Flexibility & a Monkey Mind

As in all things in this lifetime flexibility is key to happiness.  This weeks lessons appear to be in flexibility and clearing the "Monkey Mind".

Thursday my mother went into the local Emergency Room with apparent stroke or heart issues.  And while it appears the stroke may have gotten her to seek care, it is the ekg and her heart that provided her a ride to a hospital forty minutes away to see a cardiologist.  Mom stabilized and returned home on Saturday.

(Staff Pose)

But Wednesday (one day previous) my daughter called me to let me know she is going to be a mom herself.  This is the one child that is not married.  Go figure.  All children are love children. (Child's pose and breathe)

The Sunday before that (yes, this is my week in reverse order) my married daughter called to discuss marriage and what it takes and to ask how long one has to stay in a marriage that is not up to her liking.

(Warrior 1 pose) 

My answer is, only as long as both partners are working to make it better. No babies are involved here.  I'm allowed to feel this way.

Yesterday (jump both hands forward and hold a forward bend) mother was back in the Emergency Room with severely elevated blood pressure (214/80).  This is truly scary.  The adrenaline rush of worrying about my mother half a continent away lasted several hours before I got the 'all clear' text.  This morning I booked a flight for an extended visit.

My bus was late yesterday.  The Link Light Rail System was delayed.  And finally the Sounder Commuter Train creeped along the tracks rather than clipped along as usual. It seems the universe is telling to assume a deep seated relaxation pose as the trip home was extended.  I arrived at my final commuter stop too late to join my usual yoga class.  I was glad for the out-of-class pose.  I am so used to clearing my Monkey Mind every night after work  that all this information has taken an entire week to catch up to me.

In Consideration of World Peace

I am not and never have been an entrant to any known or unknown beauty pagent. So it is not in my area of expertise to express my supreme wish that we achieve world peace. However, I am not going to let this stop me from expressing this wish.

Today's post comes about as I've been thinking about the joys of "guided meditation". I mean really, it is so cool to have someone speaking gently modulated into your ear. They say wonderful things such as, "Relax" and "Go high above yourself, leave yourself behind". Now I'm sure the last one can be a little unnerving if you have any kind separation anxieties. Regardless, I had a particularly inspiring guided meditation this month that I want to remember. It was a Sharing Your Personal World Peace Meditation (my title, not theirs).

Thing is, that is what the meditation was. It was a guided, imaginative, walk-through of what sharing world peace can feel like.

This is an Oprah and Chopra Meditation. I'm sure you can find it at

In any case - the meditation requests that as you relax with your eyes closed imagine a light eminating from yourself, a brilliant gleaming white light just pushing its clear radiancy from you. Then take this light, hold it in your hands. Know with the depths of your true self that this light, that you now hold in your hands, is world peace. Know that it is truly world peace. Now turn to the soul that is to your left and give to this soul next to you, give them world peace. And as you give them this light, this world peace feel them accept this gift from you. Feel their acceptance and joy in receiving your gift. Enjoy these feelings.

And then, still relaxed and in meditation, turn to your right and accept the brilliant beautiful gift that the soul next to you is giving you. Accept the world peace that is being gifted, given, handed to you. Feel the beauty of this gift. Send your own acceptance and joy in receiving this gift to the soul on your right that has gifted you.

I noticed that as I was in meditation I found myself 'looking up' at the throng of individual souls - as far as I could 'see' - passing glimmering, sparkling beneficient white light among themselves. It was astounding that so many souls were sending out and accepting in this stunning display of world peace.

I love guided meditation. Maybe that is why I like books so much.

The Challenge Winds Down

The Miraculous Relationships Mediation Challenge is winding down. Tomorrow is the last day. I'll be sorry to hear it end. I may not have blogged about each day, as I had intended. But I certainly participated. It was a nice challenge. I love meditations, prayers, quiet/stillness each day. It still has the feel of luxury. I imagine tomorrow's guided meditation will tell each of us what a great job we've done, how miraculous it is to have taken these steps to better our lives, yadd, yadda, yadda. And yes to all that, and thank you. the guided mediation will also touch on keeping up this new habit, now that we've been at it for 21 days. Let's see, what else...if it were smart it would tell us to review the journal entries that we each wrote describing what we wanted from this challenge. From here I remember wanting to feel the freedom and the motivation to write. To me that IS a relationship, an healthy one. I may have to meditate on this yet some more. hahaha

Let your light shine in - day 9

I've made it to day 9 of the great meditation challenge. Today's word of the day was to let your light shine on. It was a nice meditation. I wasn't able to get to the guided meditation until after work. I tell you it all loses a bit of punch when the day is practically done. The meditating itself is getting difficult to get around to. Interesting how I can't seem to find fifteen minutes in the morning to sit quiet. Well, I can but only in spurts. Twenty-one days in a row is proving more difficult than I would have thought. And I like meditating and prayer in general. So, yes I meditated. And yes, I feel the internal light pulsing away just fine. But, I really liked when the meditations struck a chord and then stuck with me all day. It's like carrying fireflies around inside me all day. Hoping tomorrow contains fireflies.

