Shakti Sutriasa
Experiencing Well-Being Part III

We’re already at the 3rd pillar of well-being!

As a quick review, the first two are:

1.Awareness

-Meaning, the ability to be more present, tuned into your here and now as well as to your mind chatter.

From Dr Davidson directly:

“Awareness: A heightened, flexible attentiveness to one’s environment and internal cues such as bodily sensations, thoughts, and feelings.

Skills: Mindfulness, attention, self-awareness”

Experiencing Well-Being Part III
Shakti Sutriasa
Cultivating Well-Being Part II

How is your practice of awareness coming along?

Another way to think about awareness, is mindfulness. If you google that word alone, you’ll find loads of practices (in addition to the pause one I gave you) to support you in cultivating more awareness.

Today we’re exploring the 2nd pillar of well-being that Dr Richard Davidson identified with his neuroscience research.

Cultivating Well-Being Part II
Shakti Sutriasa
Cultivating Well-Being Part I

Have you heard of a neuroscientist named Richard Davidson?

He’s been doing research on the brain specifically related to mindfulness, meditation, and well- being for decades. And his research is fascinating!

One of his key findings is around the idea of well-being. Through extensive study, trials and research, he has identified what he calls 4 pillars of well-being.

The really exciting news is that these so-called pillars aren’t inherent qualities, or even simply acquired knowledge. They are qualities that each and every one of us can cultivate and apply every day of our lives! Wahoo!

Cultivating Well-Being Part I
Shakti Sutriasa
3 Ways to Manage the Rate of Change in the World

Have you experienced the past few months as intense, chaotic, and full of uncertainty?

Yes?

You’re not alone.

Some days feel like a tough slog. Like we’re moving through dense resistance. Which is all the more reason to embrace your spiritual practice and deepen into it. 

Many seers have spoken of this time we are in as an amplification, when everything is speeding up and gaining power. This is exactly why you have to choose your own sanity, clarity and peace.

Not only because the chaos is ever growing, but because the benefit of you doing your inner work is amplified during this time. In other words, you can use this time to fast track your liberation.

3 Ways to Manage the Rate of Change in the World
Shakti Sutriasa
How to Know What Archetype You Embody

Recently, we explored the big idea in which I asked you what myth are you living. If you’re still ruminating on this, here’s another tool that might help you drill into it: archetypes.

The concept of archetype is something Carl Jung spent a tremendous amount of time exploring and is so rich! Caroline Myss has built on Jung’s work and expounded on how we can access and utilize archetypal energy to better understand ourselves and the world.

How to Know What Archetype You Embody
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Who Just Said That?

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Who Just Said That?

Lately I've been hearing people talking about their anxiety. One man I know can't stop thinking about his health. He recently had a check up and was told he has high blood pressure. Now he can't stop thinking about the blood pumping through his body. His thoughts make him fearful and anxious, that he's going to have a heart attack or stroke at any moment. Then a pregnant woman mentioned almost the same thing. Even though this isn't her first child, she's finding herself fixated on the future pain and all of the awful complications that could happen despite the fact that she's already had near perfect birthing experiences.

So what is this?

Her Last Night

Her Last Night

As I thought about what to write this week I found myself feeling that, even though I just wrote about Melissa, I needed to write about her again. Contemplating what to share, here’s what came:

Write about the last night of her life.

If any of you have ever been with a person in the last days of life, you know it’s largely unpredictable. At the time even though I knew Mel was going to leave her body soon, I certainly didn’t think it was my last night with her. I knew she could go any time but anytime felt like the future not right now.

Letting My Sister Go

Letting My Sister Go

This past weekend I returned my sister's ashes to the sacred earth.

Melissa died 4 years ago of metastasized breast cancer. She'd donated her body to the Georgetown Medical School so we didn't receive her cremains for two years. When they arrived at my house around April, 2012, I started contemplating what to do with them.

I knew Melissa was gone. She'd left her physical body on June 30, 2010. The ashes weren't really "her" anymore.

3 Simple Tools to Develop Healthy Habits

3 Simple Tools to Develop Healthy Habits

I used to hate exercising. To me it was punishment. I exercised because I had to. I'd eaten too much and had to run or bike to counteract my inability to manage what I was eating.

When I released myself from my eating disorder I decided I had a free pass. I was now thin so I NEVER had to exercise again! I pretty much stopped for years, maybe even a decade. But because I didn't exercise, I had some physical side effects. The most notable one was head aches. One day my husband suggested that perhaps my neck muscles needed strengthening to hold my head up better. 

What? Exercise?

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Is This Really the World of Dating?

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Is This Really the World of Dating?

My friend Heidi posted a link to a Huffington Post article, My “Naked” Truth yesterday. It's Robin Korth’s account of dating a man who enjoyed her “head and heart” but not her body.

He told her he couldn’t get turned on by her physically because she was “too wrinkly.”

After reading the piece, I found that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

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Wait for the Answer?

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Wait for the Answer?

I don’t know about you but when I have a question or am unclear about something, I always want it resolved immediately. Yup, you can call me impatient. I want to know, to be clear, sure, certain.

Part of why I’m like this is because I’m an action oriented person and can only act once I know what to do. When I don’t know it’s like being on an airplane circling the airport in a holding pattern. I don’t like that feeling on in-action, confusion, or lack of clarity. It is uncomfortable.

