STOP Before You Jump Into 2016

For many of us, this was the first week back to work-school-life-as-usual after the holidays as well as the first week of the New Year. Happy New Year!

Maybe you’re like me, and want to eagerly jump back into life.

But before you leap back into the craziness and chaos of your wonderful life, do yourself a favor and stop.

Stop and get clear about where you want to go this year, what you want to accomplish and how you plan on doing that.

Here are 3 simple and easy ways to launch your 2016 so that you manifest all that you desire and rock your year!

1.  Purge & Organize

The New Year is a great time to clean out the paperwork.

If your desk looks like mine, it has a huge pile on it of stuff that needs to be filed. Take an hour (or two) and get your personal space organized, cleaned up and ready. Not only will you feel better when you look at it, but you’ll start your year out with a clean slate.

This task is also super helpful for tax time (which, if you live in the United States, is just around the corner.)

2. Write It Down

Once your space is neat and tidy, take another hour to really contemplate this year – all twelve months of it. What do you want for yourself in 2016? What goals do you have for your future? What would you like to accomplish?

When you do this activity, think holistically.

Don’t only focus on your relationship to money and career but think about your relationships to your body and health, your family, romantic partner, education and spirituality. How would you like to evolve this year? What do you want to manifest?

3.  Choose A Word

For three years now I’ve chosen one word to contemplate, explore and delve into for the year. This word – whatever it may be – becomes an overriding theme for your year.

Two years ago, I chose trust.

I had just started a business and was putting myself out into the world in a more personal way. This required me to trust in new and different ways and deepened my relationship to myself, to life and to spirit and allowed me to more fully embrace the notion that I am divinely loved and protected at all times.

In fact, about three months into that year, I made a pictorial representation of trust to remind me of free falling into God. On it, I wrote this line from the poet Rumi: “Stop acting so small. You are the Universe in ecstatic motion.”

Last year, my word was love and the exploration was vastly different.

It was subtle and gentle and deeply internal. It taught me about self-love and opened me up to more clearly understand how to love myself completely and wholeheartedly. My inquiry into love helped me see that I am healed and whole and deserve everything. Pretty cool, huh?

This year, I have chosen receive. Or perhaps it has chosen me.

I look forward to the exciting adventure!

So do yourself a favor, and take a couple of hours to stop, organize and plan out your 2016. It will be well worth it. And if you’d like a little help with that, Click Here to Download my FREE 2016 Vision Planner. Enjoy and have fun!

Share one of your 2016 goals with me!
Leave a comment below!

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The Power of Presence: Daily Mindfulness

There's a lot of talk about mindfulness not just within spiritual circles but more and more in the work place.

What exactly is mindfulness?

Mindfulness stated simply is awareness of the present or the ability to be present in all aspects of our lives.

It’s a honing of the mind to focus on what's happening right now.

Since the 1970s, there’s been a growing recognition and movement towards embracing mindfulness in the United States.

This is due in large part to the many Buddhists teachers who have come here over the past few decades as well as the American practitioner, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who began teaching mindfulness courses in 1979.

The first time I recognized mindfulness occurring in my life was shortly after I met my first husband. He’s from Bali and since he's Hindu, learned meditation at a young age.

Part of what had attracted me to him in the first place was his calm demeanor and indefatigable kindness.

The day I noticed his mindfulness in action, we were in Indonesia visiting his family.

We’d rented a van to take his extended family on a picnic in the mountains. I looked over at him and suddenly realized that the only thing he was doing in that moment was driving.

He wasn’t thinking about the party last night.

He wasn’t going over the stuff he’d packed, making sure he’d remembered everything.

Nor was he distracted by the conversation in the back seat.

He was just driving, focusing on the vehicle, and the road ahead. He was 100% present in that moment to his task- present and focused.

I resolved then that I wanted to develop this quality.

And I discovered that mindfulness is achieved through meditation and the internal gardening of our thoughts.

Here’s what’s helped me develop a practice of mindfulness:

1.     Meditation

I started meditating 20 years ago. I still meditate today because it feels so good to release the stress of the world. It helps me remember that there is more going on than the chaos that circles around me.

I sit in silent meditation because it provides me with solace and connecting to infinite source feeds me. I meditate to remember my essential nature. Finally, I sit to bring myself into the now and that helps me bring the silence, serenity and clarity into my working day.

2.     Mining the Mind

I like to think of myself as a gardener of my mind. I pluck out all the thoughts that distract me or are taking me out of the present moment.

I also pull out the thoughts (like weeds) that are harmful to me or remind me of old stories and ancient beliefs about limitation and lack that are no longer true for me.

3.     Coming Fully Into My Body

Being grounded in my physical body helps me experience the here and now.

I can feel where I am- the sun on my face, the wind whipping around me. I see where I am- the trees bordering the road, the faces of people walking by. I hear the world around me- the birds chirping, the trucks rumbling, children laughing.

Being in my body allows me to fully experience life.

Life is only happening right now, in this moment.

When we leave the moment by getting distracted by our thoughts, we lose the opportunity to experience what it feels to really be alive. We can easily get caught fixating about a past hurt or worrying about a future concern.

But when we can bring our focus back to this moment, we have the opportunity to heal.

Consider starting your mindfulness practice today.

