I gotta tell you… someone has been trying to bother me. Just between you and me in the privacy of my home and ahem also here… it was not a pleasant experience for me to say the least mainly because it was out of the blue. Quelle surprise!
However, I took the time to reflect on how I wanted to respond outwardly and I decided that my response will be nothing. Message not received. I told myself no I won’t be angry, I’m not drinking this cup of poison over the behaviour of someone else.
I was pretty peeved though… and boy is it tempting to throw down!
You know what I find hard to comprehend and maybe it’s not understandable is how someone could form this type of mal intention to inflict pain and suffering on someone else. Someone that they don’t know and never met. I don’t expect people to just wish me blessings all day long but WHO goes out of their way to try to victimise someone and ruin their peace?! Just bizarre…
WHO do they think they are? And WHO did they think I am?
Various memes floating around on the internet with this theme as you can see.
I love memes so much…
Let’s try to be classy about things before I get carried away! If not classy, then just make good choices!
Don’t throw down Dom…
In an overly simplistic explanation, my mum has a technique of checking feelings. Who does this belong to? Yours? No, not yours. Sometimes she will say yes it is yours. She does it in a flash.
I slept badly anyway after my experience and had a terrible dream. In it I was defending myself but I woke up shaken. It was as if I was under psychic attack. How so? Well, was I feeling at peace? Well, no, I was obviously bothering myself by holding on to thoughts instead of letting them pass me by. This is no longer about that person, this is about my reaction. What is my reaction? I said I won’t react but my mind is chattering away. There is a disconnection going on here.
So again I made an effort to distance myself not just by refraining to respond but to really not receive the message. I choose peace.
Mine? No, not mine.
Return to sender.
May I be conscious.
May you be conscious.
May we all be conscious.
Here is a Zen story I came across a long time ago.
There once lived a great warrior. Though quite old, he still was able to defeat any challenger. His reputation extended far and wide throughout the land and many students gathered to study under him.
One day an infamous young warrior arrived at the village. He was determined to be the first man to defeat the great master. Along with his strength, he had an uncanny ability to spot and exploit any weakness in an opponent. He would wait for his opponent to make the first move, thus revealing a weakness, and then would strike with merciless force and lightning speed. No one had ever lasted with him in a match beyond the first move.
Much against the advice of his concerned students, the old master gladly accepted the young warrior's challenge. As the two squared off for battle, the young warrior began to hurl insults at the old master. He threw dirt and spit in his face. For hours he verbally assaulted him with every curse and insult known to mankind. But the old warrior merely stood there motionless and calm. Finally, the young warrior exhausted himself. Knowing he was defeated, he left feeling shamed.
Somewhat disappointed that he did not fight the insolent youth, the students gathered around the old master and questioned him. "How could you endure such an indignity? How did you drive him away?"
"If someone comes to give you a gift and you do not receive it," the master replied, "to whom does the gift belong?"
John Suler’s Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbours.
I may not be the great warrior but I can do my best to remain calm and immoveable under pressure.
*Just a word now about bullying and being bullied. It’s unacceptable behaviour and is usually never about the person targeted. In a lot of instances we can choose to remain calm and continue to live our lives peacefully and that’s all that needs to be done. You may or may not want to also inform this person that oi, you need to wake up, cut that behaviour out and pull yourself together and have some dignity ffs. Every situation is different. IF YOU ARE IN DANGER YOU NEED TO CONTACT AUTHORITIES, YOU NEED TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT IS HAPPENING AND YOU NEED TO MOVE YOURSELF TO A PLACE OF SAFETY.
March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.
Khalil Gibran
It’s been an interesting beginning to March. I came across an expression that is very comforting: “When March comes in like a lion, it leaves like a lamb.” Another comfort to me is my yoga practice, so much so that I found it really difficult to decline teaching requests as if the more yoga we get out into the atmosphere the more peaceful moments we’ll have. I’ve come to my yoga mat upset or angry many times, but I have never left it the same way. Not once!
This sunset came after a very stormy and stressful day, a real tonic for the spirits. The next day the clouds cleared and I could see as far as the mountains.
