the first and most basic ways your mind starts messing with you.

Don’t let it.

Make sure you have a comfortable seat ( as comfortable as you can make it)  before you start and have a timer that you can set and place far away from you. I use a really great one on my iPhone called Insight Timer. I set it and a lovely chime goes off telling me when to start and when I am done. So get your timer and then forget about time. Also, don’t give yourself any excuse to be I interrupted. Lock yourself in a room, turn off the ringer on the phone, whatever you have to do so you will have at least 10 minutes to yourself.

Then stay absolutely still. I really mean it. If you do nothing else for 10 minutes but sit still without moving you have achieved a major accomplishment.  A still body promotes a still mind. You can’t even begin to work on calming your mind down if your body is all over the place so make physical stillness your first priority.

Now that you found a quiet space, you set your timer, you are seated and you are still.  Bring your attention to your breath. Listen to it. Feel it move in your nose and down the back of the throat. Feel the air release out over your top lip. Empty the mind and just focus on the breath.

Unfortunately, your mind doesn’t give up so easy. It’s going to distract you. It’ going to bring up your ex boyfriend from 5 years ago, that dress that didn’t fit right last week or whatever it is you think you should be doing other than sitting like a statue in a locked room.

Don’t give in. This is where you really start to do the important work. This is where you let your mind know who’s in charge but not in a typical aggressive way. You are going to take charge by becoming aware that you have been distracted and then simply letting go.

When a thought invades your focus on the breath, acknowledge it in a way that works for you. Maybe it’s a pink neon sign that pops into your head flashing “THINKING”  or maybe you take a really deep breath to regain focus. Then let the thought go. Don’t let it consume you or spiral out of control into some big dramatic storyline. Realize it’s there in your space
and then let it move on its way.

You can imagine the thought as a painting on a wall that you are looking at and someone comes by and takes it away, leaving you a blank space. Or maybe the thoughts are floating on a river and you see it there but it rushes past you, leaving only clear water.

Use whatever analogy works for you, but the whole process is realizing that you have become distracted and then letting that distraction go. In the process you are looking at your thoughts like you would look at a picture – as an observer, rather than being consumed by them.

Like anything else in life this takes practice. So please be nice to yourself and don’t get aggravated or frustrated. You will get better at stilling the body and mind and you will see the benefits but you need to keep at it. Just 5-10 minutes each day can make a difference.

What are these amazing benefits?  You get to spend some quiet quality time with yourself. You lower your blood pressure and increase immunity. If you meditate in the morning you can start your day with a sense of calm. You feel less stressed and your ability to deal with stress improves. You become more focused and less distracted in your daily life because you have become aware and are developing your ability to really concentrate. Most importantly
you are learning to separate yourself from the crazy that can sometimes occur in the mind. And we know how our own mind can cause us heaps of misery if we let it.

In the end you will feel better and be better.

So to wrap this 101 post up let’s recap the steps:

1. Get a timer and find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted
2. Take a seat
3. Close your eyes and sit still
4. Breath normally and focus on that breath
5. When thoughts invade your peaceful space, recognize them and let them go
6. Open your eyes and carry on with your day,  a bit better off then you were 10 minutes before.
7. Repeat

If you have any questions about meditating or any of the poses below please ask away!

YOGA

Yoga asanas (the poses) were actually created to make the body ready for mediation so if you have time, doing a few gentle yoga poses will make the body a bit more limber before you begin.

Standing side stretch

Shoulder and Neck Rolls

Standing Bound Fold

Cat/Cow Pose

Upright Pigeon

Cobblers Pose

Seated Twist

 

 

 

 

Life in OM: Where has my Life in Om gone lately?

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So this blog is supposed to be sharing with people how I've found balance in my life.  No one's perfect, least of me and nothing is constant, including having a balanced life.

But that's what makes life interesting.

In the past 2 months I have been to Las Vegas, Hawaii, New York, London and Paris.

My fiancé has returned to the UK to start his new posting (not in Afghanistan thank goodness) which leaves me in Washington DC until we get married, hopefully in September.

I am back to teaching my Voluptuous Vinyasa Yoga class which I adore. Hopefully twice a week to some fabulous ladies.

I've enrolled in the Alive Academy of Natural Health,  in their 2 year program to become a Holistic Nutritional Consultant.

And my wonderful fiancé bought me a digital SLR camera so I have this great tool to start taking pics of all the new recipes I try so I can share them here.

Oh yeah and did I mention I am supposed to be planning a wedding for September?

