Braving the Hot Mess - Blog

Love Is Easy To Profess And A Shit Ton Of Work To Practice

2/11/2019

In a few days it's Valentine's Day. Some love it, others hate it. Valentine's Day is typically a day where we profess our love. It's a time where we glamorize love, especially romantic love, into roses, hearts and candy. For me, it can serve as a time to examine love and relationships.

I recently saw a post by Brene Brown and felt the truth in it. Love can be messy, it's not always roses, hearts and candy. Whether it be romantic love, or love for a child, sibling, parent, or friend it can be messy and a shit ton of work to practice. Here is what Brene wrote:

Love is easy to profess and a shit ton of work to practice. Stay brave, awkward, and kind this week.

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.

Love is messy, it's both easy and hard. It can bring out the best in us and the worst. I know that I mess it up a lot. I lose my cool and say something hurtful, I get self-absorbed, I get impatient, I make assumptions and judgments, I do unwanted favors and then attach expectations. The list goes on and on.

It's hard work and takes practice, lots and lots of practice. Sometimes we mess it up and we don't get it right. Love is messy, It's not always roses, hearts and candy, but the best things in life are often messy. There can be magic in the mess.

Yes, there is magic in the mess. There's magic in being vulnerable, to letting others in and in putting yourself out there, in the discovery and progression. Magic in experiencing life with all of its beauty and struggle.

This Valentine's Day may you open your heart wider to love. May you be brave and pull down the walls, be vulnerable and live and love wholeheartedly. May you open your heart wider today to Divine love. May you feel it, embrace it and be inspired by it today. Wishing you love beyond measure this Valentine's Day and everyday.

Being Fully Human

2/1/2019

What does it mean to be fully human? It means there are going to be good times and not so good times, there will be challenges and struggles, there will be joy and despair. It's not realistic, or even healthy, to try to be happy 100% of the time. The key is to be resilient, to have grit, to bounce back, to not get stuck in the muck, to have stickiness, to move through the challenge and its array of feelings and emotions and thoughts without getting stuck.

Don't you wonder sometimes how some people are able to navigate challenges and adversity in life while maintaining a positive mental attitude and holding space open for growth without getting stuck in the "O, woe is me", mentality, or overdramatizing the situation, or just plain getting stuck in the muck?

Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds has researched the topic of cultivating well-being (partially defined as happiness) and is highly regarded throughout the world. Dr. Davidson is adamant that well-being is a skill that we can all learn and I definitely agree! He details four constituents of well-being that have been extensively investigated neuroscientifically (see my post from March 15, 2016), one of which is resilience. He defines resilience as how quickly we recover from adversity.

He describes resiliency in regard to stickiness...which is how much we let a negative emotion bleed over into other events, experiences and areas of our life. He referred to it as getting stuck in the muck. He shared that adversity happens, that life happens, and your stickiness is what either causes you to be resilient, to bounce back and recover, or to get stuck in the negative emotion of the experience.

Gabrielle Bernstein puts it this way, "You can't control all of your experiences in life, but you can control how you experience them." What matters is whether we let the adversity become traumatizing. The good news is that we can learn how to be more resilient. We can learn to deal with adversity more effectively by how we frame it.

George Bonanno is a clinical psychologist at Columbia University’s Teachers College, he has been studying resilience for nearly twenty-five years. One of the central elements of resilience, Bonanno has found, is perception...Do you see an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic. We can make ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things,” Bonanno said.

In research at Columbia, neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of adversity in a different way...to reframe it in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally charged...changes how we experience and react to the adversity. We can train ourselves to better regulate our emotions.

The opposite can also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.” Human beings tend to worry, we can take a minor thing, blow it up in our heads, run through it over and over, driving ourselves crazy until we feel like that minor thing is the biggest thing that ever happened. I know that I have done this, have you? Sometimes we nurse it, curse it, and rehearse it over and over again. We allow ourselves to get caught up in the drama and overdramatize the situation.

