Tag Archives: Meditation

happiness

A mind – full meditation

My meditation practice is still a work in progress. Meditation is something that I have been drawn to and curious about since discovering that I love yoga. But it’s also something I’ve been hesitant to do and slow to love.

I flirted a bit with it over the years, but it wasn’t until I became a student of New World Ayurveda that it actually became a part of my daily routine. And, let’s be honest here, a lot of the time it only is part of that routine because it’s a graduation requirement. Sometimes I like it, a lot of the time I hate it, often I am bored by it, always I feel better because of it.

When I first started I was so filled with anxiety that I couldn’t do more than a few minutes before having a panic attack. My body and soul was in such distress that I couldn’t take that quiet time. It took a lot of time and a lot of determination to keep going and get through that.

Interestingly, now as a byproduct of all that hard work (and some other things learned through Ayurveda), I barely think about anxiety at all anymore. I’ve made such enormous changes in my life and I’m hardly ever anxious.

However, usually I still struggle through my meditation practice. I’ll be focusing on my mantra and then instead of slipping into the blissful state I feel I should be heading towards, my mind goes to….. hmmmm what should I have for lunch? Did I get the kids all the things they needed for school? Is the dog going through the garbage? She’s such a naughty dog. I should take her for a walk, I hear the cats moving around, is there a mouse in the house? I’m hungry. Is this almost over? Why am I not all blissful? And then some real life problems are always mixed in.

I meditate for 20 minutes at a time. When I’m getting ready to meditate, I wish that I could maybe only do 5 or 10 minutes… but the course says I have to do 20. Grumble grumble. But, it’s not until the last 5 or so minutes when my brain usually lets go of all its crap and I relax into a proper state.

Today’s meditation was a wild ride. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I’m focusing on letting go, allowing, trusting, loving, listening to my heart. It’s all very challenging for me as I have a hard time trusting and because of that a hard time allowing. Although I am also painfully aware that I never am able to actually accomplish anything positive by forcing and controlling. I know the only way to get where I want to be is by surrendering and allowing.

Today though everything just went into this beautiful space and I was able to let things go and find a lot of freedom and peace. It was a beautiful moment in time that created an incredible amount of healing and strength for me. That was my happiness moment today.

 

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Tears from heaven 

I’m finding as I move further into my understanding of who I am (with the help of my Ayurvedic studies, my meditation, my yoga, my increasingly closer relationship with The Source) that I am loving my sacred quiet morning times more and more. They are what gets me on my path for the day ahead and the more relaxed and at peace I can be when I start off, the better my entire day is.

This is how we started the morning on our terrace at the Tamaya Resort, so quiet and peaceful and warm. 

After helping Mom get ready for her course I headed back out along my Sunflower Path to clear my head and stretch my legs. As I began walking I was impressed with how quiet my head was. I was congratulating myself on how unstressed and uncluttered I was as I strolled along. Of course, no sooner did those thoughts come than my emotions were all like oh yeah? You think you’re all zen? Here, let me show you what’s really going on inside. And suddenly I was filled with rage.

By the time I realized how completely angry I was, I was at the halfway mark which looks out over the river towards the mountains and towards one of Dad’s sunflowers. So, I stood there and mind raged at the Dad-sunflower. 

Now, it was cloudy when I left for my walk, but I’d been out for about a half hour and although it was a bit chillier than I had thought, it was just overcast.

As I reached the peak of my mind-yelling at sunflower-Dad I started crying. Thank goodness I’m getting more comfortable with this whole bawling my eyes out in public thing (it helped that the path was quiet and I had this space to myself) because my eyes really let ‘er rip with those wet tears.

I was standing there bawling with a huge rock on my chest and a big lump in my throat as my mind-yelling turned into deep sorrow and I realized I was more really sad than really angry. At this exact moment it started to rain. Tears from heaven.  I stood there crying in the rain for a few minutes just allowing all the emotion to flow out of me and into the rain, into the river, and towards sunflower-Dad.