It's no wonder I chucked my planner pad out the window for a swanky new Franklin Covey Master Planner. I need something to Master plan my life!

But I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is about learning, taking risks and new experiences. Sometimes you need a little chaos to shake things up a bit.

So watch this space…

Life in OM: Moving House (or Cleaning it)

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White room 

Have you seen that show Hoarders?  I haven't watched it but the advertisements make my skin crawl. I honestly don't know how people live with tons of crap.

In the past 10 years I have moved 6 times- the 6th time this past week. It's not really a conscious decision to keep moving but it just happened to work out that way. With each move I found I was throwing more stuff out and moving less and less. At that point in my life,  I was practicing non-attachment and didn't even know it.

Now I'm not saying go out and get rid of all of your things but every 6 or 12 months take inventory of what you have and decide if it's something you need or is it just taking up space.

Clutter makes your life and your space messy and complicated. You know that great feeling you have after cleaning out your closet- that's how it feels when your surroundings are clean, simple and organized.

Here are a few tips for keeping things uncomplicated:

Books, DVD's, CD's or any other kind of Media- Lord of the Rings was so cool when it first came out but four years later How to Speak Elvish is just not getting that much face time. So if you haven't picked it up in a year or you've lost interest in it, sell it.  Amazon makes it so simple to sell your unwanted items and you can make quite a few dollars doing it.

Clothes- I used to be one of those people that kept everything. It either belonged to the school of one day I'll fit into it or I'll hold on to it just in case I need a bigger size. Living in the present moment is not just about your mental state, it's also about your wardrobe.  If it doesn't fit and it hasn't in a year get rid of it.  If you owned it when you were 18- bin it. If you look at it and cannot understand for the life of you why you bought it, say goodbye.  But don't throw your clothes or shoes out. Put them in bags and donate them. There are drop off bins everywhere and there is always someone who could use them.

Furniture: Is it old, ratty or a horrifying shade of hot pink?  Do you have TV's from the black and white era?  Is your garage full of bikes that never get ridden? Throw away the old stuff and give what's in decent shape to goodwill.

Cleaning house is really about taking stock of your life. Where are you now?  How different are you from the person you were 2, 3 or 5 years ago. The past is gone and letting go of it also means letting go of the physical clutter that comes with it. 

Remember you are not tossing away the memorable stuff just the junk that you've been carrying with you. Take a moment to really look around your home  – what are the things you really need versus the stuff that's just taking up space.

I thought I had really made progress in 10 years and I still had 25 bags of donations and trash this time around. Not to mention I have sold over $500 in books, cd's and dvd's I no longer use.

You don't have to trash your whole house but see if there are little steps you can start to take to simplify your life. Remember once you de-clutter the physical,  the mental is soon to follow!

Life in OM: I’ll Be Happy When…

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Thanksgiving 

I'll
be happy when I'm rich.

I'll be happy when I've lost 20
pounds.

I'll be happy when I find someone
and get married.

I'll be happy when I've had kids.

I'll be happy when said kids go to
college.

I'll be happy when I get a better job.

I'll be happy when I go on vacation.

I'll be happy when I get a new car.

I'll be happy when I've finished
school.

I'll be happy when I move away from
here.

 

See a pattern here?

Basing your happiness on some external
source that might happen is a waste of your energy and only leads to
disappointment.

Why disappointment? As soon as you
achieve whatever you thought it was that would make you happy, you realize
you're still unhappy. So you move on to the next thing that will guarantee
happiness and that doesn't work either.

It doesn't matter where you go or what
you achieve,  if you don't know to look for happiness within,  you
are always going to be relentlessly searching for it.

It's a vicious cycle that many of us
end up in for most of our lives

Happiness comes from within. Do you see
the glass half full or half empty?

Each of us has many things to be
grateful for. Even if your situation is bleak there is always something to be
thankful for.

We are all complete beings as we are
and we all have the means to be happy- it's just a choice.

During this week of giving thanks,
 have gratitude for all that you have,  rather than chasing after
things that you think will make your life better.

Hopefully, it will put a smile on your
face and true happiness in your heart.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

 

Life in OM: Who Cares?!

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Who-cares-Wall-Clock_869CACDA

Ok, I realize it may sound flippant, insensitive, and detached but a lot of us would fare much better in this life if every now and again we gave it a big WHO CARES!!

Obviously I'm not speaking of the important things like your health, your loved ones or the environment.

I'm talking about the person who didn't park within the lines, the person who forgot to invite you to a meeting, and the one who left the coffee pot empty.

Honestly,  if you let yourself be affected by all these little things, you will be one big, miserable mess.