If we frame adversity as a challenge, we become more flexible and able to deal with it, move on, learn from it, and grow. If we focus on it, frame it as a threat, then a potentially traumatic event becomes a lasting problem. We become more inflexible, and more likely to be negatively affected, to get stuck in the muck. Being resilient is an intentional practice. A practice that, like a muscle, becomes stronger the more we practice it.

A key strategy for strengthening your resilience is to have a meditation or mindfulness practice. Being aware of your emotions and being present through a meditation practice allows us to better regulate our emotions. We can then reframe adversity causing us to have less stickiness and more resilience.

Tap Into Your Intuition Through Wonder

1/29/2019

Can you think of an occasion where you’ve had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right about a decision you needed to make or a situation that you were facing, but didn’t listen to your intuition and later regretted it? Do you often doubt your intuition in favor of hard evidence to support your decisions? If so, you may be underutilizing one of the most powerful tools you have...your intuitive intelligence.

In our American culture, we are conditioned to not use it, not to trust it. Instead, we are conditioned to make decisions based on our head and our intellect. Because of this, most of us have become intuitively deaf.

In timеѕ of challenge or decision making, it's easy to get caught up in the need to control, the fear of failure, of not being right, of making a bad decision, or of being judged. Our negative thоughtѕ саn spin оut of соntrоl. The negative mind chatter and thought patterns can be соnvinсing, conniving, аnd сrаftу. Your mind and your ego will trу tо persuade уоu tо pay attention tо it and nоthing еlѕе.

We make lists of pros and cons, analyze things to the nth degree, ask other's opinions and try to feel 100% confident before making decisions. Our ego, our negative thoughts and mind сhаttеr blосkѕ access to оur intuitiоn. It convinces us that it’s more important (аnd ѕаfеr) tо focus оn our fear and wоrriеѕ rather than thе wiѕdоm оf your intuitiоn.

Our intuition is our best navigation system available. Intuition is not just an ability, but a way of life. It’s paying attention to the flow of your inner experience, it’s being aware, it’s having trust and faith. When we pay attention to our intuition it puts us into the flow of the universe allowing us to create our future with more ease.

One easy way to begin to ignite and tap into your intuition is through practicing wonder. Sonia Choquette states in her book, Trust Your Vibes At Work, and Let Them Work for You, "The minute you turn your awareness over to that wonder, your mind steps aside and your intuition becomes activated. Wondering invites invention, adventure, and exploration of things to come. It shifts you out of defense and self-preservation and into creativity and collaboration with your higher self. Often we are too busy trying to figure things out to allow ourselves the opportunity to wonder. Yet wondering taps into our right brain (the creative side) and explores new possibilities and unknown variables, while figuring things out taps into our left brain (the logical side) and draws from past experiences and known variables. Solution arise from within, but we rarely think to look there, being conditioned to seek outwardly from others instead."

The solution to a challenge often lurks just below the surface of your awareness and simply needs to be tapped through exploration. Stretching our imagination muscles like we did when we were a child is a key step. Wonder on paper, wonder out loud, wonder with a trusted friend, have fun and wonder. The creative, intuitive mind is also playful mind.

An exercise I love that helps me to create the new story is to play the "imagine if" or "what if" game. When playing the "imagine if" and "what if" game there are no limitations, no rules, no restrictions, no logic. You get to freely create using your imagination what you would like the story to look like. You can play this game on your own through journaling, drawing or talking out loud. It's a great game to play while driving.

My favorite way to play the "what if" game is with a trusted friend or family member. The synergy that is created by the amplified energy of two or more people engaging their imaginations can bring forth the really juicy stuff!

Ignite and tap into your intuition through wonder, imagination and creative play!

Keep Moving

1/22/2019

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and it marks a National holiday here in the United States. Each year, on his birthday, I like to take time to reflect on his message. This quote stood out to me this year, especially given my post from last week, "If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but by all means, keep moving."

That's really the important part right? Keep moving, do what you can, do something, anything. I know sometimes I feel like it has to be of a certain measure in order to count, in order to be good enough. I'm hard on myself and can get stuck beating myself up. Doing this doesn't serve me. It doesn't motivate me to keep moving forward, it causes me to stay stuck.

