Today is Friday. Typically the start of a weekend full of excuses why it’s okay to eat poorly or excessively. Let’s see if this helps somebody.
Affirmation for today:
I eat healthy and nutritious foods.
And just in case we splurge:
I love and accept myself exactly where I am today.
Well, it is official. We have two new members in our family, all of the canine variety.
Meet Adelaide, V and E’s new furry friend. Since it rains quite frequently in Northern Cal, she has her very own rain gear.
And just a few hours ago…possibly named Henry (this may change I assume), a cute corgi, Tibetan mix for M and J.
So in total, if we all came together for whatever, give or take a cat because they don’t travel well – we would have four cats, and three dogs now for six of us.
And just as an aside – I already really miss Downton Abbey. Gosh that was well written and well done and entertaining !!!
Who doesn’t have fears?
But in Master Mind 2016, us women are working out different methods to reach our goals or to at least get closer to our purpose and mission in life or just the next six months, with clarity and focus.
A clever tool is the Quadrant. For each box, fill in your personal information.
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DESIRE TO HAVE Your BIG Why / REASONS you want what you want |
DESIRE TO NOT HAVE Benefit of staying the same / Competing intentions |
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FEAR ABOUT HAVING / GETTING WHAT YOU WANT Doubts / What ifs that keep you from moving forward |
FEAR ABOUT NEVER EVER HAVING or GETTING WHAT YOU WANT |
Your guiding star is your goal and the feeling you would get if you accomplished it. Ask yourself if what you are doing allows you to accomplish that goal.
Which choices honor your goal? What is getting in the way?
One question can spark a revolution or a quest or a debate inside your head.
As every teacher knows, no question is too insignificant or wrong.
Some questions demand an immediate response and some require us to pause and think. Some, of course, are rhetorical.
Every question asks us to press on, move forward, dive in deep, prompt us or to contemplate the past. Any of those actions and sometimes even more options can exist in the same response.
Do you remember a question when you replied with a lie?
Can you recall a time you answered with an unexpected response and took yourself by surprise?
What questions keep you up at night, make you livid or destroy your sense of humor?
And what question would you ask if you could ask only one?
What answer would you give if you were asked that very same question?
Whom would you want to inquire more about?
Someone once asked me what my favorite part of practicing yoga was and I answered, “The spiritual connection I receive as I flow through the present moment: body, mind and soul.”
I will be forever grateful for that question I did not expect to answer with such conviction and wide open tenderness.
You only get one childhood and I was reflecting on mine and what I loved doing then.
I played on our old multicolored swings, hanging upside down on the trapeze bar my dad concocted out of rope and a metal bar. I did flips and swung by my knees, stretching my arms all the way down, using my core to gain momentum because I couldn’t reach the ground.
I sat in my backyard petting my first cat, a tuxedo feline named Misty, in the shade, under a mimosa tree on the side of our house.
I spent time in my room, reading, strumming the guitar my abuela brought me from Argentina. I taught myself a few chords, wrote my own crazy lyrics and sang badly. I wrote poems overlooking the woods behind us from my window above my desk. I played school, acting as teacher and all the imaginary students and loved to play “Spelling Bee” for my weekly vocabulary quizzes, even scolding with consternation whenever a “student” was out of line.
I listened to music on my cool petal pink LP portable player, watching the black album spin from my twin bed.
I was happy, content and liked to make every situation as fun as possible.
I loved being outside, one with nature, contemplating, observing and daydreaming for hours on my back watching the clouds and the sky and wondering even then, what’s it all about?
When I was older and was allowed, I remember walking ” into town” which consisted of one movie house, one bakery, one bank and one general store. I walked everywhere: to school and back in every kind of weather, to town and five miles to church, past the one grocery store and our Carvel ice cream shop. I was gone for hours at a time and as long as I made it back by whatever time, usually dinnertime, no one knew where I was.
Those were the days. No wonder I escape to the treehouse and I am content with solitary endeavors now as a grown adult.
Your perception becomes your reality and when we are so focused on our own version of the truth, we close the door to other possibilities.
Creatives see outside the box, they are willing to be willing to be open, in their hearts and minds and that makes them teachable, flexible and ready to receive the download of Universal Inspired and Visionary Energies.
Whenever I see this genius piece of art by Salvador Dali, I think about perception. In the cubed form of Lincoln’s profile picture there is a naked woman’s backside in the center -depending on where you view the art.
I experience humility as a feeling of being right-sized, like Goldilocks. It’s not thinking too highly of yourself, nor lowly of yourself. It’s a balancing of knowing what’s mine and what’s none of my business. It’s acknowledging and accepting my good traits as easily as I cop to my flaws.
It feels like authenticity wrapped in wisdom, enveloped in serenity and tied in a bow with joy.
Affirmation: I accept myself as a work in progress.
Our yoga class and my home is enhanced by a contemplative giraffe. She has great symbolism and has brought me a new way of looking at things. She is an expression of farsighted perception, communication in all its forms, balance and moving forward.
She has brought this to my life unknowingly. Thank you, L, for this timely and ideal gift.
Who I am is what I have to give.
Quite simply, I must remember that’s enough.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef
Here, is a meditative awareness with and for everything.
Let’s work on making this a great day and see what unfolds. Choose to matter and make every effort to be the best you can be. I may not be perfect, but I am whole, today.
What is it that you love?
I love my husband, kids, dog, friends and life.
This I must profess through actions not just words but even more importantly, I must love and take care of myself, now.
I always thought it was about thinking, doing for and serving others…but it is not that first. Before everything else, it is about how I feed, feel, respond and function as myself, my true self.
This is the first key: Acceptance of Self. Which begins and ends with forgiveness and compassion.
Here’s the second key: Know that I am Goddess embodied so I treat myself divinely. I am a reflection of Goddess with human flaws. I am the divine – a sacred being first and foremost.
Third key: I am enough. I choose to be happy, do what I love, be in every minute and exude the presence of something higher than self throughout the day, in human form or action.
Our dog, Cindi, barked at everyone who passed by when we were leisurely sitting on our saltillo tiled hotel patio in Avila Beach last summer. She is so territorial. I kind of like that about her actually because it gives me a false sense of security. I think she’s a lookout for me. I erroneously believe she would protect me and bite off someone’s leg if they came near me to harm me but all they would have to do is offer her a treat or a piece of meat and she would be putty in their hands.
Plus, she only weighs fifteen pounds.