What's the sense in getting outraged by your colleague down the hall who didn't come by and say hello, or the not so nice email from a co-worker who was having a crappy morning or maybe even with yourself for eating a dessert at lunch.

Seriously, you have better things to do then to allow yourself to get stressed about these things.

I've even developed a small test for this kind of thing,  I call it "The 100 years test".

In 100 years I'll be dead and will it really matter that someone forgot to make a new pot of coffee – probably not so much!!

It's a great litmus test to see what you should actually be concerned about and what you can just give a big WHO CARES!!!! to.

Life is too short to let the little things make you miserable. Remember you create your own happiness and you decide what's important!!

Life in OM: Happy? Miserable? It’s Your Choice

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Theatre%20mask

 

Life is unfair.

Really, it is.

The thought might leave you feeling powerless, deflated, defeated.

Never fear though, you have a power mightier than anything life can throw at you: the power of choice.

You can choose to react without thinking, you can choose to let something eat at you,  you can choose to become angry, you can choose to be miserable.

Or you can choose to stay calm, you can choose to take a breath and think before reacting, you can choose to walk away, you can choose to look at things positively, you can choose to find joy whenever you can.

Take a moment to think about all the things that weigh you down. Ultimately, you have a choice whether you are going to let them affect you negatively or positively.

Example #1, you're driving to work when someone cuts you off. They pull up next to you, screaming that you were driving too slow and call you a terrible name before driving off. 

You have the choice to scream right back, get completely stressed out, let it put you in a foul mood, and ruin your morning as you spend hours ruminating over the incident.  Meanwhile the guy calling you names has forgotten all about it.

Or you can take a deep breath, choose not to react, let him scream and yell as you drive off. You have chosen to remain calm, you have chosen not to let something so trivial effect your entire mind and body, you have chosen to walk (or drive) away.

Example #2- something a bit more tragic. You get dumped. You have every right to feel sadness, anger, betrayal…the list goes on and on. There are countless emotions you will go through and you need to feel every one of them. Remember that choice is not denial. We have feelings and we need to let ourselves sit with them.

But that doesn't mean we want to wallow in them. There will come a point where you will choose to become negative, choose to feel sorry for yourself, choose to mope around being miserable.

Or you can choose to move on, choose to look at the break-up as a positive force for change in your life, choose to let you inner happiness and self love shine through, choose to find someone else or not. 

Choosing to be your own source of happiness and contentment is not easy. You need to learn to not react to every conflict and that takes practice. It also takes some getting to know yourself. You need to be able to step outside your current situation and try to look at it from a different perspective.

The best way to start to do this is through spending some time just sitting alone, quietly, doing nothing but breathing, otherwise known as Meditation. I'll save Meditation basics for another post but for now just try to take 5 minutes in the morning to sit and breath without distraction.

Then start to pay attention. There are countless moments during the course of our lives where we can choose to make ourselves miserable or choose to protect our contentment.

You create and take away your own happiness, no person or thing can do that to you unless you let it.

It's your choice.

Life in OM: Be Flexible

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Maze

You have a goal, a dream, something you long to achieve. You have figured out exactly how you are going to accomplish your desire. You have created a detailed plan, a direct route and you are committed. You are going to walk that straight line from point A to point B and achieve. (it's never that easy!)

Imagine yourself standing there looking at this maze, knowing that in the middle lies your dream.

Pretty daunting.

You know that the fastest most direct route to your goal is walking in that straight line, following your plan to the letter.   

Unfortunately after about 5 steps you're going to smack right into a wall. Does your dream die there because you are unable to move forward?  Is the goal left incomplete because you are determined to walk that straight line.

Let's hope not.

Letting go of our well thought out plan or our idea of how things should be can be extremely difficult. However, if we refuse,  we find ourselves continually banging our head against a wall, pouring our energy into it while our goals remain unattainable.

So your options are to remain stuck with your plan or begin to practice flexibility. Turn right or maybe turn left either way you start to make your way around the walls and closer to whatever it is you are trying to achieve. The key here is directing your energy towards the open path while being flexible enough to move around your obstacles.

You may even find out that your goal morphs into something completely different as you embark on your journey or maybe it stays exactly the same but you would have never guessed in a million years that you would have accomplished it the way you did.  

For example, lets say you want to live and work in California and you currently reside in Florida. You can send out 100 resumes, go for a job interview, get a job and move. It's very linear and straightforward and sometimes this is the way it happens.