Instead I am choosing to celebrate every movement forward. You meditated for 5 minutes today, great! You walked a mile on the treadmill, great! You skipped peanut M&M's and chose grapes, great! This helps to motivate me to keep it up, to do one more thing that will move me forward. Otherwise, I'm apt to say screw it and eat the whole bag of M&M's.

Every small win, every movement forward is a step in the right direction. Celebrate it, embrace it, feel good about your movement forward, this will make it easier to take the next step.

I believe that our world right now needs all hands on deck. The more people moving forward to make their own lives more positive and committed to healing the world the better. If each of us keep moving forward in whatever way we can we will create momentum, shifts of movement forward.

Sometimes the challenges in front of us personally and globally feel overwhelming and too large, this can paralyze us and keep us stuck. Just keep moving forward one small step at a time. It all makes a difference. One more positive choice after another. Stay in the present, not in the past, and keep choosing and moving.

Get involved, do something to help. Be of service to others and to the world. Ask what you can give versus what you can get. Sometimes we get so focused on ourselves, our challenges, our insecurities and needs that we can lose site of being of service to others. Shifting our focus to being of service makes us feel good. By being of service to others you are in turn helping yourself and creating personal movement. Trust in that.

A famous quote by Marianne Williamson comes to mind. It motivates and inspires me to keep moving:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

"I Can't" Versus "I Won't"

1/15/2019

Wow, we are already halfway through the first month of 2019! Most of us set resolutions, intentions, and goals for the new year. How are you doing on your resolutions? Are you moving in the direction toward them?

I recently read the book Letting Go by David R. Hawkins, in it he talks about "I can't" versus "I won't". In the chapter on apathy and depression he writes, "Another way out of apathy is to look at the payoff we are getting out of the apathetic attitudes. The payoff may be in the face-saving excuses to cover up what is actually fear. Since in reality, we are very capable beings, most 'I can'ts' are really 'I won'ts.'" Gosh darn it all anyway, I hate it/love it when I'm reminded of truths like that!

His words spoke to me because sometimes I hold myself back. I let fear take over and convince myself that "I can't" when the actual reality is that "I won't." Hawkins states, "Behind all of the 'I can'ts' are merely 'I won'ts.' The 'I won'ts' mean 'I am afraid to' or 'I am ashamed to' or 'I have too much pride to try, for fear I might fail.'" He goes on to say that, "Apathy and depression are the prices we pay for having settled for and bought into our smallness."

In this new year, I invite you to examine your "I can'ts" and determine if they are really "I won'ts". Being more conscious through the realization that we are choosing a state of being makes a big difference to our self-concept than to think I am a victim and "I can't."

Let's make the conscious choice to not let fear paralyze us and hold us back, keeping us stuck in our old stories, our old programming, and our smallness. You are not too old, too busy, not qualified, or whatever excuse, whatever story you are choosing to hold onto as to why you are not going after your dreams, your intentions, your goals.

You can always choose again. Every moment of every day you can choose again. Be courageous, YOU are enough, YOU are not a victim, YOU are a powerful and amazing creation of God. Let your beautiful light shine bright. You've got this, you've totally got this.

Pause, Reflect And Set Intentions

12/22/2018

Have you taken the time to reflect on last year and set your intentions for this new year? Now that the holidays are over it's a great time to hit the pause button, spend some time in reflection, and set your intentions for 2019.

I think it's healthy to productively reflect. To productively look back for a bit before setting it aside and moving forward. Not getting stuck in the past, just looking at it to savor the positive and learn from the challenges. To reflect on what worked and what didn't and to bring closure. It can be easy to skip this step and jump forward into the next year with the proclamation of forget last year, this year will be better. By doing this it's easy to lose perspective, missing the the good stuff and the growth.

Here are some things that I recommend reflecting on:

1. What am I grateful for that transpired this past year? Big, small and everything in between. What are all of the things that come to mind that you are grateful for? I love to start off all of my prayers, meditations, planning sessions, etc. with a good dose of gratitude. This gives us some nice perspective as we are reflecting on the year.

