Meditation Practice

For a long time I had lost my meditation practice. Years ago I would daily practice a chakra meditation. However, I found having young children made meditation hard. They were always wanting you, or you were always cleaning up, or preparing food, and then you were just too tired.
When I read Eckhart Tolle, I stopped even thinking of meditation. He doesn't talk a great deal about a meditation practice. More, he tends to support just present living - all the time! If I could live presently all the time, I am sure, I wouldn't need to meditate. However, in this I am still a novice.
So, recently, I have taken up regular meditation again. I am trying to meditate twice a day. My kids are a bit older now, and when they are home, I can negotiate 15 minutes away from them. They are accommodating, too, because Mummy is so easy to get along with when she meditates!
I am finding this regular practice so beneficial. Within that meditation time, I explore the sense of Stillness, Space, and Silence. The peace, the oneness with God, and the aliveness of my body. In short, I am getting intensive practice into Eckhart Tolle's Now twice a day. With that, I can get in touch with those sensations more easily during the day. I am regularly reminded to seek out that space within me during the day. I am more peaceful, and I feel the Now more strongly for the practice.
I would urge all who want to try to connect with that spiritual self, Being, God, to try to make a place for regular meditation practice and see what it can do for your spiritual journey.

Communication Frustration!

What frustration is this??!!

Trying to communicate with others in another room of the house. Calling out, "I can't hear you", "what?" and other obvious and irritating time wasting statements.

A friend (Bree) made a rule - "I am not going to answer you if there is a wall between us."

I am making that rule now (and I'm going to try to keep it!) and see if I can limit the irritation and frustration of the whole house conversation.

Fantasy Future

I have always been big on planning. Mapping out the path to success, riches, secruity, grand holidays and different lifestyles. Ideas of excitment and change and growth. I have always been prepared to work toward them, motivated by the end goal.

This has kept my head, and thoughts, firmly in the future.

So, when Eckhart Tolle says to remain present, have your thoughts only in the Now, or rather, don't think, just BE in the Now - I can struggle. In fact, it can seem a little dull, to be HERE, rather than in the exciting future.

However, it is becoming more and more difficult to avoid noticing that that shiney future isn't getting any closer. I strive toward it, but it is not making it actually materialise. Which means, the wonderful future I keep my eye on is in reality just a fantasy land - or might as well be. Like constantly reading an engrossing book, or being really envolved in a movie THAT NEVER ENDS, fantasy future land isn't real and is a distraction from experiencing what IS real. Do I want to keep living like that?

While my head is in fantasy future land, what am I telling myself about Now? As I strive toward more, better, greater, freer, I am feeding the concept that what I have Now is not enough - not good enough, special enough, free enough. It's easy to see the problem with that. (And is most likely why fanstasy future never comes true.)

The ironic part is, that with a reminder from Eckhart Tolle, when I look at Now, it is really fine, sometimes wonderful. So, why all the struggle to get away from the reality of Now?

Fantasy land has been part of my journey. It has kept me positive when I could have been down. It has kept me motivated and energetic when I might otherwise have stagnated. It has given me hope when I might have accepted defeat. But I think fantasy future land needs to be over for me Now.

Fantasy future land has served it's purpose, and in many ways has lead me to spirituality. The striving, running, onward and upward has been the freeway part of my journey, but I see a sign post, and have slowed down enough to read it.

I have decided to take a new road and get off the bypass.

Self Respect Infusion (3)

So how do you create self love and self respect if you are currently live without it? You may be surprised to discover that the more you do for yourself the more self respect you will begin to feel, and the healthier and happier choices you will make for you. Creating respect for yourself and greater happiness in your life can just be a matter of making some practical changes to how you live. When you begin to live with you as a priority, you start to feel it, and believe it – then you are on the slippery slope to self love and respect.

Here is a Self Respect Infusion you can try for a week, and see how life improves for you.
Step 1. Avoid anyone who is generally negative, or puts you down for the whole week. If you have friends or work mates like that, avoid them or be too busy to see them for the week. If you live with someone like that, spend as little time in their company as you can. Just make excuses, its only a week. When you have spent some time without having to ward of negativity, or protect yourself from another's put downs, you will feel refreshed. A break from these type of people will help you to get some space, and recognise how much nicer and easier life can be. ( If you like this feeling, you can down grade some friendships and pick up some new ones that are more pleasant and positive. Or you can initiate some changes in a relationship that is bringing you down.)

Step 2. What do you really enjoy doing? Put a note in your diary to do this pleasant thing everyday for the week. Make sure you do it – make it a priority. Get up early to do it, if you have to, or leave the vacuuming. Spending more time on something you really enjoy will inevitably make life more pleasant. When you spend some time making your happiness a priority it will start to have a positive effect on you, and you will begin to feel you have a right to a little something nice for you. (If you like how this feels, begin a new habit of making the time to do something that makes you happy everyday. See an earlier post for tips on success building new habits.)