Find a comfortable spot in your home where you can sit for just five minutes in the morning. Focus on your breath coming in and out.

I like to count to 11. Inhaling 1, exhaling 2 until I get to 11 and then starting over.

If you lose track, start over at 1. Before you know it, your timer will be ringing. You’ll be surprised at how quickly 5 minutes flies by!

As you commit to this daily practice of meditation, it will help you be able to listen to your mind and hear the way you speak to yourself.

Then you can decide what thoughts you want to keep and ones that need to be pulled out. And it will help you experience a greater sense of presence in your body.

See yourself as an explorer of your own inner world - have fun with it!

Let me know how it goes!

Leave me a comment below this blog about YOUR mindfulness practice.

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Gratitude – the Antidote to More

As an American, I’m pretty good at being a consumer. In fact, I think most of us are. Americans are constantly encouraged to buy. It’s how we fuel our economy. But the underbelly of our consumer economy is the never-ending quest for more.

More manifests itself obviously with technology since technology changes so rapidly.

I suddenly find myself convinced that I need the iPhone 6 even when my current phone works fine. Or I immediately want the Apple watch when I don’t even like wearing watches. And although I just bought a new MacBook, I now must have the lighter than Air model.

But it isn’t just with technology, it’s with everything partly because we strive to keep up with others around us. I need a pair of LeBrons or Timberland boots. I have to get some new Beats by Dre headphones. This April, I simply must have a purse for spring.

Sure enough, buying that new hobo handbag does make me feel happy and satisfied but only briefly because soon my pastel blue purse is passé and I’m hankering for a black one for fall…

This craving for more is a never-ending cycle. It’s a treadmill we get on of wanting more or better - a bigger house, a newer car- and on and on.

What’s the Solution? Gratitude

Gratitude Brings Us Back to Now.

Instead of focusing on what we don’t have -the apple watch, the new car- we focus on all that we do have - clean water, loving relationships, a closet full of clothing, 50+ pairs of earrings, a pool, fresh food, healthy children…

Gratitude is a Reorientation.

Think about yourself for a minute. How do you like yourself better?

When You’re in a Place of Wanting or in a Place of Thankfulness?

Does it feel healthier when you think: “If only I had a new office chair, I’d get so much more done…. If I had 20 clients this week, I’d feel successful.”

Versus when your thoughts say: “My office is filled with beautiful sunshine and my desk is large and holds all my work easily. My schedule is flexible and enables me to work with people as well as spend time with my family.”

The Trick is to REMEMBER.

Remember to look around our lives and see all the beauty, abundance, love and happiness that exists right now.

Gratitude is Recognizing and Appreciating What We Have in the Moment.

This way of thinking fills us up with happiness and contentment.

The cycle of more pushes us into a place of lack where we’re constantly left wanting and that pulls us into the future toward more or better.

Instead, if we can use gratitude as a tool, it can easily and simply bring us back to now. Back to feeling satisfied and whole, happy and content.

The next time you find yourself yearning for a new dress or a power tool that you might not need, check in.

Are you feeling happy and grateful for the life you’re living right now?

Or are you trying to fill an emptiness or void through materialism?

Remind yourself how good your life is. Look around at all the abundance you have right now and watch that desire for more slip away. 

How does gratitude manifest in your life? Leave me a comment under the blog!                                                                       

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THE Shortcut to Happiness = Gratitude

It is the week of giving, when we pause in our busy lives to be with family and friends, to honor them and to reflect on what we are thankful for.

This year, my older daughter will not be with us since she is in France (lucky her.) But as I write this and contemplate gratitude, I find myself thinking about something she said to me at the beginning of the year, in January.

She’d returned home from the store with a box of cards and walked into the kitchen where she announced that she was going to send thank you cards to everyone before she returned to school. Naturally I was thrilled and immediately thought, good job, Shakti, you’ve trained her well. But before I could really pat myself on the back she went on to say:

“I read recently that it isn’t happy people who are grateful. It’s grateful people who are happy.”

Instantly I knew she was right.

In fact, gratitude is the fastest way to feel happy!

Perhaps then it isn’t the excitement of eating turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce that creates the feelings of elation we have on Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s the simple fact that we have paused to be grateful.

And the studies prove this. One example is Dr. Martin Seligman’s work at the University of Pennsylvania. An intervention he measured was having participants write and deliver a gratitude letter. According to his findings, those who completed this task demonstrated a significant rise in their happiness scores and out of all the interventions, this one showed the highest increase in happiness.

So this Thursday, take advantage of Thanksgiving and use it to launch yourself into gratitude.

Here are a few simple ideas to start off with:

1.     Have a Circle of Thanks

On Thanksgiving, go around the room or table and invite each person to share what he or she is grateful for. It can be a word, a sentence or more. Not only is it heart warming but tremendously insightful!

2.     Make A Call

Take 5 minutes on Thanksgiving and call someone you love. Tell them how much you care about them and how thankful you are that this person is in your life.

3.     Commit to Gratitude for 40 days

Starting on Thanksgiving and for the next 40 days, list 3-5 things you’re grateful for. It’s a wonderful way to start the day and can be as simple as thanking your bed for giving you a great sleep, or the shower for waking you up.

Then you can see if you agree with the researchers and my daughter. That gratitude is the shortest way to happiness. Happy Thanksgiving!

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