Posted in 100 Days of Peaceful Productivity, productivity, tagged 100 Days of Peace, A New Earth, consciousness, Eckhart Tolle, life, Peace, peaceful productivity, primary purpose, productivity, sadness, Scott Foster, Tolle on August 10, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Today I found myself experiencing a deep sadness, similar to what Scott talks about in the interview clip I posted yesterday, crying for a dream.
I went to my primary purpose (as Eckhart Tolle teaches in A New Earth), becoming present and accessing a deep peace. But on the surface there is still a big question: What do I do?
I invite answers to come into my consciousness…
Posted in 100 Days of Peaceful Productivity, productivity, tagged 100 Days of Peace, coaching, energy, Friday, Fridays, grieving, life, life coach, life coaching, momentum, Monday, Mondays, Peace, peaceful productivity, productivity, rejuvenation, rest, sadness, time management on July 18, 2008| 2 Comments »
Today I was feeling down. I didn’t really notice until towards the end of the day. Kind of like a sadness, a low energy, a “who cares?” attitude.
It was a long week, I didn’t sleep well on any given night, so I was tired. And I think there was some grieving energy that needed to be released, too. There have been some changes in my life recently, and I think there’s still some letting go that is happening.
Also, I realized this week how important my Mondays and Fridays are to me. I tend to group my coaching calls with clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This gives me Monday and Friday to work on project-type work that requires bigger chunks of time and focus. What I realized this week (because I was traveling on Monday) is how important both days are to my energy and feeling of momentum.
A productive Monday starts my week off strong. I feel good going into Tuesday knowing that I’ve accomplished so many important things already. And a productive Friday closes my week off strong. I feel good taking the weekend off for rest and rejuvenation.
This week, I didn’t have my productive Monday and instead of accepting that and being present to that reality, I resisted and tried to squeeze in my Monday all week long. So although it was a tough week, I’m happy I’m now conscious of all of this. Now I can set up boundaries (for myself and others) to protect Mondays and Fridays; and I can adjust my expectations and intentions in weeks when Monday or Friday isn’t available to me for project work.
Posted in 100 Days of Peace in Uncertainty, uncertainty, tagged 100 Days of Peace, be present, being present, death, fear, joy, life, love, Peace, sadness, Scott Foster, uncertainty on May 14, 2008| 2 Comments »
From the song Some Things Are Not As They Seem by Scott Foster:
It was early morning when they told me you were gone
Through a glassy-eyed expression, nothing left to say
As I washed my hands of the grief I felt a sinking in my heart
Still can’t help to feel losing you is so unreal
Felt like giving up
When a voice spoke inside of me
Some things are not as they seem
Some things are not as they appear to be
What you thought might be a tragedy
Is really a message from above down to you
Shining down on you
At about 7 AM on Saturday, I learned that my best friend, Scott Foster, had died.
Life has never seemed more uncertain to me than it does now. There are moments of love, moments of sadness, moments of joy, and moments of fear. There always were, but now I feel them more acutely.
Scott’s gift to me is an example of a person who lives his life as fully as he can. His lesson is to be totally present in whatever you are experiencing, feeling, and doing. In this way, he’s helping me be at peace through all of the emotions of the past several days.
I encourage you to get to know Scott through his music:
http://www.myspace.com/scottfostertribute
I love you, Scott.
Posted in 100 Days of Peace in Uncertainty, uncertainty, tagged 100 Days of Peace, anger, anxiety, appreciation, business, clients, coaching session, frustration, inner peace, joy, life, life coaching, passion, Peace, sadness, uncertainty, vision, vision statement, world peace on March 28, 2008| 1 Comment »
Source of inspiration: Conversation with a client
Today I was discussing a client’s vision statement during our session. And it got me thinking about my own. The vision statement that I use to guide my short-term and long-term business choices is: World peace through inner peace and passion.
What I noticed after speaking to my client was that my vision sometimes feels like an extremely high standard to live up to. I feel a sense of pressure. And when the pressure gets too much I either “forget” about my vision (getting distracted by other concerns), or worse, I consciously rebel against it: “To hell with the world!”
I’m seeing an opportunity for my vision to include all of my feelings. Inner peace is not only about joy and appreciation. Inner peace includes allowing for frustration, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.
For me inner peace is about creating space for what is to be. So there is no need to rebel against my vision because my vision includes the room for me to be all that I am.
This feels right, peaceful.
