A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

What Is Your New Lifestyle?

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Fotolia_71447773_Subscription_Monthly_MDo you feel like your entire life needs a makeover? (And I am not talking about lipstick and blush.)

We get up in the morning and start our day doing the same ole thing, drinking the same ole coffee, looking at the same ole … well … just fill in the blank. It gets so old, and we actually decrease our vibration by not creating our life with style and keeping it fresh. I know because I have been there more than I can say. I think we get into patterns and routines and think if they work, leave well enough alone. Then we can’t understand why we feel bored or numb and that something is missing.

I know you can relate! Wherever you are in your home right now, stop reading and follow the instructions that are next. I want you to look around. What do you see, what do you feel, what do you want to change or move? Is there anything you want to junk and replace?

Let your creative juices run wild. I am not saying go out and spend a bunch of money and completely redecorate. Sometimes in life it is the smallest adjustments that bring us the greatest joy. Simply moving an object, buying a new book (or even a new tube of lipstick) is all it takes. It is the subtle changes we make every day.

Where can you look to make changes and create your own new style of living? Here are a few I do every month.

  1. I inwardly create and junk what no longer serves me. I might spiff up my Spirituality by buying a new book or learning a new practice. I make sure I spend time with my Spiritual Health Mentor and keep my heart and mind in alignment.
  1. I sweep my house with intention. I start in my bedroom and then continue throughout my home. I am always amazed at what is sitting around, taking up space, that I truly don’t like. I donate those items or have a tag sale, and then I ask myself what I might like to add to this open space. Sometimes it is nothing. When you allow your essence to guide you, you will immediately realize it is truly what your heart desires.
  1. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. This is a great truth. As a child and into my late teens, I can’t tell you how many times my parents would say this to me after seeing my bedroom. Thank goodness I didn’t carry those habits over into my adult life. Our senses have so much to do with how we feel emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. I find that the first of the New Year Winter cleaning is so much more productive than waiting until Spring. I remove the clutter, grab my cleaning supplies and begin my cleaning ritual. When all is clean, I rearrange the furniture and add special fragrance and flowers. Plants are also wonderful for a clean, rejuvenated feeling.
  1. I check out my closets – especially the clothes closet. If I haven’t worn something for 6 months to a year, it’s donation or consignment time. I have been practicing this for over 10 years. It allows me to give unto others and also to take that extra money and buy the hot blouse I’ve been wanting.

These are all very small, basic changes. It will only take a few minutes a day for a month to implement your new style and creations for the New Year. Go slow and steady and the changes will stick. When you start in newness, you reset your entire life, and it is an amazing feeling. It gives you the permission to say “YES” to what you want to create, design and give space to, and it and allows you to stretch and grow who you are. Your energy within and all around you will shift. .

By creating and clearing new space, you are actually telling yourself how much you “LOVE YOU.” Love is your greatest luxury. It sends your vibration soaring. I invite you to create and clear more space and allow your energy to flow with abundance. Create in love and create in truth. And don’t forget to be gentle and kind to yourself.

Thriving Through Nature’s Timing

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“There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.” –Chogyam Trungpa

The thought of fall was in the air today. A strong breeze was blowing leaves and sticks, and I was so thankful for low humidity and much cooler temperatures. I love mornings like this. It allows me to be one with nature while doing yoga and meditation. Here in the Roanoke Valley where I live, it has been a hotter than normal summer season. I have been saying for a while now, “I am so looking forward to fall.” Fall has always been my favorite season. I love the crunch of the leaves, the brilliant colors, the way leaves twirl through the air and the smell of change. My body’s rhythm is very connected to this season. It is when I feel the best inside and out, and I prepare for fall as though I am preparing for guests. As women, I truly believe we nurture our favorite season and prepare for its arrival in many ways. What I want to cook and eat changes, the dishes I use changes, and the beds are dressed differently as well. I put up a different ornamentation on my door and change the look inside my home to reflect my love for fall. Outside, I put my gardens to sleep for the winter and trim and save seeds for the next season.