Then I was done and so was the rain. I felt the weight leave my heart and clear my throat. As these grief and sorrow feelings flowed away, the rain stopped. I waved to sunflower-Dad and walked back to the path to finish my walk. The second half of my walk was lined with the rest of the sunflowers and I had the strong feeling it was Dad reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

When I came back to the room I turned on the TV to listen to while I organized things. The channel was on The Doctors and they had some guy on talking with Vicki from RHOBH. She lost her mother a few months ago and she was getting messages from her through this medium. Then he went on say that so often people who have passed on are trying to contact us, but that we have to remain aware of the signs.

I smiled and thought how much I appreciated that Dad made his signs pretty easy for me to see. But, he loved us like that – he would try and make it as easy as possible for us.

I turned off the TV, rolled out my yoga mat and spent some time in quiet body stretching reflection.

My happiness moment: my tears joining with Dad’s tears from heaven. Because happiness isn’t always rolling on the floor belly laughing. Sometimes it comes from a deeper place in the soul.

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Giggles 

Today’s happiness moment happened when I was upstairs doing yoga. I was lying  on my mat, stretching into good feelings when I heard thumping and banging and giggles coming from downstairs. Jenna and her cousin were playing together in the family room. We have so much smoke here from the Washington fires that going outside isn’t all that enjoyable. 

I heard them giggling and bouncing all the way through my practice and during my meditation. When I finally came downstairs I discovered they’d made a survival course made of cushions through the “lava” on the floor – yet another use for our indestructible red carpet. They pulled me in and I too was hopping from one cushion to another. Sadly I drowned when I failed to balance on the corner of Jenna’s blue yoga mat which was “water”. Fortunately they rescued me before continuing on the course. 

Having done so many quiet years when we were away – times where the kids didn’t have that strong core of friends to hang out with – I am so thankful and grateful that they both have BFF’s right across the yard. Their mom is one of mine as well – bonus happiness and gratitude. 

It is so important for me to keep reaching for these happiness feelings. I still have those punch in the gut moments that dad is really gone. I had another one today driving with Jenna. She mentioned how josh had wanted to share a video he had made with dad. They never had that chance, but josh won an award for the video. Jenna mentioned how proud dad would be of him and how he will he watching him get the award from heaven. Gut punch. Cry. Gratitude that I had him as a dad. 

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Swinging

Today’s happiness moment was sitting with my mother in law watching the kids on the swings. 

Jenna’s joy leap in motion is how I feel this summer. Leaping towards happiness. Leaping into life.   

A secondary moment was walking the labyrinth with them. They actually took it pretty seriously and then went and sat quietly in the middle when they were done so I could finish. As soon as I told them it was like a waking mediation they were excited to try it. 

  

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The quiet breath 

Since today is about breathing in the quiet and it was my focus – the Universe shared a couple of amazing quiet moments with me this evening and now I will share them with you. 

This was my view on my drive (westward) 

home this evening. I had to pull off and stare at the sky for a while.    

The sky as I was walking over to my Mom’s house: a view to the east. 
 

The benefit of being able to stop and breathe in the silence is that I am able to appreciate perfect moments like this. It’s an amazing and wonderful world. 

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Breathing in the quiet. 

Quiet is something I need, something I crave, and something I love. I know this about myself – and yet sometimes I find it difficult to sit in silence. To breathe in the quiet. My mind sometimes seems to think it needs to be entertained – even when my soul is saying shhhhhhhh just sit in silence. 

During times of anxiety I fight this inner battle even more. It’s a time when I really need quiet. A time when meditating and walking or riding out in nature really are the medicine I need. But, my mind instead says no, you should watch tv or play on the Internet or waste hours on Facebook. 

Its like my mind resists the thing that will help it most. I don’t understand this, but I know it to be true. So I try and remember to work with that. 

I’ve been meditating for a couple of years and it has brought great benefits to my life. When we moved home in all the chaos and the emotional upset I stopped. Even though it was a time when I needed it most. I couldn’t handle sitting in silence and hearing what was going on in my head. Even though meditation was what I needed to calm those voices of sadness and worry, I couldn’t break through the barrier. 

I’ve been meditating again and I feel so much better. I appreciate the silence I can sit in it again and breathe. I can feel it healing me. 