2. What did I do, create, or experience this year that I'm really proud of? This can be in any area of your life. List out all of the accomplishments and experiences that you are proud of that happened this year. Work through month-by-month or pull out your calendar and take a look at the daily entries to help jog your memory. You may be surprised at how many you come up with.

3. What mistakes did I make and what did they teach me? What lessons did I learn that I can leverage from? What was the meaning in those mistakes and lessons? Maybe it's something that's not concrete, like patience, or compassion, or forgiveness.

4. What am I willing to let go of? What am I currently disciplined to that I desire to let go of? What habits, routines and disciplines are serving me and which ones are not? What old story do I want to rewrite and replace with a new story? An exercise I love that helps me to create the new story is to play the "imagine if" or "what if" game. When playing the "imagine if" and "what if" game there are no limitations, no rules, no restrictions, no logic. You get to freely create using your imagination what you would like the story to look like.

How are you feeling about the new year? I know a lot of us have mixed feelings as we are looking out at our world. We want to change, we desire change. How is that change going to happen for you? Are you willing to be the change that you want in the world? Are you willing to do your part to create the change in your own life, in order for that to ripple out into the world? Consider these items as you are closing out this year and looking toward the next.

Setting Your Intentions
If you don't set out your intentions for the year, then it's like getting in a car with no direction. As Jack Kornfield puts it, "Setting a long-term intention is like setting the compass of our heart. No matter how rough the storms, how difficult the terrain, our direction is clear." I set intentions that are both internal and external. My external intentions I keep a little more fluid and flexible. I surround them with a lot of space, space for the creativity of the Universe, space for my natural tendency to think too small, space for my highest and best good.

As the year comes to a close spend some time in reflection. Grab yourself a cup of hot tea or cocoa, sit by the fireplace, wrap up in a warm cozy blanket and reflect on the year as it is closing. Savor the year. You've been on this earth one more year in time, what did it mean to you?

Let your intentions be your compass, your guide that helps give you direction even in turbulent or challenging conditions.

6 Ways To Get Along With Your Family During The Holidays

12/17/2018

I was planning to write this week's post on suggestions for handling the stress and anxiety that can come from family gatherings during the holidays and then this blog post dropped into my email inbox from Gabby Bernstein. It's rich with tips for getting along during the holidays, so I decided to share it with you. Hope this helps your holiday to be full of grace, peace and joy.

Spending time with family can be wonderful and uplifting. It can also a big source of holiday stress, even for the most functional families! Being around family can dredge up resentments and send you back into old patterns.

I want to help you skip the drama (or handle it with grace if it comes up), so I updated this blog post with tips that I know will help a lot!

Why The Holidays Can Bring On Family Drama

During the holidays, there are lots of reasons why family drama can flare up.

For one, everyone walks in the door with their own issues and hangups. They may be feeling insecure about work or defensive about a relationship, or having a tough time in general. Plus, even the happiest family has old dynamics from childhood that can take over quickly.

Another factor is that everyone may feel pressured to get along. This pressure can actually put you on edge because you feel like you’re being inauthentic. It’s hard to have fun when your guard is up.

And finally, each person has their own expectations of how they want things to go. You might want a festive party while your sister wants a quiet dinner and your cousin wants to get into deep, personal conversations.

Some ways we get caught in family drama during the holidays

It’s easy to think that the drama is everyone else’s fault, but let’s take a moment to gently witness our own behavior. Ask yourself if any of these things apply to you when you’re with your family during the holidays…

Do you get into petty fights (regardless of who started them)?
Do you judge your relatives’ political views, the way they raise their kids, the food they eat, etc.?
Do you often feel like everyone is on your case and slip into a victim mentality?
Do you feel like you have to win debates, subtly one-up your siblings or get in the last word?

If you answered yes to any of these, you’re not alone! In fact, most of us do at least one of these things. And when we’re really honest about it, we can admit that this behavior doesn’t serve us.

Sometimes a Clash Seems Inevitable

Let’s get real: Many of us have family members who say or do things that enrage or devastate us. And even if it’s not that extreme, during the holidays you might be forced to sit around a dinner table with people you wouldn’t normally hang out with. You might have conflicting views and different ways of communicating.