This is a quiet week which is why I am finally uploading the calendar, and I’ll also use this chance to finish editing at least two yoga videos – one is for depression and one is for backbending. My main intention for the month will be to continue working on myself and all the ways yoga can serve as a tool for self help. And I will ask myself how I can stay focused and resilient, no matter what?
I hope that this month brings you blessings and strength.
Phew! January went fast and looking back now on my January intentions I got through most of it but three quarters of the way through my intention to walk a good distance everyday faltered. I tried my best to do little bursts of walking and those days I felt markedly better than on days I didn’t.
I’m off to a good start though with the calendar for February ready earlier hehe.
What are your intentions for this month?
I’m going to stick to my walking and switching out coffee for tea. A few other work things as well but these are the main ones for me.
Edit: it is now TWO WEEKS LATER AHHH but let me just post this and you can tell me has January flown past you as well having fun or is it dragging along for you.
To be perfectly frank, I have been STRUGGLING to wake up at my usual 5.30 or 6 am time. More amazingly my alarm clock i.e. my 5 year old has not been waking me!
Not newsworthy for some but everyday is a slow news day in this household thank goodness hehe.
But with waking up late at 8 or 9 has left me without the extra hour in the morning I usually rely on. It makes a difference for me even if it is a weekend. I have been meaning to finish up designing a few things (including a calendar) and without those morning hours I have struggled. And in a chicken and the egg kind of story I felt like I could not plan out things I wanted to work on in January (it’s almost a third of the way through the month) and January is just flashing past. You would think it would wait for me but nope hehe.
This morning in an astounding (I told you this is a slow news household) turn of events, we are up at 7. Oh my goshness, what a thrill. Made coffees for Mum and I, brought it over to her she was in the middle of a web meditation event (I didn’t realise she was so quiet, understandably as she was meditating), prepared food for little one in case it felt hungry (fruit salad left from yesterday and a babycino, took seconds) and got on with the calendar designing.
I’ve decided on a minimalist design, well, minimalist for me… featuring things I saw that stopped me in my tracks on my walks. There is a space on the side to record intentions for the month.
There is a moving version of it and the variations of light and colours was lovely. I’m looking forward to looking back at the end of the month where I got to with my intentions.
Hello! What a rush the last few weeks have been. I’m back in Sydney and we need to head over to a cousin’s house for Christmas lunch. It’s a potluck lunch and I thought lawd… what can I make that will travel well and be you know, nice to look at? Luckily I’m doing dessert which is easier than say, a whopping great big turkey which is certainly impressive but you probably want to make that inhouse.
A cake would be nice although, by the time you eat a huge meal, how much cake does one need? More pleasant might be a small nibble with a coffee.
I’ve been seeing these very fanciful platters but until now I have always felt timid and unsure how to do one. For my kid’s birthday I had my friend make one. She’s veryyyyyy good at it. We both wept a little that we didn’t take photos of that one haha.
She’s not here with me in Sydney so I’m on my own. Here is what I came up with. I had to go to the supermarket but you might have things in your cupboard you can use?
from this to this and just go from there
If you have anything last minute coming up give it a go. Even if all you have is a box of chocolates, with some fruit sprinkled around, it’s pretty to look at whilst you sit around having a chat (or putting your feet up). Also I’ll paste my recipe for egg nog. If I remember rightly, it’s vegan… it’s one of my most popular posts (?!?!!!!) but here it is again in case you would enjoy ithttps://ourzenaissance.com/2016/12/24/nog-vegan-egg-nog-in-less-time-than-it-takes-to-say-bah-humbug-a-christmas-miracle-recipe/
If you have some remember to drink loads of water! Hehe… and I wish you a beautiful day everyday xox
Clutter is a real mind messer arounder. I get it now. It is so easy to fall into a trap thinking you need a bigger space for all your stuff. To some extent yes, of course we need a cupboard to put things into but a penthouse? A five bedroom house? Probably not.
One of the things about our living space is the lack of cabinetry, so I bought some to make up for the lack of storage space. But how about that, I still had a crap load of stuff all over the place that needed to be put away, yet there was no where to put it. What now mighty mind?!