Last night as I was walking home I had to stop and listen. I was listening to nothing. We live near the highway and as the city grows the road gets busier and louder. Moments of true silence are harder and harder to come by here. Ironically, my moment of quiet here came because the highway was so busy it had come to a complete standstill – therefore no noise. 

This afternoon out on my cousin’s deck I noticed it again. A few of us were standing out there visiting – and we could hear each other. The road was quiet. We stood and watched child cousins play while us adult cousins visited. Saw the kids run through the field playing hide and go seek while we caught up on each other’s lives. My happiness moment. My sister was not with us, but I got to see her girl play with my girl and that was great. 

Yesterday I talked about how what I think about I attract – or what I believe I achieve. Specifically how I learned the Law of Attraction while riding I just wasn’t aware of what it was. No sooner had I published my blog than my niece and daughter called me to see I wanted to go riding with them. Of course I dropped everything and ran (skipped) out to the barn. I got to give an impromptu riding lesson to Jacob where I ended up explaining the law of attraction horse style just as I learned it. What you think about you attract.  It’s a fact. 

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An afternoon ride 

  
As a kid I used to ride all over the ranch in the summer months. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with my sister, usually joined by Buster the dog. 

When I first learned about yoga and meditation I realized that I had been connecting with the Source every time I jumped on my horse and headed off. Riding has always been a very spiritual activity for me, something that has always calmed my anxiety and grounded me in nature. It’s something I need to do in order to be the best version of myself. 

Today I got to ride with Jenna and my niece. It wasn’t long or far (those clouds in the background had us heading home before we got rained on) but it was soul cleansing. My happiness moment. 

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Sunbeam yoga cat. 

 
After three months of emotional chaos I have decided it’s time to try and restore a bit of order into my life. I haven’t been following my proper routine, my exercise hasn’t been regular, and my eating habits have been horrendous. Granted, not as horrendous as before I started studying Ayurveda, but not great. It’s that sugar thing. Sugar and I have a difficult relationship. 

I can feel the lack of proper sleep and the lack of exercise and poor food choices wrecking havoc on my body. The last few days I’ve been making more of an effort to get my routine back. 

I’ve also been gentle with myself because in the last three months we have undergone huge change and I have every reason to have emotions out of whack. But I know Dad would want us all to look after ourselves. And I’m home and I’m going to celebrate every day. 

Since the weather has been nicer I’ve been going outside for walks with Dottie. But, as seems to happen at this time of year – wildlife is getting a little too close for comfort. And, I’m bear-a-noid at the best of times. I’ve decided to give the outdoor walks a little break for a while. Or until I find a walking companion who is much slower than I am! I’m still getting used to the more recent  presence of predators. I was so used to being able to walk or ride for hours and never worry about anything. Times change. I don’t. 

Today I used my elliptical and then was just going to do some gentle yoga stretches. But I realized my body needed more stretching, and that my meditation practice has been thrown out the window. So instead I did a downloaded yoga class followed by a 20 minute meditation. 

I rolled my mat out into the middle of the floor where there was a nice sunbeam and began my practice. No sooner was I on my mat and Ella raced over to lie in the sunbeam. She loves when I do yoga and insists on her belly being rubbed on every forward bend. 

I feel SO much better after my practice. Lighter in mind and body. It served as a reminder of why I do what I do and why it’s so important to me. My happiness moment for the day. My sunbeam yoga with my cat. 

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Surrender

  
I come from a long line of extremely stubborn and willful people so to say that I don’t surrender easily (or at all) into things is putting it mildly. 

Since having yoga and mediation and Ayurveda introduced into my life I have been actively seeking the way to surrender. It hasn’t been successful. 

This is likely because I’ve been trying to force myself to surrender. Stubbornly and willfully. With no success. 

I always imagined how my true surrender would go. It would be like Disney meets Kripalu. I would be sitting serenely in a field with butterflies flitting about, deer skipping by, and flowers dancing a merry rainbow of peace and serenity. I would be radiating bliss from my inner core as I sat in peaceful meditation. 

No matter how many times I tried to force this peaceful surrender it never happened. 

Today for the first time I felt myself – my whole self, body mind and spirit – surrender. 

Here’s what it looked like: me lying on the ground yelling no, no, no, no, no, no,no f*ck, f*ck (a few more hundred of those)…. FINE. Then I lay there and cried. And I’m not a pretty crier. It was heaping, drooling, snotty sobs of tears. 

