Someone once said that journaling is like whispering to yourself and listening at the same time. Studies have shown that journaling is linked to decreased mental distress. How and why this occurs is no doubt related to the fact that we’re getting onto paper, what’s keeping our minds occupied.  

These are the thoughts, often not good or helpful ones, that are swirling around in our head, impacting our bodies in ways we seldom notice until we’re forced to.  

Remember this: our bodies are the theatre of our minds. What we think, believe and repeat constantly, we embody. 

Finding it hard to focus lately? Noticing you’re a little more highly strung than usual or possibly gaining weight and experiencing low energy reserves? 

The solution needn’t be a visit to the doctor, at least, not until you’ve tried this:  the fourth in the series of practices that can help you live your best life and show up more powerfully and present.

We’re talking breathing - not the type of breathing your body and lungs autonomically do for you, we're talking controlled or self-regulated breathing.

Science has ascertained that the shallower your breath, the less oxygen reaches the brain, and the harder it is to focus. 

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. 

It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there.”

Deepak Chopra

Last week's practice, the first of our (Equinox Journey's) seven ways to change your life was stillness.   You’ve had a few days to try it out, don’t stop - now add this to it.   
 

This week’s practice is mindfulness.  Yes, the buzzword of the times we are living in.  A word or practice that too few of us understand and too many people tell us to "just try it!". Maybe it's time to do just that.  Like all these transformative practices, it's available to you whenever you need it - all day and night, and it's free!

Caveat: There are no quick fixes in life.  (Not sustainable ones anyway).  This takes practice, so promise yourself at least one month of patience, kindness, persistence, and love.  (remember to mark the date in your calendar and if you fall off the proverbial bus, just get back on ASAP)
 

Here goes. Super-Seven Practice #2
 

Introducing: Mindfulness...

Calling all high-achievers, perfectionists, crazy busy, haven’t got time for that kind of sh*t, type of people! I like to call these my super-seven they are the primary activities that can change your life - I know this because I used to be you! I’m no Zen Buddhist and will never be, but I pick my battles and moments of perfection more carefully now.

Whether it's deciding on what’s next, losing weight, letting go of addictive behaviours, mending relationships, finding your purpose, or finding the confidence to do it (whatever your ‘it’ is) you know what it is you want to do differently.  Repeating the patterns that got you here, is not necessarily going to help you navigate your way through your current challenges or these crazy times, we all find ourselves in.

Have you ever noticed when you say yes to helping someone out, yet you mean no, what occurs within your body?  When that voice from deep inside, softly whispers or loudly (yet silently) screams NOOOOO!!  

If you know this to be true, then you’ve experienced your intuition, that (usually) soft, inner voice that knows instinctively what’s right for you, rather than relying on conscious reasoning.    

You’ve met up with some old friends from varsity.  It’s been years since you saw most of them, you had a great evening, yet,  you’re feeling crushed.  In fact, there are so many emotions running through your mind (and body) that you don’t know which one to deal with first.

You’re feeling resentful and it's making you feel bad.   Feeling bad is inviting that old darkness in. The darkness usually starts with the “I’m not good enough“ narrative.

You ask yourself: what’s this about?

Superpowers are no longer exclusive to comic book heroes and villians. 

We all have access to a superpower and, in some cases, many.  Yet, as in the movies, discovering this superpower usually requires something jarring, disturbing or life threatening to occur for us to recognise and activate it..  

So, what is a Superpower? 

Wondering how to shift something in your life? Maybe a stale relationship, a stuck business or a repetitively negative mood?

The answer is often sought in something external to us, such as a management consulting team, a relationship counsellor, a mindfulness guru. And yet, while these options can be fantastic in terms of actually highlighting the issue and perhaps getting to the root of the challenge, there is something else entirely, something far more fundamental, that will bring the change we so desperately require.

This answer lies in considering and altering our habits – for it is our habits in the first place that underpin the behaviours that have caused us to be in the place in which we find ourselves.   

Motivation is what gets you started. Habits are what keep you going.

Jim Ryun

Many of us already apply this powerful word to our lives.  Maybe not realizing how powerful it is. 

If I think of the benefits:

• It saves time,
• It invites ease and comfort,
• It costs less,
• It’s clean,
• Tidy not messy,
• It's easily understood and easily repeated. 

