“Sometimes the greatest miracle is being able to face exactly where you’re at and say: This is where I am, no running, no hiding. There is gold for me here and I intend to find it, no matter what.” ~ Unknown

When I was pregnant there was a certain point about mid-way through the pregnancy that for some reason a light went off for me and I actually recall thinking with alarm, “I’m really doing this.” There was no U-turn that I could see ahead which was absolutely okay but still it was a moment of really knowing ‘there is no going back’, no running or hiding. I was becoming a mother and that was for life.

What happens though when you still can make the U-turn but know it isn’t in your best interest?

The pull of the past or a draw toward a better future is so seductive sometimes that we might forget that power is always in the present moment. It isn’t necessarily easy but it is possible to make a plan for where you are headed by using your past experiences as a guide while you consciously act from exactly where you are.

Figure out small ways to flex your muscle of presence. Maybe it is through more formal practices like yoga and meditation but maybe it’s not. Your practice might be to actively listen when your spouse speaks. It might be to resist the pull of checking email during certain times of the day with no exceptions. It might be to wash the dishes with the intention of being there for every movement. It might be to watch your breath one minute for every hour of your work day.

The want-to-be-present that lives inside your daily practice will ebb and flow. Do it anyway. Some days there will be gold. Other days you’ll act like a baby about it. Sometimes I will catch the voice inside my head negotiating out of the last ten minutes of meditation or while I’m doing a standing yoga series I’m enjoying my inner voice might already be opting out of inversions or backbends. Decide on the practice and then live up to it AND actually be there for it.

Maybe then, when it comes to the bigger things; the disappointments, the heart breaks, the devastating losses, maybe then you will have the courage and tenacity to stay the course even when all you long to do is make a U-turn.

“Busyness is the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but mostly being absent from ourselves, mistaking the doing for being.” ~ Maria Popova

During the first lockdown last spring I found myself moving between what I would describe as intense restlessness and lots of doing alongside a grateful (albeit sometimes reluctant) awareness of being. Time suddenly appeared more on my side than ever before. There was no travel time anywhere, my husband also began working from home and helped more often with weekday meals, I didn’t have lunches to make, appointments to meet or yoga classes to lead. There were no pick-ups or drop-offs for my daughter, nor were there weekends away, dinner parties, lunch dates or lots of extra kids at my house crafting, eating and making their presence known by the joy and mess they left behind.

Still there were many days, especially at the beginning, that were a blur. I wasn’t present for all of the moments that added up to each day because I was ‘busy’. A new schedule emerged that in many ways mirrored the previous version; I maintained ‘busy’ but presence and leisure time were still an unobtainable luxury.

With the second lockdown, this has settled upon me. Again. I really thought I had a better handle on my busyness with the last round of pandemic lockdown training.

How does the pandemic or life in general allow you to reflect upon using ‘busy’ as: 1) a badge of honour, 2) an excuse, 3) a way to hide.

Busy as a Badge of Honour

Does busy for you mean that saying no is a missed opportunity for accomplishment instead of a chance to create a healthy life balance? Does staying busy create forgetfulness that at best is inconvenient for maintaining a highly scheduled life and at worst is hurtful to those around you when you fail to show up for them? Are you proud of being busy even amidst the fallout of having not a minute to spare? Do you ask the question, “Are you busy?” as words that could be replaced for, “Are things going well?” Do you feel successful when you juggle more things than most or when an additional impossible ‘yes’ becomes a checkmark on your to-do list? Check-in honestly about your relationship with busy. Is it really serving you and getting you closer to an authentic life? Busy is not a badge of honour. It is a choice with consequences of how much of your life is actually lived as it happens.

Busy as an Excuse for “Why Not”

If you are too busy you sometimes don’t have time to write the letter, to support the cause, to call the friend who talks for hours, to figure out the plumbing issue, the relationship issue, to finish the novel, to clean out the junk drawer, to determine what you could beneficially contribute to the lives of others. ‘Too busy’ defers action to another time but it often also distorts the hierarchy of your core values. What is really important to you? What are you missing when you keep your schedule and your mind cluttered? Is it a valid reason to not pay attention to your life? Wouldn’t you be more compelled to act if you were acutely aware of your own loneliness, your poor filing system, your leaky roof that needed to be replaced five years ago, or of your consistent sources of joy and fulfillment? If you aren’t spending much time in the present moment there will always be plenty of reasons for why not to act because after all you have too much to do to spend any time being who you are.