In this post I’m giving you some tools you can use to avoid that moment when you lose your cool, forget all your spiritual principles and get yanked way out of alignment. And if that does happen, then these tips will help you come back fast.

6 Ways To Get Along With Your Family During The Holidays

These six tips will help you avoid drama, clear judgment and focus on the good stuff so you can have a beautiful time celebrating!

1. Silently bless everyone
Before you sit down at the dinner table (or even before you walk in the door), say a little prayer for everybody. Pray for them to all enjoy their meal. Send them prayers to have a beautiful new year, and give them your love and your light.

The action of offering up that prayer and giving them a little bit of love puts you into a different energetic vibration. It elevates your energy by redirecting your focus. Instead of focusing on judgment, you focus on what you desire and what you wish for others.

2. Shield yourself from negative energy
If you know you’ll be interacting with someone (or multiple people) who leave you feeling drained or depressed, then you can create an energetic boundary to keep their energy from affecting you too much.

Create these boundaries with love rather than judgment. Remember, we’re all doing the best we can. People who don’t have any energy awareness are not malicious; they’re just struggling to get by. So rather than blame them, simply become mindful of how you can support yourself. There are a couple of techniques I like to use:

Activate your shield of golden light
Before interacting with one of these people, you can envision a shield of golden light surrounding you and protecting you. Set an intention to activate your energetic shield before the encounter and trust that your energy field is being protected.

Pray to restore your energy
If the negativity hits you after spending time with someone, then you can recite this prayer: “I ask that any negative energy I picked up be removed, recycled and transmuted. I ask that any positive energy I may have lost be retrieved now.”

3. Practice EFT before the holiday get-together
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as tapping, is a powerful tool that we practice in step 2 of Judgment Detox.

EFT is a psychological acupressure technique that supports your emotional and physical health. It combines the cognitive benefits of therapy with the physical benefits of acupuncture to restore your energy and heal your emotions. You just use your fingertips to tap on certain energy meridian points on your body while talking out loud about the issue at hand.

If you’re new to EFT or prefer to have a teacher, cool news: I made a guided video for tapping on judgment! It’s part of my free 3-part Judgment Detox Mini Course.

You can follow my guided tapping video to release judgment before a family get-together or after it — or both. Click here for instant access to my free mini course!

4. If you do get into drama, forgive yourself fast
It happens. Sometimes we get sucked into drama and do the thing we don’t want to do. We yell, we say something judgmental or we let someone else’s words wreck our good time. When this happens, the answer is to show yourself a lot of compassion and forgiveness.

Check out this lecture clip where I talk about how we can experience our screw-ups differently by forgiving ourselves right away.

Every moment offers us an opportunity to experience what A Course in Miracles calls the Holy Instant. The Holy Instant is the moment when you surrender your fear to the care of the Universe and accept the perspective of love.

If you’re having a hard time letting go or getting to that place of forgiveness, then check out this post. In it I give you three steps to go from anger to forgiveness when things boil over.

5. Focus on what you like (and love) about each person
This action takes the prayer practice from tip #1 even further. You can do this in the room, in the moment. Think about what you like about each person, even if it’s something small, like how your uncle always cracks a joke that makes you laugh or your sister-in-law DM’s you good recipes on Instagram.
Allow yourself to dwell in feelings of love for those family members you’re very close to. Think of all the things you appreciate about them and really feel that love and support.

There may be someone you have a really difficult relationship with and you can’t think of anything positive in the moment. That’s okay. In that case, think of a lesson you’ve learned because of that relationship and cultivate appreciation for that.

Seeing someone for the first time

This technique of focusing on what you like about everyone is a way of practicing Step 4 of Judgment Detox, which is to see someone for the first time. The experience of seeing someone for the first time is one of deep relief. You free the person from the stories you’ve placed upon them and you free yourself from the bondage of attack. You’ll feel relieved because you’ll be returning to your truth, which is love.

If even for an instant you let down your guard and choose to see through the lens of love rather than fear, you will be one step closer to freedom!