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Three Things of You

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Three Things of You

When I was in my early 20s, I was walking down the street one day when an interesting idea came to me. I’d been contemplating self evolution (as usual) and had the realization that each of us has 3 components to our beings:

The physical, the intellectual and the emotional (now I would add a 4th- spiritual).

Of these three aspects of self, we all have an affinity toward one as the area in which we feel most comfortable. So, for example, an athlete who works out daily and relishes in his routine is clearly most at ease in the physical realm.

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Keeping Yourself on Track

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Keeping Yourself on Track

It’s so easy to look at other people and feel like they’re way more motivated than I am. Other people seem to get so much done while I can often feel like it takes me ages. Ever feel like that?

Over the years, my self-motivation has definitely ebbed and flowed. There’ve been times when I’ve been really unmotivated. Mostly during those times I was an avoider- checking out and not wanting to deal with my life- with the stress and with pushing through.

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The Ugly Twins – Guilt & Shame

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The Ugly Twins – Guilt & Shame

Probably two of the most painful culprits in the emotional arsenal are guilt and shame. These two can seriously wreak havoc on us. It wasn’t until I read Brené Brown's work that I fully understand the difference between them AND how to let go of one and positively utilize the other.

Guilt is the feeling we have when we know we’ve done something wrong or hurt another. We feel bad about our actions. Perhaps I yelled at my daughter in an unkind way or I forgot to leave a tip for the waiter. My action results in me feeling guilty.

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Enough is Enough!

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Enough is Enough!

Growing up in a family where conditional love reigned, it was easy to never feel good enough. My job was to be perfect and then I’d receive love. My sister was the "problem child" so consequently, the message I got was that I wasn't allowed to be in need, melting down or falling apart. I had to be together so I became a master at pretending I was while underneath felt totally insecure and inadequate.

 

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Getting From Almost to Always

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Getting From Almost to Always

Have you ever noticed how just when you're about to finish something- a project, a goal, the finish line, you want to quit? And it takes as much effort to do that last final push as it did to do all the work to get there combined!

This is something I've seen happen in my life again and again. I notice it when I go for my morning run. Toward the end, I just want to stop and walk and I have to push through and force myself to "finish strong." Or maybe I spend hours working on an article and then never actually send it to the publisher. Sound familiar? I think we all do it - in subtle or more obvious ways. And once we know this is a potential pitfall for success, how do we get ourselves to push through?

The Perfect Trap

The Perfect Trap

When I was a little girl, I was sent to boarding school with my sister for 2 years. Part of the reason was because my parents had split up. We'd been living with my Dad but he travelled constantly for business and was gone most week days. So my sister and I spent a lot of time with our housekeeper Linda. I guess Dad didn't think watching The Days of Our Lives in the afternoons was going to sufficiently stimulate our brains so he persuaded my mom that we'd be better off in Connecticut at a rigorous school. 

Melissa and I had our birthdays that first fall, she turned 7 and I turned 8. We both hated being there. We had friends and the classwork was just that, school. But what we missed was our family. I quickly decided that we'd been exiled because of us, so I made a decision that year.

The way I'd get back home was to be perfect. 

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What's Fear Got To Do With It?

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What's Fear Got To Do With It?

About 25 years ago when I was just starting to find my career path, I had an interesting experience with fear. I was living in Hong Kong and had been working at a knitwear factory. I really hated my job but being so far away from my family and friends, making a change felt scary. (This was pre-internet days.) I finally mustered up the courage to quit my job after 6 or 7 months but then had to figure out what to do. After spending a LONG time thinking about it, writing a list of what I needed to have in my life and then realizing I didn't speak Cantonese, I ended up applying for teaching jobs.

Somehow I knew I was going to get one and before the summer was over, I had a brand new job at an international high school teaching English and art. I was excited! It was my first "real" job where I wasn't answering the phone or running errands. I even had my own mailbox in the office. Best yet, I got to read books all day! The two weeks before school started were great, I organized my classroom and outlined the textbooks, deciding what to do and when.

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Healthy Anti-Anxiety Medication That Works!

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Healthy Anti-Anxiety Medication That Works!

Everyone I know is stressed. We all have too much to do. Responsibilities at work pile up- the barrage of emails, phone calls, appointments. Then there's home. Kids need new sneakers, dental appointments, parent/teacher conferences. The list never ends. Home repairs, yoga class, and heaven forbid, an actual date!

If we're not careful life can blur by, our minds a state of chaotic frenzy. The pace of life seems to be increasing too and we move faster and faster. Until what?

No wonder most Americans are stressed. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States is now the most anxious nation in the world.

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Never Do THIS in Your Romantic Relationship

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Never Do THIS in Your Romantic Relationship

Have you ever gotten into a fight and been so angry with your partner that you wanted to walk out the door? Your whole body is tense, heart is pumping, mind whizzing and you're just plain seething mad? How then do you lie down in bed together? Do you turn over, back towards your partner and sleep as close to your side of the bed as possible? Do you choose not to sleep in the bedroom but opt instead for the couch? 

What's it like for you in the morning after a night like that? Are you still angry? Angrier? Hurt? Upset? Then what happens? Is there any resolution or does life move on, the origin of the fight forgotten (or buried) and it's back to the daily routine.