Step 3. What are the most important things in your life? List the top two. Now put a note in your diary to work on them each day for the next week. If it is family for you, set time aside to be together, or do something together. If a group, a pet, or keeping fit, church, put something in your diary to spend time building on that priority. Spending the week focusing on the people, relationships, or areas that are most important to you will bring the benefit of strengthening your connection, and commitment to these things. It helps to give you direction, and focus on the things you identify yourself with. (If you like how this feels, as above, make a new habit to regularly engage and strengthen the bond with those important things in your life. Also, the Open Eyed Meditation directs some attention to this area of your life, which helps you to keep those important things in mind through your day, positively effecting the choices you make.)
If you feel that you don't have time to do these things for yourself, here's a list of ideas that can buy you some time: (and when you choose to make that time, you reinforce your commitment to yourself, helping to build self respect.)
Get up early.
Don't clean the house for the week.
Don't go to the gym.
Don't switch on the TV (at all, or until later)
Check you email just once a day, and
Limit phone calls, and the time spent talking.
It is just one week after all, and the Self Respect Infusion just might be a turning point for you and how you see yourself. Who knows where it could lead.
Make a comment, and let me know how it feels after giving yourself a one week Self Respect Infusion.

The Garage Speaks.

It's a two car garage, but has only one small green car in the centre. That's not to say it is empty – it is not. All around the edges of the room is our stuff, and although it is dark I can see the orderly piles. Nothing is moving in here but me, and an ant that scurries around in manic circles at my feet.
There is a dense physical silence, and yet in every direction I turn my gaze, things speak to me. The camping gear, in piles of kharki, call out to remember the mellet for the weekend camping trip. The large, sagging blow up water toy begs to be let down and stowed away. Any number of sad pieces of furniture bleat their need for a new home, and a dusty black hunk of machinery wonders if I will ever get fit again.
I find the keys, get in the car and happily select reverse. I press a button and the door slides down and cuts the garage off – mid sentence!
If you have jobs that are hounding you, either sell it, give it away, throw it away, clean it, stow it, pack it. The negative energy that is triggered for you everytime you think of that chore is toxic. See an earlier post for taking the chore out of chores.

Take the chore out of chores.

Find motivation for all those little jobs you hate to do. Time yourself when next you do the job and note the time in the back of your diary. Often as we avoid those chores that no one enjoys, the mind will exaggerate the length of time and energy it will take to complete. When we know exactly how long the job takes, this tactic no longer works, and resistance is reduced.
Now you have a better idea of just how little time your job takes to do, you will no longer need to put off doing it. If you find yourself avoiding that job again – check your diary. It only takes 5 minutes to knock that one off!

Guaranteed Success in Creating Habits.

The habits we use daily can make a difference in our lives. They can either be unconscious repeated bad patterns of behavior (creating annoyance, irritation, unhappiness in ourselves and others) or they can be unconscious repeated great patterns of behavior (creating satisfaction, organisation and happiness in ourselves and others).
Perhaps there are some habits you would like to change, upgrade a bad habit to a good one. These are the tips Leo Babauta gives, as published by Timothy Ferriss:
1.Change only one habit at a time.
2.Write down your new habit, and when you will do it - time of day, or the trigger to do it. For instance, if you wish to always put your keys in the same place, your trigger may be when you get home.
3. Tell everyone you know, family and friends, even blog. Possible public humiliation is a key to maintaining motivation!
4. Keep those friends, family and blog updated on your progress. This to maintain the public humiliation component.
And I will add this one.
5. Never allow an exception to pass. If you miss your new habits' time, or trigger, go back as soon as you realise and set it to right.
So - what small behavior can you work on first. Remember to sit back and enjoy the satisfaction, in setting, committing and achieving your new habit, and the positive impact of an unconscious repeated great pattern of behavior on your life.

Get the Habit of Happiness.

There is one way to completely change your life, and that is through changing bad habits for good. The great thing about habits are that we do them automatically, we don't have to think about them and choose. However, bad habits mean we are regularly, without thinking, doing things that do not get us where we want to go, don't give us the results we want. But we can change habits. All we need to do is recognise the habits that are not working for us, find a habit to replace it, and change.

One habit you might like to consider changing is that of saying negative things to others. Speaking complaints. For one thing they bring others down. For another, they make a negative situation last longer, become bigger and more insidious, as you give the bad situation more and more space in your life, and allow others to associate you with the complaint. By stopping ourselves from speaking negatively, we just might reduce the amount of negative thoughts we have. Reduce negative thought, promote happiness, calm and contentedness. And we could all do with some of THAT.

Timothy Ferriss experimented with an bracelet sold specifically to stop this old habit. (And I am sorry, I can't quite locate it now, amongst all that he has written, but it is there on his site somewhere.) You wear the bracelet on one arm, and try to go 21 days without saying anything negative. If you do say something negative you have to change the bracelet to the other arm AND START ALL OVER AGAIN. Ferriss decided that it was a little vague – is negative a bit of a relative term? - so he decided you could relate a negative story to another, but you had to add the solution you had decided on to the end of you tale.

So, why not try it? Get one of those rubber bands that are everywhere at the moment, and try to wear it for 21 days in a row on one arm. Ferriss took 3 months to finally succeed in 21 days straight, so expect to struggle a little with it. You can choose which option you go with, no negative statements, or no negative statement without a solution punchline. Take notice of any changes to your attitude as you conduct this experiment (maybe a diary, or a moment before sleep) as it may inspire you to make more and more positive new habits in your life.

Good Luck. Of course, if you decide that you could do with further calm in your life, you can try meditation!