6. Keep your side of the street clean by getting honest about your own judgment
We can avoid a lot of family drama by taking responsibility for our judgment and doing the spiritual and personal work to heal it. The way out of judgment is to witness your judgment without more judgment.

Getting clear about all the ways you judge will help you see your part and understand the root of each judgment so that you can heal what you discover. It might sound scary at first. But let me reassure you that this is a very empowering and freeing process.

The Comparison Trap

12/11/2018

Do you ever get caught in the trap of comparing yourself to others? Comparing your body to others, your job to others, your story to others, what you have to others, your skills and talents to those of others, your kids or grandchildren to others, where you are in life to others, your generosity to others, your happiness to others, and on and on and on.

Especially at this time of the year we can fall into the comparison trap. Whether it's who is getting what for Christmas, or what other's holiday plans look like, what their family dynamic looks like, what someone else's Christmas decorations look like. Or maybe it's reflecting on the year as it's coming to an end and comparing the path that your life has taken in comparison to others. Or maybe it's looking toward the upcoming year and comparing what might lie ahead for you to others.

However you slice it comparison can steal your contentment, your happiness, your joy. Drawing a comparison between ourself, and our life, to that of others is a reflection of our dissatisfaction with ourself.

When comparing our life to someone else's we are drawing a comparison to what our perception is of that other person and their life, which may or may not reflect reality. Comparing is judging, making a determination of what appears to be better than the other. Comparing ourselves with someone else is an inaccurate and irrelevant measuring stick.

Anyway you cut it, comparison doesn't feel good. You either feel like you're on the short end which makes you feel negative about your situation, or you feel like you're on the uptick. Whenever we have to play the comparison game in order to make ourselves feel good, in order to fill a hole within us, by proving that we are somehow bigger and better we end up not filling that hole. It's a never-ending dark hole of dissatisfaction.

At its core judging, or righteousness, comes from a feeling of lack or not being enough. What I lack in myself, I seek to puff up through my judgment. It’s impossible for us to sustain happiness in our lives if we jump into the comparison game.

We all were born unique, different from everybody else in our own splendidly authentic variation. The only masterful creation we have to work with is ourself. It's more productive and useful for us to focus on being the best version of ourself that we can be. I love the saying that the only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.

I also remind myself regularly of the fourth agreement from the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, it states, "Always do your best. Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good."

I invite you to get out of the comparison mode. Instead work on being the best version of yourself that you can be. Instead remember how grateful you are for where you are in the present moment. Instead exercise self-compassion with who you are and where you are in your life. Enjoy the journey with the knowledge that it is your journey and your story, not anyone else's.

Do You Struggle With Judging Yourself And Others?

12/4/2018

Do you struggle with judging yourself and others? I've been working on judgment for a while now and I'm still amazed at how quickly my brain shifts into judgment. What I've come to realize is that it's one thing to have a judgmental thought, but the shift is to no longer believe them.

I recently read the book Judgment Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein. In the book, Gabby defines judgment as separation from love. She states, "The moment that we see ourselves as separate from anyone else, we detour into a false belief system that is out of alignment with our true nature, which is love." Gabby suggests that we all have the same problem, that we have separated from love and that the solution is to return to love.

Being judgmental comes from a place of ego. Our ego operates from a place of fear. It thinks it's helping us to survive and protecting us. The ego loves to judge, to cast blame and find fault.

Judgment causes us to get stuck in a cycle, an addictive habit-forming pattern. It temporarily makes us feel better about ourselves, but ultimately makes feel bad. Judgment lowers our vibration and our energy and it makes us feel alone. Gossip is a great example, it can give us a temporary high until we crash with a judgment hangover.

According to Gabby, "The way out of judgment begins when you witness the judgment without more judgment. When we look at our judgment with love, we can begin the healing process. We have to see clearly the ways in which we separate from love, and we have to get honest about the dark corners of our mind." We all have those dark corners of our mind don't we?

For me the beginning of my way out of judgment began with recognizing and understanding fear and through the practices of empathy and self-compassion. Bringing awareness to and being mindful of my judgments, not just blindly going about life without concern for them. Then moving into the practice of empathy with the understanding that everyone has their own lens through which they see the world based on their life experiences, it is their truth. When I become aware that I am judging myself, I exercise self-compassion.

