We’re already at the 3rd pillar of well-being!
As a quick review, the first two are:
-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”
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
When I was in high school, my freshman English teacher often wore a button depicting William Shakespeare that boldly stated, “Will Power.”
I was always amused at the pun for undoubtedly, William Shakespeare was a force to be reckoned with in the world of English literature but I also knew that my teacher wore the button as a plea to us students to work hard at our assignments.
Lately I’ve been thinking about will, not the man but the action.
I watched a video over the weekend that a college student posted on YouTube. As she explains, she did a little social experiment in which she called different young men and women ‘beautiful.’
Seeing their faces transform at her words, I was reminded of the same thing happening to me not so long ago.
From the time I can remember, I struggled with being overweight. My parents were always on my case about what I ate, how much I weighed and, being sensitive, even a drop of criticism was too much for me.
When you look at the words, risk taker, what do they evoke in you?
Typically, we think about risks in terms of physical ones- athletes at the X Games- rushing down a mountain and flying over a jump. Or we think of people who take monetary risks, like gamblers betting insane amounts of money at the casino.
Risk takers are often seen as thrill seekers or irresponsible. Yet most business people, especially entrepreneurs, are risk takers, too. If not for them, we wouldn’t have boutiques, microbreweries, smartphones and on and on...
There are healthy risks and unhealthy risks, so it’s about identifying how comfortable you are with risks – in any area in your life.
Of all 52 weeks in the year, this is the one when Americans reflect the most on gratitude.
It’s hard not to when you sit down at a beautifully decorated table, in front of a mouth watering feast that typically includes a succulent, roasted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, candied yams, piping hot green bean casserole, chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce… hungry?
If you’re ready to use Thanksgiving as a springboard to deepen your gratitude practice, here are 3 ways:
We all have dreams and goals.
The question is: How do you successfully achieve them?
Often, in order to attain your goals, you have to push yourself a little harder, a little bit more.
You have to move out of your comfort zone, and into a space of uncertainty, of unknowing.
When you come up to the edge of what you know, do or know how to do, it frequently feels scary, and kicks up insecurity, vulnerability or fear.
In spite of these scary feelings, how can you succeed anyway? How can you move into that next level of creativity, success, satisfaction or weight goal
Lately I’ve been doing inventory.
I’ve been reflecting on my life and examining it by asking this question: Did I make a significant decision according to a set of rules, some kind of pre-ordained/ family inspired plan or because it was truly and deeply something that I wanted to do for my own self growth?
Take a moment to look back at your life and ask yourself the same question.
Turns out that we make a lot of decisions based on: pleasing others, fulfilling expectations, because it’s the right thing to do or is what we’re “supposed” to do.
Ouch.
How much we allow ourselves to have in our lives is a function of what we think we deserve.
Have you ever been at a party or a club or walked down a block of a ritzy area of town and wished that it was your life, that you lived there or had those friends?
And over the summer I had an interesting realization.
I just got back from a 3-day business workshop that was designed to help women entrepreneurs break through success and money barriers. It was informative, emotional and healing but it was also a bit of a marathon, going from early in the morning until late into the night.
I enjoy these kinds of events especially because I’m committed to my personal development and self-growth. I love to immerse myself in new ways of thinking, bond with other women and meet fellow entrepreneurs. I find the experiences to be fulfilling and inspiring but then I have to come home.
I love being an American but one thing that’s been vexing me lately is how work and career have taken over our lives. It’s as if we are no longer human beings but human doers. The overriding message is that when I’m not “doing”, I’m nothing.
It’s easy, when we talk about spirituality and living a “more spiritual life” to forget about the body.
We use expressions like, “we are a spirit having a human experience.” Or, “focus on the essence not on the form.” The emphasis is always away from the corporeal body because it isn’t really who we are.
Many of us who have struggled with weight or body image issues, certainly know this to be true.
There were years when I saw my body as the enemy – it was fat and ugly. Why would I want to be in it? I wanted to dissociate from it entirely. It was definitely not me.
I was listening to a speaker recently explain why people don’t obtain results. And do you know what she said?
Think about one of the New Year’s resolutions you made ten months ago. Maybe, like many of us, you had ‘lose weight’ on your list. Let’s say fifteen pounds.
Those of us who are committed to a spiritual path can sometimes feel split in two. There’s the contemplative, ascetic side of our nature, the part that loves meditation, silence and oneness with God. Then there’s the other side of us that’s out there in the world earning a living, being a consumer, friend and partner.
How do we merge these two aspects of ourselves that seem disparate but in reality are one?
The exciting answer is, YES!
As Pema Chodron reminds us, “Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.”
When I was twenty-six, I discovered, quite to my surprise, that I was pregnant.
I panicked because I was not ready to have a baby.
I’d only been married three short months. My new husband and I were still getting to know one another. Were we, as a couple, prepared for a child?
And I certainly didn’t know enough about anything – life, parenting, culture... There was so much more I needed to learn before I could be a mom, wasn’t there?
After spending a few weeks in denial, I quickly moved into anger. How could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking?
Ever have one of those days when you just hit the wall? When your efforts create no results and nothing seems to work?
Days like that are frustrating, tiring and, frankly, discouraging.
And what if tomorrow you embraced a new idea, a new way of looking at life? One that felt more invigorating and enlivening. A perspective that was less about doing and more about receiving.
I recently had an a-ha about this when I saw a post on Facebook. It was an image of a woman floating effortlessly in the water and said:
