Tag Archives: balance

Sleigh bells ring you listenin’

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Are you listenin’? And I am not talking about listenin’ to a bombardment of holiday ads to buy, the sound of cash registers, the voices of people clambering around stressed out searching to meet the expectations that come prepackaged with the season.

Are you listenin’ to your true self and what you need?

Does that sound selfish during a time of year that is meant for giving? It is not, because only you know what you need and in order to give to others you need to give to yourself first. Carve out the time to give to yourself. That can be in the form of a hot bath, time to read, a much needed nap, or the ability to say I have done enough for today and not push through one more store. What if I told you that holiday memories can be made and you don’t have to go to Macy’s to find them?

Look in the mirror.

Invest the time in yourself to be happy, be healthier, be lighter in spirit and present your true higher self to the ones you love this holiday season. This would be a precious gift providing holiday memories of a lifetime. People would remember your warm embrace, your smile that lights-up the room, the song of your laughter in the air.

For those people in your life who cannot see this dearest gift of YOU, no box wrapped in shiny paper will warm their heart or bring them into the truest spirit of love and giving. Say a prayer for them, one of hope and joy that they will realize their true self which will bring happiness and peace to their life.

The holidays are upon us!

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Yep, Halloween signals the CRAZYness.

I do have some great tricks for you, some are downright atrocious and some a little tamer.

  1. Ditch the whole season and go on a 3 month meditation retreat.
  2. Ditch the friends and unlike everyone from your Facebook.
  3. Ditch the family and declare war by changing your name and your religion so you get a pass.
  4. Tune into your inner wisdom and do what seems right for you, even if it means doing away with some traditions.
  5. Gather the family via conference call, you can get a free conference call telephone number at www.free conference call.com, and tell them that this year you are giving a lump sum to a favorite charity in the name of the whole family.
  6. Send fabric squares to everyone on which they would inscribe “what family means to me” then give it to a local Quilter to make and raffle it off at Valentines.
  7. Write love letters or letters of appreciation to those who mean the most to you and to the others send your favorite poems, copied on beautiful paper.
  8. Ditch this whole list and bury your head in the and until December 24th then get your freak on!

 Whatever you decide, be sure it’s your decision. Cuz I tell you what, if you are not doing what YOU want, you are MOST certainly doing what someone else wants.

Aren’t you tired of doing what others want?

So, it’s off to the holiday races, see you at the track!

Love and light from Indrani

Rest

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Have you ever faced a day/week/year when you have been so exhausted but stuff needed to be done so you just slogged through?
This is what I faced last week and this week. So I did not get my blogs written. I know I can prewrite and schedule them BUT I do so like to write about current events or at least events current for me. This week it is sheer exhaustion!
I had been teaching Yoga and Meditation for Dr. Patch Adams the week of 10/2 to 10/9 and I did not have the energy left to do a blog on Saturday. I let it slide. I gave myself a pass.
Then I came home and got slammed with a cold or something and was chief fire-putter-outer for my household and I had to face the fact that my Wednesday blog was not going to happen. Then I began to obsess about what to write, and would it be pertinent… ummm… is exhaustion pertinent? Me thinks it is!

How can this be pertinent to you? Well for one, the holidays are fast upon us and ’tis the season when we pile more on our plates but forget to take stuff off. Halloween, Thanksgiving ( and God help you if you are a fan of Black Friday), finding the perfect black dress for the holiday party and the perfect professional “thing” for the office bash, then the gifts… Lord the GIFTS, the Tree, the family coming over and staying and staying and staying and….you get it.
Yes that sentence was long and drawn out and that is how this season may feel.
Give yourself a break and just sleep. That was my solution and I got a few hours respite from the fires and the sneezing and the cooking and the fires.
Have a good sleep. You so deserve it.

Stop this wheel…I wanna get off!!!

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It occurred to me this week that I have been on a hamster wheel. I really did not know when I got here, but I know how. Since the beginning of the year when I decided to change my profit business into a foundation, I have been pushing, spinning, looking for what to do next.

The social media has me going crazy. To tweet or not? To Face book or not?  How many blogs are enough to show that I am serious about my cause/ movement? How many newsletters are too little, or too many? I do not want to flood my readers, but I don’t want to lose them either. Can I tell one list about everything or do I have to split my message to fine tune my reach?

What to do when I find out that my newsletter provider, Mail Chimp gets upset and sends me nasty messages? How do I get my blogs out there so that my efforts are magnified without extra work?

If you have a business on the Internet you know exactly what I mean.

What if you don’t?

Does this hamster wheel thing still apply to you?

Well, are you working, inside or outside the home?

Do you have kids or a spouse?

Are you a single mom just trying to stay afloat?

Do you have aging parents who count on you?

Do you have siblings who don’t pick up any slack?

Do you have a job that drains you of your life force?

Do you have a boss from hell?

Shall I go on?

Ok then, do you have to leave your kids while you travel for your high profile job?

Has your husband lost his job and now resents that he is depending on you?

Ok, you get it, you really do get it.

What’s a girl to do?

Let me tell you about a wonderful coaching tool that Martha Beck taught me and uses relentlessly with her own clients.

It is called the 3 B’s:

Bag it

Barter it

Better it

 

Let’s start with bag it.

This simply means to let it go. Let it go if it does not provide anything that is useful to your family. Do you really have to scrub the tub every day? Do you have to fold everyone’s laundry? Do you even have to do everyone’s laundry? What would happen if your teenager had to wear clothes that were strewn on the ground because they did not know if they were clean? Who would care? If the answer is “yes, I would care” I must ask WHY?

Would you care because the school may think you are a bad mom? Would it mean you loved your child any less? Let me float something… would the world come to an end?

 

Ok let’s go to barter it.

Barter means to exchange something for something else. Are you a computer whiz? Do you have a friend who is pitiful with her computer but she is an excellent cook. Can you barter a few home cooked meals per week for some computer lessons? She might be so appreciative if you suggested that. Are you low on funds and cannot get those little perks like a haircut or an occasional manicure?

Can you approach the owner of the Salon and offer to Face Book her services and do some tweets so he can get some exposure? Do you get the picture? The other kind of barter is you exchange $ for a job you cannot do. At Christmas time I pay my wonderful handy man (my house hold husband) to take down the Christmas tree and to retrieve all the boxes from the attic. How does he know where it all is? Easy, he put them away last year. He actually knows more than I do about my Christmas stuff.

 

Now to Better it.

Better it means to make the experience a little (or a lot ) better by playing some tricks on yourself.

Let’s say you have to get a root canal and you hate the dentist. You cannot bag it or you will be in pain and your tooth will get worse and fall out. You cannot barter it, because no one can do it for you. How can you better it? You could take your iPod and make a play list of soothing music to help you through it so you won’t have to hear the sound of the dreaded drill. You could dab some perfume on your upper lip so you won’t smell that burning as much. You could go shopping after, or treat yourself to a massage right after the dentist and you could barter the massage for some social media exposure for the therapist.

I hope by now you are getting it. It just requires a little forethought. This little investment will reap huge results. Now I need to find someone to barter a full blown Thanksgiving Dinner… any takers? I am a really great coach, can you use some coaching for a home cooked meal?

Chew on that a while, no pun intended.

Love and light

GOOGLE THIS!!

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Almost everything in this world can be Googled, right?

I can learn how to build a plane.

I can get piano lessons.

I can learn how to yodel.

I can teach myself Chinese.

Everything, right? Is that true?

 

NO, it is not.

I cannot access my inner wisdom with Google.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a site called www.intuition.source?

HaHa! Maybe Google will steal that idea!

Yes, I want a .source.

We have .tv and .net and .com and .org and .edu and .gov etc so I want a .source.

Should we feel “Crap! Then what’s a person to do?”

NO NO NO… I have the answer (read this sentence in a southern preacher voice)

YES my friends I haaavvveee the AAAnnnsweer.

 

 

Drum roll please…..

 

You already have a .source.

You have it within you.

There is an internal wisdom that most of us ignore.