Busy as a Way to Hide From Connection

How do you hide? Do you overeat, disappear into your screen, gossip, gamble, clean, worry, complain, obsess over your health/the past/the future, excessively plan/exercise/drink, or do you use work commitments to keep yourself from yourself and those you share your life with?

What if your brand of busy is full of virtuous endeavours? What if you have no time to ‘be’ because of all your helpful ‘doing’? Does a lack of connection matter when you dedicate your life to helping others?

Who does it hurt when you choose to use distraction to avoid being with whatever ‘is’ in your life?

Having a positive impact on the world around you is important. Of course it is. And yet…Numbing out, regardless of how you do it, is cheating yourself (and others) from your life truly lived. When hiding deprives you of connection with who you are and with those around you, aren’t you a shadow of who you could be? Aren’t you a flicker of light in the world when you could be the sun?

Presence is everything.

“Consciousness is always drawn to the most distracting object: the bumped toe, the loud noise, or the hurting heart.” ~ Michael A. Singer

If change is a part of life, why are some changes so difficult?

According to Michael Singer in his book, The Untethered Soul, we can look at difficulty through the example of having a thorn in our skin. We can spend our whole lives protecting ourselves from the pain of the thorn when it gets bumped or we can decide to remove it.

This sounds reasonable and simple enough but what does that really look like in daily life? What happens when someone you love brushes against the thorn in your skin?

Let’s assume you recognize a disturbance and your consciousness is drawn there because someone you love expresses an idea about money that you don’t agree with and you have a story you tell yourself around this idea so that the mere mention of it bumps against your thorn painfully. If you are capable of letting it go, it ends there. You won’t draw other people into your personal drama around the thorn. You won’t put energy into protecting your thorn either. If you have allowed yourself to feel the disturbance before letting it go, the thorn starts to work its way out of your skin. Maybe not all at once, but little by little the sensitivity lessens and the thorn comes closer to the surface.

What happens when you let your consciousness move toward the disturbance and then reside there? You give away your peace and the chance to let it go. You also give away your opportunity to grow as a person when you become the disturbance instead of the watcher of the disturbance. This fallout often isn’t pretty…The one you love temporarily becomes your adversary so you can defend your position. What was once beautiful looks ugly or what felt possible becomes insurmountable. The world is the same but your consciousness has shifted and your perspective becomes obscured by the pain of your thorn that is pushed in even deeper.

Questions worth considering:

Do you want to use the life you have left protecting all of your inner thorns? Or do you want to lean into the discomfort and remove them? Practising presence is a practical approach amidst difficulty and a necessary tool for embracing change and welcoming growth.

“And what is it to work with love? …

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit…

~ Kahlil Gibran

This first week of 2021 I have been reflecting on what I want the rest of the year to look and feel like. I want all my strivings and efforts to be work that is love made visible. It is a tall order but what is the beginning of the year for, other than to embrace possibility?

I bought a 2021 goal tracking book in November. It is beautiful…it is full of inspiring quotes and has ribbons to mark pages. I have sat with it on my lap quite a bit since my purchase but I actually haven’t written a single thing in it. I saddled my sister with the matching book and she is feeling the same way; like there is this looming and monumental task ahead that she feels obliged to complete.

Here is what I have set in motion instead. I’ve gone back to my tried and true goal setting/vision for the future stuff with a few added intentions of using the fancy book to stay on track. Look out 2021, I’m taking the reins.

Are you a goal setter? Do you want to be? Do you want to chart your course or tweak how you move through the coming year?

