I was on a call and as we were talking, I pulled some cards. The top was for me and as I continued regarding them, here is what came out.
We can all take something useful from these.
Most importantly, be unapologetic, take a little audacity and delusion and apply it to yourself!
Be audacious about how awesome you believe yourself to be! Be delusional about how successful you will be in realising your dreams!
No more tip toeing. Sashay all the way!
Speaking of useful, I introduced a mum friend to Pinterest this weekend. I said to her “less talky talky and mostly visuals” and she was all, “Fantastic! Gimme!” I haven’t seen her since and I don’t blame her.
Here is my own Pinterest board situation
Whenever I see a comment with the words “I can confidently confirm” I can feel a huge smirk spread over my face. Love it. Especially when the quote contains words such as “idiots”. We’re in for a good time guys.
Do you love uplifting posts filled with inspiration and wisdom? I don’t know where you can go for that BUT if you are into sporadic, irregular, wildly inconsistent material like the above? Well, THAT I can do in which case please feel free to subscribe down below.
Also, I am really into feedback. Only the adoring kind, thank you so much. xox
I read this very naturally as “irritators channel waters” and thought, yeah… makes sense!
And so the wise master themself 💕😉🕉️
From the book <Zen Wisdom> a collection of classic Buddhist teachings to calm the mind by Abbie Headon. It is bound in a traditional way as you can see.
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.
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 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.
So what is a good meditator? The one who meditates.” – Allan Lokos
Just start! Even one minute of meditation is better than nothing. If even one minute seems like forever start slow, try counting to ten, next time to twenty, slowly increasing the time you spend in meditation. You are a good meditator the moment you start to meditate!
“perhaps just get more kind to yourself and those around you”
— apt words from my June horoscope
Once in a while I’ll stumble upon a horoscope, article, instagram and marvel at how perfectly these small happenings are timed to lessons and themes I am currently working on. For instance, the last few months have been really focused on the concept of kindness and softness. They’re NOT easy! It has taken so long for me to break down my need to never show softness and never backdown to really embrace how being soft can be a different kind of strength. Life isn’t just about how good a smackdown you can give or how feisty you can be. It’s terrifying and exhilarating to find that within all that being gentle, deep down there is a reservoir of true strength to withstand all outside forces as well as all the inner crazy. The best defence may be a good offence in sports but in life the best defence is inner strength.
Continuously working on the ability to stay perfectly gracefully still despite everything going on will build up your strength reserves mentally as well as physically. You’ll only get stronger this way and you’ll always feel centered, because your center is strong! Today’s drill is the perfect physical illustration of that wonderful kooky circular logic. You’re staying as still as you can, whilst working on strengthening your core and you won’t need to do a single crunch, hurray! It works for me and I hope it will for you too. Try it and let me know!
Enough chit-chat from me, let’s do this.
THE STAY STILL [Working title I’m sticking with this – besides aren’t we over ‘labels’ already?]
Repeat this exercise 3 to 5 times, several times a week and you’ll definitely feel stronger physically and hopefully get closer to experiencing grace under pressure, even if it’s merely during the course of a yoga class. It will be worth it – eventually that grace will translate to beyond your physical class!
Start in a kneeling position
Place your hands either side of your knees
Lean your weight into your hands and press strongly into the ground as you exhale
Breathe your belly button in and up towards your spine
On your next exhalation squeeze your knees towards your chest
Hold as you breathe in and out for 5 rounds of breathing (something like the picture above)
Inhale and squeeze your knees in a little more then
Lower down on your next exhalation. (Finally!)
Advance this by squeezing one heel off the floor and hold.
Super advance this by squeezing both heels off the floor. You’re basically ready to levitate.
If it feels horrible for the front of your feet then you can start off kneeling with your toes tucked under. As you press up you will come high up onto your toes. When you’re stronger you can try again with your feet flat.
Your back will naturally round — go with that instinct.
Use your midsection to pull your knees into the curve of your body. Squeezing your inner thighs together will help activate your core just that extra more. As much of your weight is off the floor, not just dangling into the fronts of your feet.
Even though your back is rounded, don’t hunch your shoulders into your ears! And don’t scrunch your face! All the work is deep, deep down in your core. The rest of you is to resemble the surface of still water.
What it do?
I’m glad you asked. This will work your entire core as well as your ability to maintain your straight-arm strength. With your knees sucked in as close to your body as you can you’ll notice how hard your belly is working to keep that knees to chest connection going. The back gets a great stretch too.
Alternatives for wrist issues
Just do the same thing but laying on your back and imagine your pressing your hands into the ceiling and pushing it away. You’ll still get all the benefits and you’ll have a great time curling your body away from the floor. NOT EASY. You’ll know you’re doing it right because you’ll just know.
You can build up as you get stronger by doing the alternative in addition. Make the two versions part of your regular strength exercise.
B and I started a 40 day practice this month. Usually we have our own activities we like to do in order to feel good: mine would be yoga, Pilates, watching old TV shows, and his would be basketball (REAL and XBOX). This month we decided that the New Moon would be the perfect time to start a shared daily practice for 40 days to boost our energy and spirit levels.
We are STILL doing our favourite activities, naturally!
Everyday we practice a set sequence of yoga postures, followed by mantra meditation and we drink a green drink that I labelled our ‘Elixir’. This last part is major because B has never been on board with drinking anything green although I feel like that’s being very picky since he is slightly colour blind anyway? For all he knows it could be pink? SUDDENLY he can tell it’s green. I mean.
Anyway.
The mantra we chant is personal to each of us but I’ll share mine with you below. We chant out loud and with confidence, 11 times and then we sit quietly and let things marinate.
Somedays we do our practice in the evening like last night when we came home from a wedding party. We showered, changed and stepped on our mats. Then we had our green drink. We slept like babies even with both of us recovering from the flu.
It feels wonderful!
To go along with our 40 day practice we also cut out coffee. I typically drink a lot of coffee, alarming amounts even, but I’ve never had any issue with stopping. I never even get headaches if I go without coffee but it’s that comfort factor that I like. I love comfort! So when I want a warm drink I’ll make myself a Coconut Maca drink. I’m having one righttttttt now.
I’m very lucky I’ve never enjoyed soft drinks and I drink a lot of room temperature water. Even warm water in a mug can be comforting. I make a ritual out of heating the water up, choosing a favourite mug (B and I both like to hog the same mugs) and then enjoying the steam puff up. It’s all about the ritual and process! Aren’t humans funny?
We started out as a very small community of just two, but in just over a week a few of our friends have started to join in. One of my girlfriends asked for a shopping list so she could run out and grab all the ingredients for the ‘elixir’ the very next morning.
Which is great! The more the merrier, and slowly little by little we generate more good vibes. If you would like to join us (we’d love to have you!) feel free to come up with your own mantra, or use mine:
Our Zenaissance 