Mindfulness, awareness, empathy and self-compassion are key tools that I've been using to release judgmental thoughts. It's also been helpful for me to relinquish the need to judge, the need to cast something as either right or wrong. Just relieving myself of the "responsibility" of judging and needing to blame or put someone or something in a column of either being right or being wrong.

We often misinterpret reality, we misinterpret another person, misinterpret a situation. We misinterpret things because we see them through the conditioning of our own mind. You see it through your beliefs, your experiences, your childhood, etc. The ego loves to make someone wrong, to judge them. The ego creates a narrative that strengthens the more your tell it. Fictitious narratives spinning around in our head as reality.

I am a work in progress. Everyday setting the intention to break the addictive cycle of judgment against myself and others. Life is happier and more peaceful when we can let go of the "responsibility" of judging.

Giving Tuesday

11/27/2018

You have probably been bombarded by shopping ads and sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but today is all about helping others. Today is #GivingTuesday, a day dedicated to helping charities help people in need and that is something way more exciting to me!

The Tuesday after Thanksgiving has been tagged as the global day of giving. Bringing people together around the values of service and giving back and to encourage and amplify small acts of kindness. Giving Tuesday unites people and countries around the world by sharing our capacity to care for and empower one another.

Today people and countries are coming together to celebrate kindness and generosity. Practicing gratitude for what we have in our lives, as well as what we can do to help and be of service to others. I love the concept of a global day of giving for many reasons, two of which are proven to be key pillars of happiness...gratitude and generosity...service and kindness.

The Dalai Lama in his book, The Book of Joy, says, "As one of the seven billion human beings, I believe everyone has the responsibility to develop a happier world. We need, ultimately, to have a greater concern for others' well-being." He goes on to say, "Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for others' well-being is the source of happiness. We have to take care of ourselves without selfishly taking care of ourselves. If we don't take care of ourselves, we cannot survive. We need to do that. We should have wise selfishness, rather than foolish selfishness. Foolish selfishness means you just think only of yourself, don't care about others, bully others, exploit others. In fact, taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life. So that is what I call wise selfishness."

The Dalai Lama starts each day by setting his intention for the day. His intention is for the day to be meaningful. For him, meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. He believes that, "Everybody wants a happy life...and our individual happy life depends on a happy humanity. So we have to think about humanity, discover a sense of oneness of all seven billion human beings." The path of joy is connection and the path of sorrow is separation.

Bringing people and countries together to celebrate our oneness, our kindness, our gratitude, our generosity to care for, empower and lift each other up, creating a happy humanity.

Science supports that when we see someone perform an act of kindness or of generosity it warms our heart. This warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you have witnessed human goodness is called moral elevation. Studies have found that the natural high of moral elevation makes people want to behave more altruistically toward others, causing kindness to be contagious. Elevation motivates those who experience it to open up to and assist others. Elevation makes an individual feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity...something I think we could all use a bit more of these days!

Let's finish out this year of 2018 by intentionally practicing giving, being of service, acts of kindness and of generosity. Let's create moral elevation, so we can all feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity and our future together.

What can you do over this next month to create moral elevation? What small act of kindness, service or generosity can you perform? What act of compassion will make someone else's day brighter and lighter? Let's practice wise selfishness instead of foolish selfishness during this holiday season. I invite you to join me in creating ripples of moral elevation.

If you are wondering how you can be of service, I have a wonderful opportunity for you to consider. A group of compassionate individuals at Perennial - Yoga, Wisdom, Community are helping to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness by sponsoring holiday gifts and raising money this holiday season to help support families in need. Gifts provide emergency shelter, supportive case management services, and stable housing. Your donation can make a difference for families with children experiencing homelessness.

If you are interested in making a donation, please follow this link.
donatenow.networkforgood.org/theroadhomedanecounty

To sponsor a family for the holiday, please stop into Perennial - Yoga, Wisdom, Community and take a crane off the Giving Tree.