Sometimes it's not so clear. Maybe you really want to live and work there but you just can't afford to move on your own or you're having a hard time finding work. Give up?

What if you look for a job in Florida that has an office in California, maybe you can transfer, maybe they send you out there quite a bit so you get a much better idea of what your striving for. What if while you're doing all of this you become friends with someone in the company or at the gym who's from California and wants to move back. You might have the potential for a roommate or a romance but things start happening for you.

You are directing your energy towards your goal but you are open to all the weird and wonderful opportunities life sometimes throws in front of us.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Think about where you are in your life. Now think about all the decisions you made that brought you to this moment. How did you end up here? Every yes and no, every left and right turn has led you to where you are right now.

Plans are good and sometimes necessary but we need to know when to stop walking that straight line and allow for some flexibility. We direct our energy towards our goals with openness and life will do the rest.

 

 

Life in OM: One Thing at a Time

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987456_bloco_de_notas_1Sometimes I feel as though my life is like going to the grocery store for a major shopping trip with no list.

I end up getting or doing things that I don't really need and I completely forget the important items.

Having a list doesn't mean I'm organized either. It just means I have a very long list of a hundred things to do and no idea what to start with first. Basically an out of control shopping list that's ten pages long!

To-do lists are extremely useful but I am finding that you really need two different types. First, you need to have one where you just write down things as they come into your head. If you want to break them up into categories fine, if it's more of a stream of consciousness that's fine too.  

I keep small notebook for this. I use it for to-do's and for anything else I come across that I want to remember later on. For example, if I see something useful I want to add to my website, I write it down. If I see a yoga article I want to share I write down the web address. It's a multifunction notebook.

The second list you need are the things you are going to accomplish today and just today. You can pull them off your big list or they can be totally new. My Smartphone has a great Notes feature where I can use my stylus as a pen and scribble away.

At night I write down 3-6 things I will accomplish the next day. I do this at night otherwise my sleep will be interrupted by intermittent bursts of trying to remember what I have to do the next morning. So I get it out of my head and onto my phone.

The key for this to be successful is focusing on one thing and finishing those particular tasks that you have assigned to yourself for that day. Don't bounce back and forth between them and DO NOT MULTITASK.

Yoga and Meditation teach us to focus on the present moment with clarity and balance. Moving from one task to another and back again is distracting and scatters our energy. Decide what you are going to work on, pour your attention and energy into that task, complete it successfully and then move on to the next. 

Don't fret if this doesn't come easy to you at first. We are a culture that is in a constant state of stimulation and shifting our minds to just one thing can be very challenging.

Just as it's impossible to have a perfect yoga practice or meditation session, this process won't be flawless but you do the best you can. If you get interrupted or distracted  or things just get a little out of your control - sit back, take a few deep breaths and get right back to it.

So recap:

1. Have one device (manual or computerized) to write down all to-do's, ideas or basically anything that pop's into your head that's worth remembering. (You'll sleep better at night!)

2. Have another device (manual or computerized) to write down a few tasks that you can complete in one day.

3. Choose one task and begin.

4. Try to focus yourself and continue to stick with the one task.

5. Complete Task

6. Rinse and Repeat  (Take a few deep breaths and start on task #2)

7. New day, new tasks ( If you didn't finish all your tasks from the previous day, carry them over)

Life in OM: No One Is Coming

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A few years ago I picked up A Year of Living Your Yoga: Daily Practices to Shape Your Life by Judith Hanson Lasater. I opened the book to June 26 and read "No one is coming". 

It took my breath away and made my stomach churn at the same time. Although I had always been content living on my own it wasn't until that moment that I realized in some ways I had been waiting rather than living.  Lasater let me off the hook and scared the hell out of me  with four words.

Women have it a bit rough. We're constantly bombarded by stories and images that lead us to believe we are not complete until we have another person in our lives. Even if we overcome that and are content with being alone, part of us might still be holding out for what we think is a requirement.

Once I realized no one was coming, I was empowered. I felt that my life was wholly my own and I needed to enjoy every moment of it. I decided to finally take that trip to England that I had been putting off for years. Two weeks in London all alone and it was one of the best vacations I have ever had.

That trip prompted me to leave a job I was unhappy with and slowly I started moving forward in all the areas of my life where I had been subconsciously waiting.

You don't have to be single to appreciate "No One is Coming". Even if you're with someone, they are not there to make you happy. You need to seek out the things you love whether you share your life with someone or not. Don't put yourself on hold. As Ms Lasater stated so wisely "Salvation comes from no one else…it comes from within."  So stop waiting..Go Now…Live!