5 Gifts to Give Yourself this Holiday Season

1. More deep breaths


Did you ever find yourself deep in a thought about something which you felt emotional or stressed about and within seconds your body is tightening up, breathing is slow and shallow, your jaw is tight and probably if you looked in the mirror, the space between your brows was all crunched up? Now, in the same situation, after you have this same thought, you made a decision to instead, take a few very deep breaths….inhale and exhale. There is no tension in your jaw, no tension in your face and you actually begin to soften about the thought you are having. That’s exactly right, it is impossible to take deep breaths and for the body and mind to hold onto tension. We immediately feel lighter, free in the mind to create space and open to solutions. Focus on breathing in times when you are aware that this is happening and see everything change

2. Silence

I used to be very afraid of silence. Spending time alone in a quiet space terrified me and I would avoid this at all cost. What I didn’t get what was that in this silence, what I could actually do was hear my inner voice. In fact, that was exactly what I was avoiding. Fortunately, I did learn to do this and realized that it was okay and that everything has a way of releasing and then being okay again. Without this space, it is difficult for us to know what is going on inside us. Silence has the ability to create inner balance, trust within ourselves, trusting that we can still be anchored and experience whatever emotions that we need to, then join back in again with a fresh outlook and reinvigorated spirit. If everything always seeks balance, then in between all the noise, there must be silence. “Music inherently depends on silence in some form or another to distinguish other periods of sound and allow melodies and rhythms to have greater impact.”

3. Support

Limiting belief systems are so prevalent as I talk to people everyday. “I can’t do that”…”I don’t have time”…I’m too fat”…..”I waited too long and now I’m too old”. The true fact of the matter that I’ve seen inevitably happen in my life is that whatever I have thought about what I can do or not do in my life is exactly what ends up happening.

So, how do I make my dreams come true??

Get support. We must surround ourselves with mentors, friends, family, coaches, who can help us achieve our greatest goals and live our purpose driven life.

Who are those people for you? If you don’t yet, ask the universe to reveal them to you and then ask them for support. At the same time, who can you think of that may need your help?

Alex Karras wrote “It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more 'manhood' to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.”

4. Self Development

In order for each of us to understand our life’s purpose, to set goals for our future, and to expand and change as is mandatory for our growth and development, we must invest in ourselves the time and space needed to do this. As you look at the year ahead, what are your plans when it comes to self development? Spend some time researching a workshop, sign up for an interesting seminar, disappear to a faraway retreat, or discover a new hobby. Is your soul crying out to take a dance lesson, go skydiving, begin blogging or writing a book? Listen and you will see. Look at the year and make the time for development. The biggest excuse I hear and the reason why people don’t spend the time to do these things is that they tell themselves that they don’t have the time. I know because I used to do this too. On the contrary, you will find that when you make the time for these things, you will have more time. Why? You create energy when you expend energy. Happy people with full lives have more energy, need less sleep, feel better, look better and get everything done in less time. It’s true…so go after it. The world is waiting for you to fulfill your purpose.

5. FUN

Oh my Gosh…how many limitations have we put on ourselves in this lifetime so far?? Here are a few of mine: I have to go to bed early because I have to get up early, I am not pretty enough, I can’t eat that, I waited too long and now I can’t start….trust me, I could go on. The point is, let’s have fun…and Now!

I am enough right now and I’m about to havin’ some fun ;-))

No more: hiding who you are, following the rules, taking everything too seriously, being too busy, avoiding things because you are in fear, caring about what others might think.

So, what do you think? Will you join me on this fun escapade?

Enjoy your gifts! You may re-Gift them to as many of your loved ones as you choose. I don’t mind ;-)

Love and Light,

Lauren

More Acceptance, More Peace

Wikipedia defines acceptance as "a person's agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit".






In life we have so many opportunities to experience acceptance and also to experience protest. Why would I choose to protest? Seems so much better to accept and experience peace. Yet, there have been so many times in my life when I know I've done just the opposite.



I have had expectations for all sorts of things in my life. Here are just a few (maybe you can relate to one or two). what success looks like, how i am supposed to look, when i was to get married and have kids, what my house should look like, how my friends should act......WOW, that's a lot of expectations! (and that's not all of them ;-). These come from a long line of experiences, past history and watching what went on around me as the unwritten rules for life. However, these rules, these expectations eventually caused me pain when i realized that I am not in control of what other people do or how they act or how things are "supposed to be". All in all, it really all comes back to being in the present. If I begin to have an expectation for a certain outcome to occur or a certain person to act in a specific way, I have entered down a path that can now lead to major disappointment and also miss out on many gifts that come in different packages.





Deepak Chopra says in the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success that " Least effort is expended when your actions are motivated by love, because nature is held together by the energy of love. When you seek power and control over other people or situations, you waste energy. When you seek money or power for the sake of the ego, you spend energy chasing the illusion of happiness instead of enjoying happiness in the moment." All things we perceive as problems have in them gifts; an opportunity to grow into something else completely.





For example, you walk into the yoga room and half way through class you realize that you have a lower amount of energy than normal. You are feeling that your whole practice up to this point is just a struggle and you begin to feel frustrated. Frustrated to the point, that you begin to give up in the mind and begin sending negative messages to your brain about how your body isn't performing the way you want it to. If we use this definition of acceptance now and break this down, we could instead, see that our energy is low and accept this. We may decide in standing head to knee that it may be beneficial to stay in the first part instead of going to the deepest part of the posture and instead focus more on our pranayama breathing. We can bring more focus into the breath. We can focus more on finding the stillness in the posture and also in between the postures. Wow...what a gift. This could actually become a huge learning curve in your practice. In these moments of stillness that you begin to create now in your practice, you feel good. You send feel good messages to the brain because you are in acceptance and treating your body with respect. So the message is "It may be uncomfortable, but don't leave...don't exit the situation".





I recently had a situation in my life that I wished I handled differently because I came from a place of non acceptance. Of course, because of that, It caused me pain and as I looked at it closely, I had to peel the layers away, and it was really uncomfortable. But, I want to learn and go through this journey. I want to self realize and learn from the things that don't work so i don't have to repeat them. Life is full of mistakes so that we can learn from them.





Pattabi Jois, who was an icon in the yoga community and creator of Ashtanga Yoga, said "Perfect asana means you can sit for three hours with steadiness and happiness, with no trouble." I love that. It's not about being perfect, it's about coming back again and again to stillness, to being. To being a person who is a work in progress.



Om Shanti