It’s that time of year again, the one where traditionally, you started shopping immediately, wrapped up the school year, the varsity year, the work year, renovations, projects and book club events for the year.  Just that in itself is exhausting.  

My invitation to you is to remind yourself that we’re not living in normal times – we’re living in the new AC – 'after Covid' times – nothing is “normal” anymore. If it's not dawned on you yet, then here’s the good news – if nothing’s normal – then you have a blank canvas – to write your own story, create your own festive season with a twist, paint your dream December and make it happen. If that sounds like too much.. then maybe just accept that you needn’t do everything the way it was BC (yup you guessed it – 'Before Covid').

When life seems crazy and like it’s getting more unpredictable by the moment, how do we handle it? How do we handle the constant change, disappointments, unknowns, curveballs? 

If the research and statistics are anything to go by, the answer to these questions is: With panic, worry, insecurity, anguish, stress and exhaustion. 

Vipassana means ‘to see things as they really are’.  The silence - known as the Noble Silence - meant more than no conversation.

 It implied absolutely no communication or contact with the outside world, nor with any of my 60-fellow meditators.  No gestures, hand signals, eye contact or even, a quick “bless you” when someone sneezed

We are taught to believe that the purpose of a question is to produce an answer. And yes, this is one of the outcomes that is possible.

However, the truth … of a well crafted question is the deeper, ever-evolving thinking and feelings that are produced when we grapple with it. When we are stopped in our tracks, and pulled out of our usual stream of thought by a simple string of words that has been designed to...

Have you ever stopped to think about what home means to you, and wondered what it might mean for someone else?

Let's explore the meaning of  Home  from a slightly different perspective.

A home invites a sense of peace, ease, relaxation, welcome, belonging and acceptance that allows us to fully be ourselves. ‘Home’ is the ‘place’ in time and space that we seek to return to or to find for the first time.

And yet the reality is that, in our seeking of a sense of home, we are not always clear on what that looks like for each of us.

The term Ahimsa is derived from the root word himsa, meaning "to cause pain," and the prefix "a", which means "not”.  To practice ahimsa involves refraining from causing physical and or  psychological pain to any living being. Thus,  to live in harmony with people and the planet alike. 
Of equal importance is non-violence towards oneself. 

We, in our actions, our thoughts and words, are to refrain from negativity – to practice kindness, self-care and affirmation of ourselves. 

If we practice ahimsa, we cultivate inner peace.  

As we cultivate inner peace, we begin to radiate a new energy into the world, and in so doing, slowly but surely, influence others to do the same.  This is how one changes the world for the better, from the inside out. 

We live our lives in flow – expecting things to fall in place, to work, to be the way we’ve been taught or told that they should be. Until it doesn’t.

"Values are like lighthouses, they are signals giving us direction, meaning and purpose" - Unknown

The process of understanding our values is an essential one if we are to move in the direction of our deepest purpose and live out our biggest impact and potential.

I’m finding lately that there is just not enough time to do all I want to get done, and it’s not just me.  It’s like the veil has been lifted after a long sleep, and we are being driven subconsciously to get things done before the end of 2021. I, for one, know that this isn’t healthy, and that this panic or anxiety I’m feeling in my belly has deeper foundations than just a to-do list.  

We hear so much about the importance of focus, goal-setting, and having a vision in life. Whether from an individual perspective or from that of a business. Having a strategy on how to progress and move forward is a given in our modern Western culture. 

However, there is a crucial oversight to this mentality, and it is this that is costing us dearly both individually and collectively. 

I was inspired by last Sunday’s glorious sunshine to explore, with our Equinox Morning tribe, how we can change the world around us by shining our light as brightly as the sun, and in as many ways possible.  Here are the five ways I believe we can all shine our light for others, and in so doing make even a little dent in the universe.

There are many universal truths and none is more true than that personal change is difficult.  But why is that, you may ask?

Neuroscience tells us that the brain is programmed to seek out routines and processes that are repeated many times in order to store these in our autonomic nervous system as a habit or habitual behaviour – thus creating space in our brains to store other, new or more important information.  An example would be, driving a car or brushing our teeth.  These are things we shouldn’t have to give much thought to – we have more important things to consider or new things to learn with each new day.