Then I got up, dusted myself off, and continued to cry for the next 12 hours. Actually, since I’m still crying now it will be much longer I’m sure.

But, somewhere in that heaping, ugly mess came surrender. I felt it happen. I just gave it all up. 

Once I got to the point where I was beyond trying to force myself into a place that was not authentic for me it just happened. Right now in this moment in time, surrender for me is curled up in the fetal position crying my eyes out. And that’s ok. Because it’s real. 

Surrender meant acknowledging what is happening, having my authentic response to it and being ok with it. Knowing that what happens is beyond my control. That it’s not my job to reach for a specific outcome. Right now it’s my job to surrender, to cry, to feel, to relax and let be. 

Happiness moment today was sitting with dad in a sunbeam while giving him a big hug. Yes, I cried for most of it. But whatever. It was still a moment of true love and that means happiness. 

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Yoga Cat

Our cat Ella has a very strict rule that she likes to be “close but no touching”. She likes to be in our space, but as with any decent cat, she lives life on her terms. So, with the exception of Jacob, her rule is that she will be close to us, but please don’t try and cuddle, pick up or generally touch her. Jacob (whom I might add does absolutely nothing to help look after her) is allowed to carry her upside down, over his shoulder, like a baby, and about any other way you can imagine. She crawls into bed with him and curls right up into his armpit purring away while he talks to her. If Jenna or I even try and pick her up she meow-screams and tries to wriggle away as if her life depends on it. By the way, this is why I also have to have a dog. Otherwise my self esteem would be completely shot.

The only time she changes this “close but no touching” rule with me is when I do yoga. As soon as I roll out the mat she comes running from wherever she is and is all over me. Sometimes she even drives me so bananas I’ve tried locking her out of my room. This does not end well for me as she lies on the other side of the door with her paw sticking underneath it while she meows mournfully until I give up and let her in. I always start with some forward bends. So as soon as I stand and stretch up into mountain pose before bending down, Ella runs and lays at my feet on her back with her belly exposed. She does this because she loves having a belly scratch. Every time I bend down I have to stay in that stretch and give her a good old belly rub. This lasts about 5 minutes.

Then I go on to table position and she jumps onto my back. She stays there while I do cat/cow pose and goes along for the ride when I go back into child’s pose. Sometimes she even stays on after that while I go up into downward dog, climbing up onto my butt to sit for a while before jumping off. At this point she usually buggers off for a while, leaving me alone to do the rest of my poses. Until I get to the last one, which is the reclining double leg twist. I have my arms out to the sides at this point and she comes and lays in a similar pose to me with her head on my right hand and purrs while I scratch her face.

When I’m done my yoga I do 20 minutes of meditation. My back’s been a bit yucky so I’ve been meditating lying down with my legs up on a chair. Ella comes and either sits on my chest, staring at me while purring (this doesn’t last long – it starts to hurt) or she wraps herself around my head and purrs the entire time.

Then, I’m done. She knows it. And we immediately return to our regular routine of “close but no touching”.

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Scratch my belly, minion.IMG_1302

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My moment of happiness on day 26 of my 44 days came with Ella this morning. Every morning we play fetch (seriously) with her toy mouse while I eat my breakfast and have my tea. Sometimes she likes to hide her mouse in my slippers if I’ve taken them off. This morning she came over to me with her mouse and she was playing with it when I looked away for a few seconds. She started meowing and pawing at my slipper and then looking up at me – very clearly telling me the mouse was in there. I felt around inside and got nothing. She still insisted it was in there. I picked up both slippers, shook them around – nothing came out. I put them back down in front of her and told her that the mouse was gone. She continued looking at me with her big eyes, insisting it was in the slipper.

Suddenly she leapt straight up in the air about 2 feet. As she went up, her body circled so her legs all met in her middle. I watched as she grabbed with all 4 legs the mouse that she’d been hiding under her belly the whole time. She ended up taking it in her front paws, throwing it, and then chasing it when she landed. Little sneak! She totally did it on purpose just to mess with me. I swear she was cat-laughing when she was done.

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