Day 7 meditation challenge update

I have to admit that meditating each day is good for my soul. It's been a week now and the meditations are actually more fulfilling. These are meditations on relationships, even if here in the beginning they are meditations for self. I have seen an easiness in all my transactions with people become the new normal. I feel more genuine. Not that I ever felt disingenuous. My interactions just feel more genuine. Today's meditations explored the ultimate eternity of my soul, of every one's soul for that matter. Even though these thoughts fit no where in my day, as an undercurrent it was nice. It lightened the entire day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. There are miracles in the pipeline of my life right now. It's a great feeling. It may be a miracle with myself. It may be a miracle with those around me. Paulo Coelho wrote, and I'm paraphrasing, "give us this day our daily miracle, whether we can see it or not." He goes on to write, Let us speak the language of angels among ourselves.". Notes to self: I must buy his book, Manuscript from Accra.

Day 6 - Meditations update - Reminders are good

Today has been an eye opener.  I mistakenly deleted the usual Mediation e-mails that I receive each day.  this lead me to sign in to the website to retrieve the information.  I find I am looking forward to these e-mails.  Hey, hey...on the webiste there is a  bunch of great information.  There is a soundtrack of guided meditation that lasts the entire 15 minutes.  There is a journal area as well.  Today I used the journal and it was such a confirmition of how I feel.  I can only reinterate that things happen for a reason.  It was a great time to find out all the tools available for signing in to a website.

The meditations themselves are still focusing on self and on self-esteem.  The focus is still on the self and feeling well enough to put this good feeling out there to the ones that matter in our lives.  Today I was struck by rememberences of things I have let slide for myself.  I feel I'm getting my mojo back.  I didn't know I had lost it.  I still have dreams to make come true.  I still put those things on the back burner.  I still feel amazingly well when I bring these goals back up to the forefront.  I can tell here that I love reminders.  These last 6 days of mediation have been a great reminder.

Miraculous Challenge Day 5

I think we are at Day 5 of the wonderous Miraculous Relationships Meditation Challenge.  I get e-mails each day that let me know how far along we are.  As I suspected it is difficult to take any block amount of time to meditate, but I do find myself ruminating and contemplating the day's focus several times throughout the day.

Day 4 was actually pretty interesting and amazed me again how true it is that our thoughts become things.  Day 4 the focus was on the usual loving oneself (how can one have caring, loving relationships if one is not caring and loving to oneself?  The answer is - one can't.).  To be fair the focus phrase read, " As I love and honor myself, my relationships blossom."  Well, duh.  I hope you can all see how seriously I am taking all this mumbo-jumbo.  For me it is all so incredibly basic and pitiful that we are still trying to talk ourselves into loving ourselves, and being kind and gentle and keeping the spirit within us always, yadda, yadda, yadda.  AND YET - and yet, I was sitting on the bus thinking my guided thoughts about honoring myself and how this will strengthen my relationships in general (Yes, I tend to stray from every guided path) and pretty much just smiling through it.  The bus reached downtown and I opened my eyes to enjoy the city, as I do every day that I ride the bus.  As I checked my phone for e-mails and texts I found myself, as if I do this every day (because I most certainly do not) sending texts to my son and my daughter and my other daughter just wishing them a good day.  Just sending hugs and signing, Mommy. 

But, it didn't stop there.  As if hypnotized I pulled up my son's girlfriend's number and I wished her a magnificent day and just to let her know I was thinking about her.  And it kept going.  I texted my sister in law, who I haven't spoken to in months, positively months - only because I am a generally thoughtless individual, and I wished her a positively wonderous day.  All the exchanges took the entire ride through downtown to my destination.  Each one felt great, and random and spontaneous.  So me, the one who thinks so very little of guided meditations (but still loves 'em) and feel good phrases - well, this one felt good.

And darn good timing too.  Football pre-season game was last night and my sister in law was at the game.  I got the inside track.