We all have these same seasonal rhythms in our body. We follow right along with nature, and we become one with each season. Our body changes with the seasons, with the weather, with the atmospheric conditions. Many people can tell in their bones, especially women, when a change in weather is coming. Human bodies are in sync with the forces, shifts, cold and heat, light and dark, humidity and all the other variations that the seasons bring. They respond and shift their functioning according to these natural dynamics. All living organisms change with the different rhythms and seasons. Seasonal changes are important to my body due to chronic illness and pain.

Regardless of location or traditional cultures, there is an awareness that we are continuously affected by the changing of seasons. Knowing this, as we care for our health and our bodies, we are able to adapt compassionately to the natural rhythms of the earth. This is especially true for me in the winter season. The coldest season of all can cause tremendous pain and health issues. I plan for the rhythm of this season and treat myself with loving kindness, lots of blankets, warm teas and great books.  Learning to live within the seasonal fluctuations is believed to bring health, harmony and strength to the body. It also provides a natural timetable and rhythm for a good service check and health care program for maintenance and upkeep to prevent accumulated stress, anxiety and depression from our body’s responses.

Sometimes we fail to adapt our habits to be more compatible with the rhythms of seasonal changes. By being aware of some of these changes throughout the year we can support shifting body dynamics so as to assist the changes. We can also take advantage of these natural shifting points to expand those dynamics that are increasing/flowing and rest those that are decreasing/ebbing. Many of us set up associations of food, drink, activities, energies, dress and emotions that are related to and affected by the seasonal shifts.

The seasonal rhythms are meant to be celebrated, nurtured and loved as all of nature is intended to be. When our patterns are ebbing and flowing according to their natural rhythms, our body is perfectly synchronized and performs at its peak. We have effortless energy and vitality when we live in accordance with nature and seasonal rhythms. We learn lessons from the rhythms of each season; it is a warm and compelling adventure that enables us to see ourselves with fresh tenderness. In an engaging manner, it offers hope and encouragement in the face of the hectic, stress-filled demands of life.

I hope this has inspired each of us to become “Mindful” of the rhythms of each season and embrace the newness in our hearts as something to cherish and look forward to. Fall will be here soon, what simplistic rhythms fill your heart with joy and love?

Clear The Clutter

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 –  What Is Holding You Back?

Fotolia_35647855_Subscription_Monthly_MAs humans, it is in our nature to experience clarity, calmness and spaciousness all the time. The problem is we’ve forgotten how. It’s my hope that we (re) discover and (re) claim the journey. I know I do, and I am pretty sure you want to remember what life can be like when it sparkles like a diamond inside and out. Yes??? Yes!

Well, let’s put on our amazing designer rubber gloves, roll up our sleeves, get our bright bucket and get to it! Shall we?

Behind the mess that is your stress and your clutter, there is an infinitely spacious clean place one might call stillness, or joy. This is our natural state of being, but we hardly know it because most of us are caught in a tangle of social expectations, family expectations, people pleasing, illness, worry, fear, negative beliefs, material attachments, and endless mechanical “doing.” We go to work under extreme stress, come home to stress, and then start the stress cycle all over again every day. And … it scares the heck out of us; I know it once did me. So how do you break up the clutter inside and out and clean it up for good?

1. Realize clutter comes in many forms.

There’s the obvious physical stuff, of course: the junk that spills out of the closets and the piles that we wade through every day just to get out the door. It’s the stuff we don’t use, love, or need. The stuff that doesn’t have a permanent home or we can’t seem to put away on a regular basis. But there is also the more invisible clutter that gooks up our lives, the result of our unconscious and conscious human behaviors, for example.

~There’s mental chatter, the resident ego barking orders to assure its eternal comfort and safety, the endless loop tapes we play in our mind like “I should,” “I can’t,” “I couldn’t,” “I shouldn’t.”

~There is emotional charge we hold, like when our buttons get pressed, or we have a grudge, or we’re still mad at something that happened a while ago. There is the endless litany of judgments, doom and gloom catastrophizing, the fears that have us going to hell in a hand basket …”any day now.” Wow … that shocked me.

