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Always Do Your Best, No More And No Less

5/29/2018

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Ever feel like your best just isn't good enough? Like you are working hard learning, growing, practicing, serving and yet it feels like no matter how hard you try you just can't please anyone, including yourself? In the back of my mind plays the motto don't just give 100%, give 110%. Do you ever have those moments, those days, those weeks? I sure do, if I'm not careful, it can leave me feeling depleted and defeated.

I recently read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It's an inspiring read, I highly recommend it. The fourth agreement is, "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."

Sometimes it's the smallest little shifts in thinking that can make a big difference in our perspective, our expectation and our mindset. This simple little thought motivates me and yet also allows me to not be so hard on myself. It gives me permission to always do my best, with the recognition that my best is always shifting and changing each and every moment. ​If I'm sick my best is different than when I am healthy. If I am well rested my best is different than when I am drained and tired. 

Even when it comes to a practice like meditating, recognizing that on some days my best is 5 minutes and on other days it might be 20 minutes. This little perspective shift gives me permission to do my best, no matter what that is at this moment, no more and no less. 

It helps me to remember that we can always choose again. Every moment of every day we can choose again. We can choose to be happy, we can choose our reaction, we can choose our habits, we can choose to live in the present, and we can choose to do our best, no more and no less. No one moment defines us, a series of small moments creates our legacy. We get to choose each and every moment to do our best in this moment in time. 

Don Miguel Ruiz goes on to say, "If you do your best always, over and over again, you will become a master of transformation. Practice makes the master. By doing your best you become a master. Everything you have ever learned, you learned through repetition. You learned to write, to drive, and even to walk by repetition. You are a master of speaking your language because you practiced. Action is what makes the difference."

If you keep putting one foot in front of the other, take small steps in the right direction, and always do your best, no more and no less, you will be amazed at what you are able to accomplish! 
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Hi-Lo-Hero

5/22/2018

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I love to share with others about the importance of having a gratitude practice. Gratitude and savoring are the easiest and most effective ways to shift our brain's natural tendency toward negativity bias to one of positivity and ultimately to happiness.

Our brains are 3-5 times more sensitive to negative information, we naturally look at life through the lens of lack. What's going wrong? What don't I have? Where are the threats? This "caveman brain" sensitivity toward "where are the threats", makes it necessary for us to we retrain and rewire our brain to look for the positive, the good things that are happening in our life and in the world.

A key way to retrain our brain to look for the positive is through the practice of gratitude and savoring. Gratitude is the gateway to happiness. It's a game-changer. Gratitude changes the lens through which we see the world from one of lack to one of abundance. It allows us to savor the goodness and the experience. 

Research in the area of positive psychology indicates that focusing, in detail, on 3 new things that you are grateful for each day is part of the key to retraining our brain and living a life full of happiness. This can be done out loud, silently in your mind or by writing it down in a gratitude journal. 

I also love the idea of sharing gratitude at the dinner table with friends and family. It's a great way to inspire the practice in others and to connect with others and bond over the good stuff. One way to consider doing this is to play a game called the Hi-Lo-Hero game. 

The Hi-Lo-Hero game is played by going around the dinner table and each person shares the high point of the day, then the low point of the day. Sharing the low point helps to acknowledge that life can be challenging. It helps to identify specifically how someone is feeling about the experience that happened. Next  share the hero moment. The hero moment is a time during the day where you did something kind, loving or helpful for someone else. 

The Hi-Lo-Hero game allows for the sharing of both gratitude and savoring. Two key habits for happiness. It also pulls into play 2 other habits for happiness, random acts of kindness and being generous, of service to someone, by focusing on a moment where we were a hero. Hero moments can be both big or very small gestures. It can be smiling at a stranger or at someone who seems to be struggling. It can be holding open a door or sitting at the lunch table with someone who is alone. It reminds us to daily incorporate moments of loving kindness or service and generosity into our day. 

Sharing of the low moments, the struggle, is being honest. It gives us the opportunity to support and encourage each other and the opportunity to strategize and brainstorm.

I invite you to try playing the Hi-Lo-Hero game with your family and friends. It's a great way to build connection and to savor the goodness in our lives. Ultimately, retraining our brains toward happiness. 
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Tips For Dealing With Challenges

5/15/2018

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Have you been listening to the amazing free interviews offered as part of the Hay House World Summit? It's offered from May 5th to May 20th this year and there are some awesome free movies and interviews. I'm trying to get through as many as I can!

​The other day I listened to an interview with Sonia Choquette and Pam Grout and they had some nice suggestions on dealing with life challenges that I want to share with you. 

Ask For Guidance And Sleep On It
When you are facing a challenge and you are looking for solutions, Sonia's advice is to take some time before you go to bed to write down all of your fears and concerns regarding the issue. Just acknowledge them. Then write down what you would like guidance on. 

Next ask your higher self, "While I sleep and rest my mind and emotions, please make it clear to me and give me the guidance that I need." First thing in the morning, before your mind gets busy and cluttered say, "And my guidance says..." The guidance  will just pop out. You can say it out loud or you can write it down. Trust it, don't filter it, don't justify it, don't even think about it, just say it before your brain has a chance to color it with fear. This can take some practice. It takes trust to capture the guidance that you are being given. 