Here’s a process to follow…see if all (or parts) of it resonate for you:

Figure out what your top nine core values are and then rate them from 1-9 with 1-3 being the absolute most important filters (also read the word ‘filters’ as motivators) for all your goal categories. I think it is important to see/understand your landscape of nine core values but work with the top three for goal setting. When there is more than three, I think it’s hard to stay focused. If you want a list of core values to work from try this link.

Goal categories (add or subtract what feels right for you): Financial, Career/Business/School, Relationships, Free-Time, Family-Time, Health and Appearance, Personal Growth, Making a Difference.

Normally, I make a vision board for the year using images I am drawn to and I allow the process to be more intuitive. I like working this way. I am often surprised to see what materializes from my efforts. I also separately set yearly goals. This week, I decided to shake things up for 2021; I am making my vision board a visual representation of my structured goals. I know, I’m a wild woman 😉

So here’s a tangible example…let’s say your top three core values are: Health, Security and Freedom. Use these values to develop your goals under the goal categories. Images you could look for to create your vision board in the Financial Category would be an image for financial health, another for financial security, and one more for financial freedom. In the Career/Business Category it would be career health, career security and career freedom. In the Relationship Category it would be relationship health, relationship security, relationship freedom and so on for each category. Your vision board and yearly goals would look very different if the core values were: Adventure, Fun and Creativity. It would be the same exercise using the same goal categories but the results wouldn’t be anywhere near the same as the first example. You might enjoy adventures and be creative but if your core values are more in-line with health, security and freedom, you would be missing the motivational piece to go after your goals with your whole heart. How else can we make our love visible if our heart isn’t in it?

Use your core values as the spring board to develop your goals to create direction for the year that feels razor sharp and innately satisfying.

Next steps:

1. Once you create your vision board, look at it every single day.
2. Use a calendar or journal to track small, daily, actionable steps toward the goals that speak directly to your values.

Let me know how the process goes for you. Keep it simple (no fancy journals necessary). And most importantly, just begin.

The Snow Fairy ~ Claude McKay

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,

Whirling fantastic in the misty air,

Contending fierce for space supremacy.

And they flew down a mightier force at night,

As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,

And they, frail things had taken panic flight

Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.

I went to bed and rose at early dawn

To see them huddled together in a heap,

Each merged into the other upon the lawn,

Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.

The sun shone brightly on them half the day,

By night they stealthily had stol’n away.

…

What happens when you feel down about something that isn’t likely to change in the immediate future? How could meditation possibly help?

This blog post you are reading right now wasn’t what I drafted on Monday or redrafted on Wednesday. Everything I came up with to share was just a lot of blah, blah, blah.

The truth is, I’m bummed. Last Friday I taught two yoga classes and was chatting after with a friend saying how much being back since the initial five month Covid break has been very special. I have been appreciating each class and each person attending the classes beyond what I could explain. I am literally so excited to walk into the yoga studio every single day I get to teach.

I have also been in the midst of planning my 31 days of messages for the month of December and even though it was disappointing not to be handing out my little envelopes stuffed with messages this year, I’d adapted.

Yay, right? And then…last Friday afternoon (just hours after I was blabbering away about how fortunate I feel) our area moved to the ‘orange’ classification for Covid and all classes at the place I predominantly teach were cancelled. Again.

So what could sitting alone in meditation or getting on my yoga mat for my personal practice possibly do to help with my heavy heart over no longer sharing space and time with yoga students on a regular basis?

Lots.

Just as the title of this blog communicates, “Finding the good does not mean denying the difficult.” I am disappointed. I will miss having somewhere to go again. I am feeling like the winter months are looming with what is likely to hold continued and increased Covid safety measures.

The difficulties still exist but when I practise in meditation and yoga to let go of all the things my mind wants to spin out from those initial thoughts, it helps me to create enough space to also find the good that continues to exist.

Of course there are an abundance of things in my life which cultivate feelings of gratitude. Of course this is a blip in the bigger scheme of things. Of course having time to focus on other work I love, continuing to spend time outside and with my beautiful family is a blessing. The opportunity to watch how my mind processes difficulties is also something to be to truly grateful for.

In the words of Henry Miller,

“It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.”