Posted in 100 Days of Peace, tagged 100 Days of Peace, choice, conscious choice, daily rituals, exercise, judgment, life, meditation, obligation, Peace, power of structure, rituals, routines, sadness, should, slacking off, structure on December 27, 2007| 5 Comments »
A few months ago I stopped doing all but a few of my daily rituals–things like exercise, meditation, etc. I stopped because I noticed there was a strong feeling of “should” around those rituals. When I did them I felt like a good person, and when I didn’t do them I felt like a bad person.
Stopping them eased the judgment and allowed me to do them if and when I was moved to.
Recently I’ve found myself craving the structure of those rituals and routines. And this morning I did a few of them. I enjoyed it and experienced them as choices and not obligations. And I think that’s the key difference. Because I let them go and made it okay not to do them, I’m able to choose them now. (This is similar to the post on accepting sadness.)
Of course there was the knee-jerk reaction in my to judge and criticize myself for “slacking off” on my rituals. And a part of me wonders how much of a choice this was this morning, and how much was a mounting feeling of “should.” But even if there were moments of judgment, there were also moments of acceptance. That is new for me, so doing my rituals this morning was more of a conscious choice for me than it’s ever been.
In choosing the rituals, I acknowledged the power of structure in my life. Without making it a matter of good or bad, structure can be useful and fun. Just like we choose to arrange a room a certain way because we like it and serves a function, we can arrange our daily lives in ways we like and that are functional.
Today I will notice the structures in my life and choose to make a few key adjustments. And each day for the next week I will consciously choose those rituals and routines so I can experience the power of structure.
Posted in 100 Days of Peace, tagged 100 Days of Peace, black-and-white thinking, dating, illogical assumptions, inspiration, life, money, observer, observing, Peace, sadness, self-criticism, single women, women on December 13, 2007| 1 Comment »
Source of inspiration: Thoughts about dating
This morning I was thinking about dating. It went something like this:
“If I go out to places to meet women, most of the single women I meet will be in their early twenties, and I’m too old for them. But if I meet women my age, they won’t be interested in me because I don’t make enough money to take them out to dinner and stuff.”
The illogical assumptions and black-and-white thinking going on there is pretty obvious when I spell it out like that. But that’s the kind of automatic thinking I noticed in my head this morning.
The thing I noticed that surprised me most was the implicit self-criticism. Specifically that without youth and without money, I have no value to women.
And I realized…I don’t like myself.
I don’t think I dislike myself. There have been times in my past when I’ve felt that way, so I know how that feels, and this isn’t it. But I don’t really like myself yet, either.
So today I’ve been observing that feeling in me. Not judging it. Not making myself wrong for not liking myself (that would just be more not liking of myself). Simply noticing what is, and letting it be.
Very similar to how I related to the sadness I noticed in me a few days ago. I suspect the two are closely related…more soon.
Posted in 100 Days of Peace, tagged 100 Days of Peace, anger, anxiety, awareness, conscious, consciousness, emotions, eternal, happiness, life, love, non-judgmental, observer, paradigm, Peace, productivity, release, releasing, sadness, space on December 11, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Today I’ve been observing what I can best describe as a release in me. The sadness and anxiety I noticed previously were not there this morning when I woke. Perhaps there was some sadness left, but certainly not the level I’d felt in the past few days. As a result, my productivity increased today, interestingly enough.
I’m conscious, though, not to turn this into an objective or result-oriented paradigm. I did not undertake the practice of observing myself and my feelings so that I could achieve something other than awareness. That is, a non-judgmental consciousness of what I was experiencing in any given moment.
The sadness may return. Or something else may show up in its place–happiness, anger, love, who knows?
What’s important to me is the recognition of the space in which these different and temporary emotions exist. It is that space that is eternal. It is that space that is the unchanging part of “me.”
Posted in 100 Days of Peace, tagged 100 Days of Peace, allowing, inspiration, life, non-judgmental, observer, Peace, sad, sadness, should, space, stress, wrong on December 9, 2007| 4 Comments »
Late last night I realized that I’ve never allowed myself to feel sad. I’ve had this unconscious rule that if I’m not happy then that’s wrong. What if I didn’t make myself wrong for being sad? What if I could be the non-judgmental observer and give myself the loving space to feel sad?
The funny thing is that I’ve given this advice to many people many times, but I’ve never heard the truth in it for myself.
Recently I’ve been feeling sad, and the “I shouldn’t be sad” rule has been creating stress. Today I’m going to let myself feel sad and observe it non-judgmentally.
100 Days of Peace 