You may also have dreamt about the guidance/solution. If you can remember your dream, capture it right away by writing it down. Again don't worry about it making sense right away, simply write down what you remember. Write down everything you can remember, even the feelings that you were having at different parts in the dream. Our dreams are often symbolic and cannot always be taken completely literal. Once you have written it down, you can play with analyzing what it's message was to you. It often helps me to do this with another person, talking it through out loud.

Ask For Help And Turn It Over

Pam offered up this advice for times when we are struggling with a challenge, she suggest that we ask for help and then turn it over. She suggests that we constantly all day, every day, ask for help and then turn it over. By doing this we are opening ourselves up for Spirit to step in and provide creative solutions and to lift the burden from us.

This is especially useful when it comes to forgiveness. When we are struggling with forgiveness it can be a challenge to know how to be able to forgive. How many times do we stop and ask for help, ask for guidance, or ask for it to be lifted from us? It helps to open the door by asking for help and then turning it over. 

These are techniques that I practice and they are really helpful in navigating through life's challenges. The techniques get stronger the more you practice them and have faith and trust in them. Give them a try and let me know how it goes!
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Who Has Loved You Into Being?

5/8/2018

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One of my facebook friends posted a video clip of Mr. Roger's acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy's. The theme of his speech focused on who has loved you into being? It was a touching tribute to everyone who helped him throughout his life.

This week we celebrate Mother's Day. Some of us have mothers who are still here on earth and some of us don't. Some of us have mothers who we love and adore and some of us have challenging relationships with our mothers. Some of us maybe never really had a mother figure in our life.

All of us though have special ones who have loved us into being. 
These are people who have helped you become who you are. People who cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life. People who have stood by your side. People who have mentored you. People who have taught you. People who sacrificed for you. All of those individuals whose lives have made a difference in you becoming who are are today. 

In Mr. Rogers acceptance speech he asked the audience to take 10 seconds of silence to reflect on who loved you into being. After the 10 seconds of silence
 Mr. Rogers went on to say, "Whomever you've been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel that they have made."

I love the idea of taking to time reflect on who has loved you into being. This week, in the spirit of Mother's Day, I invite you to take it a step further and let a few of those special people know their impact on your life. Reach out and let them know. Express your love and gratitude for what their presence in your life has meant to you. Send them a note, pick up the phone and call, or stop by for a visit. How good would it make you and the other person feel if you did?  

Love, connection and gratitude are what it's all about. They are key to leading a happy and joyful life. Holding up those that have loved you into being and loving them right back with some extra helpings of gratitude on the side.
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Do You Listen To Your Intuition?

5/1/2018

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When you think of intuition what comes to mind? How would you define it or describe it? Do you actively use it and pay attention to it? 

Intuition is defined in the dictionary as the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired. Instinctive knowledge or belief. A hunch, a gut feeling. The subtle knowing without having any idea why you know it. It’s a knowing without knowing. Your own natural internal guidance system.

Author Gary Zukav in his book, The Seat of The Soul, defines it this way, "Intuition is perception beyond the physical senses that is meant to assist you." He goes on to explain that,
 “Intuition is a walkie-talkie between the personality and the soul.” Whatever your soul’s purpose is, your intuition is there to help you stay on track.  

Have you ever had a moment where you felt as though something wasn't right? Perhaps stepping into a parking lot late at night, or feeling negative around someone without knowing why? Have you shrugged it off, dismissing it as nonsense? Intuition gives us the ability to know something without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and non-conscious parts of our mind.
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As a culture, we have been conditioned to believe that rationality and logic should prevail when making decisions about anything from crucial life to business decisions to where to eat for lunch. But what about that "inner voice", that gut feeling, that little something instinctual from within that tells us how we feel underneath those layers of reason and logic?

Our intuition is always there, whether we’re aware of it or not. It’s a muscle that gets stronger and better through exercise and practice.

One way to determine whether you are following your intuition is to assess whether you are ​reaching for things or moving toward things. If for example, an idea, concept, thought won't leave you alone and it makes you feel energized, amplified, expansive than this is an indication that the idea resonates with you. When it resonates with you, you feel amplified. If on the other hand, you feel like you really need to push through, to struggle, to work hard and the thought of that feels draining and depleting than your intuition is telling you the opposite. 

​People often wonder how to tell the difference between their intuition and fear. Marie Forleo recommends something that I agree with, she says to listen to your body. 
The body is a good receiver of intuition if we pay attention. Does something in your gut contract slightly or expand and come alive? Do you feel expansion or contraction?

Sometimes these sensations can be strong and sometimes they are very subtle, but they are there if we pay attention. I will often feel the physical sensation of tingles as an indication from my body that something is in alignment with me. 

​In a lot of cases, I rely on whether the piece of information resonates with me or not. Does it feel like truth to me? Does it strike a cord deep within me? It takes practice to notice and trust our intuition, but it's always there working to connect us to our higher self. 

There are many ways to tap into your intuition, to develop and strengthen it so it's a useful tool in your toolbox. If you are interested in learning more about how to develop your intuition consider joining me and my sister for the Circle of Intuitive Development beginning on May 29th. Details can be found under "Tracy's Upcoming Events" tab and at perennial-yoga.com/may-29-june-26---circle-of-intuitive-development.
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