Obviously it was a case of me not using the space I had intelligently and also there being WAY TOO MANY THINGS. It has been very obvious what needed to be done but it was a case of finding the time to do it and overcoming the sensation of overwhelm that left me feeling too exhausted to get started.
Over the last month something overcame me and it was a funny time that I suddenly felt this urge considering it was one of the busiest months in our life yet I was just brimming with energy ready to tackle things.
Today I tackled a small but pretty important space, the kitchen counter, specifically the space above my little toaster oven and just next to it, and the spice cabinet above it.
One of my goals is to clear the dining table and have enough counter space to do things on it. I don’t have a proper workspace so the dining table is my little art studio/office space. So every meal time we have to shovel everything off down one end so we have enough space for our elbows. Yeesh. B is very kind and doesn’t say a word about it but how much better would it be if we had a clear table. Also my altar faces our dining table so it would be good to clear the clutter.
Looking into the spice cabinet I can see I haven’t used the space properly, I tried with those little Ikea metal shelves but it wasn’t organised enough so I couldn’t fit alot of stuff in and things overflowed out onto the dining table and kitchen counter.
Let me show you, I hope you feel the same physical relief I felt after getting this done! It’s incredible how clearing clutter can affect your mental state. It felt so wonderful that now I might even bake some banana bread! (It felt like a pain in the arse to clear things out the way and get things out of the cabinet to do any baking. And I used to sell baked goods so how hilarious is that?)
I highly recommend it if you also have clutter hanging around that you have been meaning to get to.
I’ve seen a guy address his audience “Hi there friends and lovers”. Can I pull that off without people thinking I’m serious? Anyway, I missed being here! The last couple of years have been busy and the last year has been a lot of growth. Every year we grow but the last year I have done things like tidy up and organise stuff. I mean…. that’s GROWTH. Place still a mess though but there are spots of tidiness.
I’ve been teaching quite a bit too (for someone with no promotion and unattached to any studio), people have floated towards me and it has been such a blessing.
In fact, it is now almost 10am on a Monday and I just finished teaching someone. How good is it to be freshly showered after yoga?!
I burst out laughing yesterday afternoon when I saw my phone alert. I have a meditation app as do many of us these days (an app for everything, no?!) and on the dot at 3pm it pinged me.
There are two mistakes along the way to mastery: Not starting and not going all the way.
Buddha
I wasn’t laughing at the quote, more that I had just seen another video from Shaolin Temple about discipleship, quite a funny video in which the proposed disciple was constantly evading his master (Sifu) and his upcoming haircut. I had been thinking about how when it is time to practice, just practice don’t think about excuses and I had confirmed with myself that 3pm was afternoon practice time. That was when my phone pinged me and I saw the quote which is the same one used by Sifu too. It just all seemed very … oh never mind, stop thinking just go practice.
(Do you know what I mean though?)
Here is something I am working on in my yoga practice. Trying to improve my flexibility, if you intend to try, please warm up first with sun salutations or something similar. The aim in this is to keep the upper body in the middle, and to creep the hand holding the strap down the strap to the ankle. Honestly I find manouvering my hand down in this fashion quite confusing because up is down and left is right and where am I who am I hahaha. But it’s a pretty groovy experience all the same, I kind of… enjoyed the strangeness? Give it a try!
What are you doing this weekend? Something? Nothing? Everything? Haha, here are some suggestions, let me know what you enjoyed!
In my last two posts (here, here) I have been writing about my recent adoption of 气功 practice and I mentioned a video which was available, and then unavailable, now it is available again. Below is the updated link for the video.
I have been doing Qi Gong everyday following the videos uploaded on the channel I mentioned in the last post, by Master Shi Heng Yi. I noticed that the video I linked in my last post is not available now, hopefully not gone forever. In the meantime here is an alternative one you can use. I do this when I am very short on time many things to do, at least 20 minutes were for my practice, then I go take care of my tasks, practice some more later in the day and evening. There are many minutes in 24 hours!
Please try and let me know what you think. How wonderful if we are all practising qigong, yoga and meditation around the world.
Our Zenaissance 