Embrace it all

Learning to embrace this moment with its good bad and indifferent. Feeling glad to be alive. Glad to be where I am and appreciating all that has led me here. Knowing this where I should be and appreciating the whole adventure of life. Releasing the need to dictate things or fight for my own way. Just allowing things to unfold as they should. Knowing all is as it should be.

Choosing Positivity

Everyone brings their own outlook on life, seeing it through a particularly colored lens. And while we hope to remove the lenses all together and see things as they truly are, if that isn't yet possible, why not see the world in a positive light?

Positive or negative, attitudes seem to be contagious. I know that working somewhere like Lao, where frustrations run high, it can be easy to get sucked into complaining and negativity. I hadn't noticed how I much do that until new staff arrived with fresh, positive attitudes.

So with this realization, I am seeing that I need to make a conscious, mindful effort to bring more positivity into my life. I can choose to look on the bright side of things and lose the habit of negativity. All things are a combination of positive and negative, it's just a matter of choosing what aspect to focus upon.

Steps to positivity. Like any good habit change, you need to have plan, take baby steps and be compassionate when you have difficulties. So I plan to:

1. Start a gratitude journal to write in every night and read every morning.
2. Wake up to positive music or dharma to get me in the right mindset.
3. Ask friends to remind me when I'm being negative.
4. Avoid the negativity trap when someone else is headed down that road.
5. Be mindful of my mindset. Check in every few hours and see if I'm ruminating and being negative.

Thirty days to a new habit. Let's see how it goes.

Exercise as Self-Love

I had a great realization this morning at the gym. If you can see exercise as a way of taking care of your body and evidence of self-love rather than as a monotonous obligation or a means to become more attractive, it changes the whole dynamic. I feel like yoga and similar types of exercise are more commonly portrayed in this manner, as a means of self-love and appreciation and celebration of the body, but I believe that this extends to all exercise and well beyond that.

Every time I eat a healthy meal or avoid something full of chemicals and artificial additives, I'm loving myself. I'm choosing my healthy and body over a little instant gratification. It's interesting though, despite this fact, that eating well and exercising regularly are good for us, so many people choose not to do these simple tasks. I know there have been times when these things lose priority for me. But in reflection, those times were also some of the most difficult for me.

My whole world was a little off kilter. My priorities were not where they need to be and as a result I wasn't doing my utmost to honor and love myself. I feel so fortunate to see this now and have direction and influences that lead me to loving myself in the most practical way I know how. By treating my body well and giving it what it needs to thrive. And by challenging it in ways it has never been challenged before.

I find myself drawn to the idea of the mind/body connection. If we can work with both our mind and our body to the best of our ability, I think we and the world as a whole would be a much more enjoyable place. Finding the balance of giving to both your mind and body and being able to tune in to them in such a way that you can see where you are stuck, where you are struggling, and where needs your attention is the key to working with ourselves and loving ourselves completely.

I am feeling extremely grateful and appreciative of my body and my mind and the many insights I find that help be love them better and more fully every day.

Watering your Seeds

There is a dharma talk that revolves around the idea that we all have all kinds of seeds in our minds. Positive ones, negative ones, etc. It's all about choosing to water the seeds you want to grow. So that whatever we do on a daily basis, those are the seeds we are choosing to water. If we are positive, lighthearted, and going with the flow, then we tend to maintain these positive ways. If we are negative, angry, and constantly ruminating on past hurts, then we tend to become more angry and negative.

I just had a great moment of insight catching myself watering my negative seeds and felt the cloud lift as I consciously decided to think more positively and focus on things more productive. It's hard to imagine that it can really be as simple as making the effort to change where in your mind you spend your time. I could focus on my fear and past hurts or I can focus on potential, opportunity and ways I can help myself out.

I think these habits are in large part adopted from your parents and how you were raised. I read a book about habits recently that talks about the way people express themselves and how that is a learned characteristic. Some people are gregarious and open with their emotions while others are reserved and have greater difficulty expressing emotion. This is tied to how one's parents act.

But like all learned behavior, it can be modified and/or unlearned if we put in the time and effort. I can choose to be a more optimistic person by choosing to think more positive thoughts. I can loose my negative tendencies by dropping the negative worries and letting those habits fade.

It all starts with awareness of where you currently are and what your mind is doing. If you don't see the habits, you have no chance of breaking them. Giving my mind some much needed compassion for it's tendency toward negativity. Giving it the space and freedom to find a more positive way.