Last Thursday I met my two sister’s for lunch. One of my sisters ordered and picked up the food. We all met at my other sister’s house and ate on her front porch. It was a warm day and it was so nice to be together.

We passed out the food, ate and chatted about all kinds of stuff and then my sister pulls out a little something extra out of the food bag. My eyes brightened. I really, really like these peanut butter balls with chocolate chips so when I saw (what I thought) were those sources of yum, my sister quickly informed me, “The woman at the counter said they didn’t have the peanut butter ones so I got these instead.”

Sigh.

I had bought the ‘other’ ones before too when they were out of the peanut butter balls and they were just meh. Anyway I opened the cute little box and took a bite. It was weird but the first thing I tasted was…peanut butter? So then I really poured my attention into it. What was in it? Tahini? They wouldn’t use another nut butter if it was the alternative to the peanut butter balls. Or maybe they would? Peanuts are a legume. Maybe it was almond butter? Nope. I know almond butter. I finished it off and thoughtfully chewed. I couldn’t figure it out.

I said, “These taste like the peanut butter ones.” Both of my sisters agreed. We looked at the box for ingredient info and there wasn’t any.

It was bugging me so I looked up their ingredient list online which was:

Peanut butter, honey, oats, coconut and chocolate chips

It turns out the ‘just meh’ balls are no longer even on the menu. (Apparently, the woman on cash was unaware of the change too. The coconut on the outside maybe confused things?) Regardless, the star of the show that day was in fact the peanut butter ball.

On the way to teaching a yoga class later that afternoon I was thinking about how perfectly this story aligns with how to explain ‘the watcher’ in meditation.

In the case of the peanut butter ball, my mind was still providing commentary. However, on my attempt to decipher the mystery ingredient, I allowed the commentary without being pulled away from watching.

Watching the breath is the same in meditation. It is the same as watching sensation in your yoga practice. If you work with a mantra, an imaginary or other sensory cue, it is similar. You allow the mind to do what it does; it comments and evaluates and persuades. The you that is you is not this voice in your head because you can watch the voice and direct your watching. You are something other than the voice.

In this case with the peanut butter ball, my attention was poured into my sense of taste. My mind was busy commenting on what the mystery ingredient could be or not be. It veered off into probability about substitutions for peanut allergies. I was aware of my commenting mind but I resided within my sense of taste.

This distinction between the voice in our heads and who we really are lives within this discussion. It is also where all of our barriers to peace as well as our path to authentic freedom exists. We are not our minds. The more often we practice being the watcher, the more likely we are to become aware of the power our mind chatter has over our lives.

Here’s a link to a recipe I love and fyi: it is not a peanut butter ball 🙂

https://monicaswanson.com/cookie-dough-balls-inspired-by-oh-she-glows-everyday/

When I was in my twenties I lived in Toronto. I used to drive to work just outside of the city. One sunny morning during my commute, I had my window open and I was singing away when all of a sudden traffic came to a screeching halt. I couldn’t see what had happened up ahead but soon after I watched emergency vehicle after emergency vehicle race by. For the next two hours, traffic remained at a dead stop.

I didn’t have a cell phone at the time so I stressed out for most of the two hours worrying about what I would say to my boss for being soooo late. What made things worse is that even when we started moving again, traffic simply crawled with everyone looking at whatever the hold up was. I recall being so annoyed and thinking, “Doesn’t everyone else have somewhere they need to be?”

Finally, two fairly smashed up cars that were pulled off to the side came into view. There was debris all over the road even though it looked like it had been hosed down. I wondered if anyone had been hurt. It is sometimes hard to know with a car crash.

That’s when I noticed, what I thought was, a twisted fender. The sun was shining off of it and it made it hard to tell what part of the car had been torn off with it. As I drove up closer, I was just like all the other rubber-neckers looking at the scene. I couldn’t turn my gaze away until I realized that the twisted fender wasn’t a fender at all. It was what had once been a motorcycle. There was no longer any doubt in my mind if someone had been hurt.