~There’s feeling small, powerless, insignificant, and unworthy and the feeling that I am not good enough.

So what do these patterns have in common? Yes, none of them feel good. None of them are attractive or inspiring. They’re real downers. They prevent us from living in present time with joy and spaciousness; they prevent us from seeing through the clutter of life to new beginnings.

Ask yourself, what are some of the “faces” you put on? When you do this, be honest to the core. You are not in judgment. There is no right or wrong. Let it go and watch what happens. Most importantly, remember you are doing this clutter picking up only for you and no one else. Laughter goes a long way when you are clutter busting.

2. Recognize the symptoms of clearing the clutter

~There are many ways that the body, mind and spirit process old stuff that rises to the surface as we clear. This is how the ego copes with the idea of letting go and having to feel “those feelings.”

~Prepare yourself. Don’t allow judgments to lead you off your mission.  Remember: This is the “clutter part” of your mind talking, not the real you! The first step is to try not to give in to all that chatter and noise.

– Celebrate in knowing that when you are clutter clearing, it changes you from the inside out and then from the outside in. You know how you feel when you have cleaned out from underneath your bed, you actually sleep better at night. There are studies related to having a better night’s sleep when we don’t have negative energy underneath us.

So, a few great questions to ask yourself during this process are: “How am I feeling right this minute? How’s my breathing? Am I feeling calmer now than I did before I began clearing the clutter, or am I feeling more jangled and agitated?

A good practice to remember is, do nothing. Just allow. You are not in self judgment; you’re in the spaciousness of self discovery.

3. Resolve that everything needs a place. There are obvious reasons for giving everything a home, of course. Having a place for everything helps us keep things in order and find them again. It helps us get to the car in the morning without tripping over physical and emotional clutter.

~Giving things a home helps us know when we have too much stuff. For example, finding zero space in the bookcase to jam another paperback, or zero coat hangers to hang the new outfit we just bought on sale gives us instant feedback that something has to give or something has to go.

~Housing things properly holds us accountable and keeps us out of the chaos of clutter. But there is more going on here than the obvious. Giving an object that we use and love a dedicated space recognizes its purpose and honors its value to us.

~Creating space for our inner energies and essence needs a dedicated space too. This may be an area of your life you have neglected for a long time. You may have to sweep a few cobwebs out and clean the glass to see clearly. The best way to manage spacious self time is to dedicate a place and time each day for at least 15 minutes and work your way up. You will become your best helper if you follow this as a clearing practice.

Try this on for size: look around and notice if there is something that has not yet been put away. How does this make you feel? How does your body feel, how does your inner self feel? Now, go and find a place for those items that need a home.

After you’ve completed this, ask yourself: How hard was that really? What does it feel like to consciously place this thing where it belongs? How does the room feel now? And, of course … how does your energy, your emotions, feel inside?

As human beings we affect our surroundings all the time: – our homes, our neighbor’s homes, our workplaces, where we shop – in ways you can’t even begin to know. Remember, anything you do every day, no matter how small, gets the energy moving in your spacious life, inside and out. Though there’s no predicting what amazing wonders you’ll discover in the process, one thing I can say is that the more you clear the clutter, the easier, juicier, and more fun it is to live in spaciousness.

Clearing the clutter indicates that all emotional patterns, joyful and otherwise, deeply influence the spaces we inhabit. Negative thoughts and stressful lifestyles create an energetic residue, and depending on how much emotional charge they carry, they can literally “stick” around for years. Happiness, too, leaves its own abundant joys and yumminess.

In the weeks and months to come, notice if your sense of ease, peace, or joy has any effect on your home, a friend, a colleague, or even a loved one. Notice how your state of being affects the world around you, and how the world, in turn, mirrors you back to you. Don’t forget our clearing energies are contagious and we own what frequencies we put out into the world. Always remember to stop and feel as part of your ongoing lifelong spaciousness of clearing.

