You and I will never not be distracted. This world will always be filled with too many wonderful and ridiculous distractions. But we can minimize the distractions we create for ourselves. Doing so, even for a moment, makes us feel centered and serene. It makes us feel “all in” - with nowhere else we’d rather be and nothing else we’d rather be doing.
Is all of the loss and grief that you've experienced worth whatever growth it causes? Heck no. Is it worthwhile? Heck yes. Loss leaves you quite clear that love is all that matters. When we lead with love we not only find more love, but we find a deep gratitude for the life we're living with all its ups and downs.
When someone you love has dementia, you quickly learn that even the best of plans will often need to be changed. You start to balance your effort with a sense of ease about how things might play out.
You can study the heck out something, but until you have put it into action in your life, explored its nooks and crannies for yourself, your understanding of it -no matter how in depth it is - will remain at the surface level. Intimacy comes from experiences beneath the surface.
Have you ever stumbled across something you thought you already knew and realize that you now know it in a whole new way? Sometimes you just can't "get it" until you've lived it. Life, it turns out, is the best teacher we'll ever have.
We’ve all been there. Cut off on the highway by another driver who could only be rude and aggressive, not in a panicked hurry on their way to the emergency room. Why do we do this? Anais Nin famously explains, “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” The trick is to notice when how we're feeling could be coloring what we're experiencing. Read on for some ideas on how to pull this off.
Stephen Colbert once said, “If you’re grateful for your life, you have to be grateful for all of it.” I think he's right. Our struggles do not steal us away from life, they ARE life. They will not destroy us, but they could enlighten us. This is the fullness of life.
Change can be scary. But it's even scarier to live a life that no longer fits who you are. It's a strange thing that the truth of who you are might be obscured by the very things that seem to make you YOU. Like every living thing on earth, you and I need to allow ourselves the space and the freedom to change - even (or especially) in ways that are surprising and a little scary.
During the introspective season of Lent, we come face to face with our mistakes. As we do, it can be tempting to decide that we stink at being good people. Yoga offers a gentle view of mistakes. They are simply invitations to keep practicing - informed but unencumbered by our earlier mistakes.