by Debra | Apr 17, 2014
I used to be the gal who said, “Put the house on my back. I can carry it.”
I lost my mother when I was 26-years-old, my children were 4 and 5 years old, and I went into survival mode. I am a doer; I get things done, sometimes at any cost. The problem with operating this way is the price my health and nervous system paid.
Today, I know better, or I thought I did. That get- it- done- fast, do- it- right way of being crept back in my life into my meditation and processing. I noticed that I was being a bit aggressive with my practice and I was experiencing some anxiety. The funny thing is that I do know better. I know the best way to meditate and process through things in my life are through having compassion and slowing things down. This reminded me of how easy it is to revert back into old patterns and habits. It took a couple of days for me to realize this because I thought that it was a good thing to be so disciplined with my practice. Discipline is one thing, but cracking the whip is quite the other.
So, I had to look at what was coming up for me. What fear was making me want to move through my process fast and become enlightened now? Checking in with my old belief system, I noticed that it was tapping into the one where I always feel like I’m doing something wrong. After recognizing the feelings as anxiety and identifying this old belief, I was able to be with it and eventually let it go.
Sitting with these feelings of anxiety was not easy. I wanted to get busy, call a friend, do anything to distract me from the feelings I was having. But I made myself stay and feel them, and they did pass. It’s so important to realize how automatic our old beliefs slip back in, and how, if we are asleep, we may not even recognize how unconscious we were.
This is why it is so important to slow things down and pay attention; pay attention to what we are feeling, how we are behaving, and how fast we are moving. Throughout the day, stop yourself and pause and take 3 big, deep breaths, and be still. Then go about your day. Do this many times to connect with yourself and slow things down.
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by Debra | Apr 7, 2014
We hear it in books, see it on affirmations, and our teacher’s tell us all the time, breathe and be in the present moment. It seems so easy when it is said, but just try it. Bring your thoughts, your mind back to what you are doing for just 5 minutes. It’s amazing how many times you will have to bring it back. Our thoughts are running rampant through our childhood wounding, through our old belief system and then toward what action we should or shouldn’t take. Or we have the random thoughts intertwined like; what we are going to cook for dinner, did the mail come, is it going to rain this weekend, did I pay my phone bill and ouch, I think I just pulled a muscle. It seems like a billion thoughts run across our minds like tiny little ants on a mission.
Often we seem to have difficulties being right where we are in the present moment. We are either in the past or in the future. If we are in the past, it could bring a yearning for what we no longer have or guilt for what we have done. If we live in the future, we will be trying to get something we want that we don’t have or depressed about someone or something we may never have. Either way it creates suffering. When we’re at work, we can’t wait for the weekend; on Sunday we are anxious because we have to return to work. We obsess about things in the past and fret about what may or may not happen in our future. Our thoughts control our daily lives, leaving us in the company of our unconscious suffering minds.
Our thoughts are what cause our suffering. If we can manage our thought, our unconscious mind, our suffering could be minimized.
How do we manage our thoughts?
1. Watch them.
First, bring your attention to the thoughts. Just check in and see how active your mind is. For just one day, pay attention to all of your thoughts and do nothing about them; just watch them go by. You might be pretty shocked, I know I was. At first I was actually embarrassed at how silly they seemed to be and how many there was.
2. Don’t judge them.
When I first started watching my thoughts, I was amused at how out of control my thoughts seemed to be. There was never a quiet moment where I could just be. What we want to do is just observe our thoughts and not judge them. They are just thoughts, nothing more. When we judge them, we give them the power to control us.
3. See if they are creating suffering.
If we act like our thoughts are real, judge them, or act on them, this is what creates suffering. If we don’t give our thoughts any meaning, they come and go and are merely nothing but thoughts. A friend told me of a friend of her’s that just got diagnosed with cancer. My mind went to,”Oh my, maybe I’m going to get cancer! My mom had cancer at 43 years old.” I then start to worry. Do you see where my thoughts just took me? I might die of cancer. The reality is, cancer might be in my future and worrying about isn’t going to prevent that and it also might not.