Starting Over, Starting New

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I am so fortunate to live in a part of the country where I experience seasonal changes. Each Season, each Moon and Sun cycle, each Equinox and Solstice, each ebb and flow have been opportunities to start anew, to learn more about who I uniquely am and to celebrate with flow and creativity. What nature has taught me the most is that every moment is new. Wow … every moment is new. I have chills putting this into words. What a miracle to live moment by moment in newness, and from our Rhythms.

This past year as I have been observing and living in rhythm with nature, it has become very beneficial to my health and well-being. Living in harmony with nature is not a new idea, it is one of the foundations of Eastern Medicine and was also the basis for health before society became too busy and stressed to feel the body’s rhythms. Fighting or not listening to our rhythms throws us out of balance into a state of dis-ease.

As we go into the New Year, by observing the changes that take place during the winter season, we can attune ourselves to a healthier winter. Leaves have fallen off the trees providing nutrients for the soil, plants pull their sap and nutrients back into their roots, days are shorter, life slows down, some animals hibernate, nature withdraws into itself, the earth rests. Winter is a time of regeneration.

I have embraced the New Year and Winter Rhythms. Winter should be a time of personal growth, a time to go within, a restful break, a time to replenish energy for the start of the “growing” season, Spring. The shorter days that winter provides should be used as an opportunity to get more rest, sleep and dreams. Personal growth requires a lot of quiet time and solitude. Solitude is always an interesting period in our lives. It can be a time of independence, loneliness or a time of reflection and growth, the choice is ours. Winter is the time to go within. Time spent alone has the ability to open creativity. It allows us to become our real selves, true to ourselves. A time to explore who we really are, our strengths and weaknesses. We are all complete as we are, but we don’t usually realize it.

No one can provide true happiness for another person. True joy and happiness come from within when we take the time to be ourselves, to discover who we are. If we use this quiet time to reflect on the past, but not cling to it, we are able to see where we are and where we may be heading. We realize how we’ve changed, what we’ve learned and how we’ve grown by past experiences. Sometimes the smallest steps in our development are created by the hardest lessons of the past. Recognizing difficult times as just that allows us to release and forgive, to move on. Obstacles along our path provide a stopping point, a time to slow down and reflect. We are all given the strength to remove or move around the obstacle.

When we take time to be introspective, we ask, What is important to us? What do we choose to create? Who am I? These questions are vital for a life that expresses peace and deep connection. Winter gives us hope that what we create can be different. Strange that in Winter’s seeming dormancy lie the seeds of great change and newness. So here we are at Winter, with her unique rhythms. Obviously we can feel that life has slowed down within us and around us on the outside. What are a few ways we can keep in rhythm with all that we are and want to explore? 

This is my creative newness list for keeping in and with the rhythms of Winter. I know I could add many more items to my list, but these are my top ten loves and joys. Creating a list makes me feel at home within my own being. It is a fresh start. A new beginning to discovery.

1. Winter walks, finding moments of gratitude

2. Making my own teas through nature’s goodness

3. Aromatherapy and essential oil healing

4. Writing cards to be delivered by mail

5. Visiting family and friends, building stronger relationships

6. Preparing for Spring planting

7. Watching a snowfall by the window in the darkness

8. Creating new recipes and baking

9. Going to my cabin for a day every week

10. Making a new checklist for staying healthy and thriving

When you create a list, you want to be sure that whatever you put on your list are things that make you feel connected to your joys, your essence, your truest self. They need to feel effortless and nourishing. This isn’t another to-do list. This is a list that brings you to delicious moments you savor and can’t do without.

Allowing ourselves to move with the rhythms of Winter, we are not idle. Anything but. We know that in every relationship (with our self, others, nature, seasonal rhythms) there is a time for activity and a time for reflection. Reflection can be hard work if we do it right. We should ask intentional questions of ourselves, delve deeper than we have ever gone before. Understand who we are and our connection to life. It is in this way that the newness and creativity are vibrant and vital. Nature has the balance of its rhythms down to an art. I hope you can do the same!

Enjoy the Winter …

 

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