I know I drove very, very carefully that day and for many days and weeks after that. I felt grateful for everything. I was determined to get crap done. I was crossing stuff off my to-do lists like crazy. Eventually though, I returned to feeling more like an invincible twenty-something who had all the time in the world and who once again became irritated with traffic, who passed when I maybe shouldn’t have and who enjoyed speeding when traffic opened up.

Don’t we all have a version of this shake-awake moment when we vow to take care of business in a way we know we are capable of but then promptly go back to sleep with loosely held promises of ‘someday’, ‘maybe when’ and “I want to”? Aren’t we all, right now, living in a shake-awake series of moments? (Isn’t every moment potentially our last anyway?)

What if…each time you put on a mask or took one off, or have the realization, “that won’t be happening this year,” that you reaffirm your commitment to doing the one thing that you know in your heart you must. What if we all used Covid to catapult us into being completely alive inside the life we might be half living.

Like the song linked below reminds us…“..we are here for a good time. Not a long time…”

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I hope that whatever you have been up to this weekend, it has brought you deep joy and a connection with yourself, others and this incredible season.

In this post, I share a gratitude practice and a recipe. Both are simple and delicious.

Gratitude Practice

Each night before bedtime at my house we do, what has come to be known as, ‘thankful’. It started when my daughter was learning to speak and she loved to tell us (anything) but also what she was grateful for. Some nights she would surprise us by saying things that were entirely her own and wise like when she was a toddler she once said she was grateful for “clean water to drink”. She often was also a beautiful example for us of how to naturally live in the moment, like saying she was thankful for what we ate for dinner, being tickled (two minutes before) and warm blankets.

Our ‘thankful’ practice has changed over the years while also remaining a valuable way to connect and reflect on the beautiful aspects of life that live inside every single day. It helps my husband and I through difficult moments in our parenting and in our marriage. My daughter likes that we gather as a family before going to bed. (I just asked her.) I like it for a similar reason; it allows each of us to feel heard and to connect before we fall asleep. It has become a ritual that we do most nights even if we are travelling so that a little bit of home is with us no matter where we are. Even on nights when bedtime feels like the last thing to do on a long list or on nights when one or more of us is grumpy and doesn’t want to do it…it is a small step back toward each other and toward a recognition that there is so much to be thankful for.

How to do it…

Verbally share what you are thankful for without resorting to a rote listing of things that is the same each night. That’s it. We make sure that there are at least three fresh things from the day. If you are living on your own, or your significant others aren’t having any part of this, keep a small notebook beside your bed and write a list before you go to sleep. Easy. The benefits are felt in the moment and often during your day as your brain takes notice of little things to use for your thankful list later.

Apple Crisp

So I recently baked my own made-up version of apple crisp that turned out so delicious that I want everyone to make it and eat it and then tell me about it. If you love recipes that are forgiving and freely adaptable this might be the non-recipe for you. Take out a bunch of like ingredients, taste along the way and substitute to your heart’s content.

Ingredient Suggestions: Cooking apples or whatever kind you have, coconut oil and/or butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, oats, flour, pecans or other nuts you like, salt, vanilla and maple syrup.

The Apples: Butter up an 8 x 8 with coconut oil or butter and fill almost to the top with peeled and sliced apples. I used cortland apples so I didn’t have to use anything to absorb excess liquid but if you use juicy apples add ground chia seeds, cornstarch or tapioca. I mixed in cinnamon, a little nutmeg and brown sugar swerve to-taste. Note: Swerve is a sugar replacement I use sometimes…I chose it here because I don’t hold back on the maple syrup in the crumble part and because I like it. I also greased the baking dish with coconut oil but used butter in the crumble.

The Crumble: Equal parts oats, spelt flour (I have also made this with almond flour too) and pecans broken into pieces (I did a cup of each but you might like more crumble), I added cinnamon and a grind or two of sea salt and then I moistened and mixed it all with a splash of vanilla and more than a splash of maple syrup and then diced in some chilled butter. Throw this onto the apples and bake at 375F or 190C for about a half hour or until apples have softened and the crisp part is crisp.

The Eating: How yum is this? Who needs a traditional recipe for apple crisp? We ate ours warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy 🙂