4. Bring your mind back to the present.
When your mind goes running off the road, just say “thinking” and bring it back to what you are doing. Realize it’s just a thought and bring it back to the present moment. This isn’t easy, by the way. We have lived a very long time in our fantasies and delusions of our minds. Be careful about hanging out in your mind; you might be in enemy territory. When we buy into our thoughts we may be sabotaging our life.
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by Debra | Apr 1, 2014
How do we stay out of the drama of life and take that drama and move into a place of higher conscious learning? First what is drama? Drama is conceived through getting wrapped up in a situation that happens instead of looking at why it is happening. Let’s say someone treats me with disrespect. If I lament about the situation and say things like, “I can’t believe she did that to me, she is such a nut job, what is wrong with her, she must be crazy,” or I keep the thoughts circling in my head, I am stuck in the drama of the situation. If I am stuck in the drama, I miss the higher learning.
The higher learning looks more like looking at what you have to learn from it, your wound around it and your old belief system attached to it. Maybe when you were younger your family didn’t respect your rights and therefore when it happens in your adult life, it triggers you. Then you proceed to do your work around healing that wound and not buying into the old belief system. This opportunity will be completely lost if you stay in the drama of the event.
Tips To Stay Out Of The Drama
1. Recognize your triggers. Anytime you are not at peace, you are triggered.
2. Step out of the trigger and connect it to your wound as a child.
3. Look at your old belief around the wound.
4. Don’t buy into the old belief, know it’s a lie.
5. Create a new belief and sink into it’s truth.
It is going to be impossible to create happiness and peace if you are not aware of your childhood wounds, your old beliefs, and how they make you react to certain situations. They key is getting to know yourself in a much deeper way. Look at how your life is showing up for you and you can get a good picture of how strong your old beliefs are. They only way to shift an old belief is to know where it came from and not to buy into it.
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by Debra | Feb 22, 2014
What does living a conscious life mean exactly?
It means not sleeping on the job! It mean being awake! Going through your day with awareness, not being on autopilot. The majority of people on this planet are sleep walking and don’t know it. They get up in the morning, drag themselves to the coffee machine, take a shower, go to work, work, come home, fix dinner, watch a little TV, go to bed exhausted. Get up a repeat the same mundane experience over and over.
I try to live my life as consciously as possible by staying awake to what is going on in my day. I get up in the morning and greet my day and either hike in nature or sit and at least get a 5 minute meditation in. When I hike I go to a certain point on the hike and say my gratitudes and intentions for the day. This really sets the tone for paying attention to how my day unfolds. Meditation does the same thing. It grounds me in walking through my day awake. When I get to my office, down the hall, I look at my day and see what it has in store for me and how I might be able to affect the people in my day positively. Now, sometimes during the day I find myself going on autopilot, it’s natural, although I try to wake myself as soon as possible.
Another thing that happens to get in my way of living consciously is all the stimulation the world has to offer. My phone, emails, internet, my mind, everyday daily activities. It’s important to bring ourselves back to the present and look at what is important to us. It’s a daily practice to look at how you want to live your life and take the action to do it.
A few questions to ask yourself would be:
1. Are you on Autopilot?
2. Are you doing what you love in your career?
3. Are you spending quality time with the ones you love?
4. Are you overweight and eating for comfort or out of habit?
5. Are you bored with your life?
6. Are you walking through your life not knowing what you want out of it?
7. Are you stuck in the drama of your life instead of the learning?
If you have answered yes to any of these questions, it might be time to WAKE UP!
I heard a great story about a man who knocks on his son’s door. “Jamie,” he says, “wake up!” Jamie answers, ” I don’t want to get up, Papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jamie says “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” ask the father. “Three reasons,” says Jamie. “First, because it’s so dull; second the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says, “Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First because it’s your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster,” Wake up, wake up! You’ve grown up. Your to big to be asleep.
It’s time to wake up, your to old to be asleep. if you need help waking up, looking at your life and how it’s not working for you, let’s talk about how you can be more conscious and live your life with more passion and zest.