 

This wisdom sometimes comes as a soft whisper, sometimes a moving picture in your head, or maybe a gut feeling. All of these ways are soft knowings of what your next best step needs to be.

These “knowings” are never judgmental shouts as in “you idiot you should’ve blah blah blah”

 

The knowings are comforting, even though they may be the biggest risk you ever took in your life.

 

To access this gift, just get quiet.

Try meditating, or prayer, or a silent walk.

 

Try a day of total silence; put this on your e mail responder and on your telephone messages.

 

You have much to gain and nothing to lose…

.source is waiting

Pondering doubt.

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doubt |dout|

noun
a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction

 

My question is:  “Does doubt exist if  you have conviction and  the feeling of uncertainty?”   I say yes and this is why. Conviction is a heart-felt concept.  You feel conviction in your soul.  You just know what is right by you.

 

Uncertainty… ah that is created by the ego.  The ego and the personal identity that goes with it, are uneasy, threatened when the heart convictions don’t go along with the ego-flow.  The ego is concerned about self-importance, stature, power, its about fluff up and puff out your chest, and spread those tail feathers wide.   Hence the cliche “Proud as a peacock”. The ego is about self, “I”. It remembers, evaluates, plans and is the response to the physical & social world.

 

The ego’s entire goal is to drive the bus, to take you to where it thinks you should be.
When the ego and your heart-felt convictions, your truths, do not mesh up that creates uncertainty.

 

Uncertainty is like walking on stair steps in the dark and you are uncertain as you shift your weight on each step.  Do you stay where you think you are stable or teeter down to the next step,  perhaps falling over the step un-sure-footed.  When you shift your weight from the comfort and stability of the ego and move your weight to the heart, the ego is telling you “huh oh, careful, watch out, warning, you could topple over, if you go with your heart you could  _____fill in the blank_____________  and you don’t want that to happen!”

 

This is where faith in your heart comes is.  Faith in listening to your heart, overcoming doubt, to know that next step is not going to take you tumbling.  To follow your heart, your truth, your conviction may cause:  ridicule, despise, anger, resentment, oh and a litany of things, but in the end you can ride out the affects because you know it is your truth, the foundation in which you are firmly planted on.

 

How do you work through your doubt when your ego’s uncertainty teeter-totters with your convictions?

 

What I Know For Sure…

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Welcome to a new Monday blog on IndranisLight.org! This blog will be written for Moms by Moms. As always, we would love to hear what you think. Enjoy! 

 

The fabulous Ms. Oprah writes an article in the back of each O Magazine titled What I Know For Sure. This reminds me of when I was younger and was given a task, I used to drive my parents crazy with this rant of “I don’t know what this assignment is!”, “I don’t know where my pencil is!”, and “I don’t know what page to read!” and my dad would respond “what DO you know?” Not in an ugly way, but in a way to remind me to calm down and take the task one step at a time.

Fast forward to this week…my 5-year-old started Kindergarten and we were BOTH nervous. In my head were the same rants “I don’t know this new routine!”, “I don’t know if he is going to be comfortable in his new school!”, “I don’t know if I should send a drink with lunch or if he can buy it!” and the list goes on…

So with my dad’s voice always in my head I ask myself “what DO I know?” What I know is this: my love for my boys is unshakeable; my love for myself is a confident one. I know I have figured out many more difficult and complex issues than this one, and I DO know that we will figure this out together along the way. Will it be easy? Of course not. But nobody said parenting is easy.

So I tied my sneakers and then I tied my son’s and we walked hand-in-hand into this new adventure.

Graffiti

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I have been looking back at my life recently and began to see that my life has been like a big wall. Grounded, and in the early days that wall had the potential to become the wall of an office building to achieving success in business; a wall of a home, a structure of nurturing & safety; a wall in a place of worship reflecting spirituality. That wall was blank with the potential of being built into so much.

Over the years the people I have encountered have put their mark on the wall, leaving graffiti.  The wall has names painted on it, initials carved into it, cracks in the plaster.  Some of the paint is faded from time, some paint dripped down the side.  The facade of the wall is caked with life experiences, people and places.  Its hard to even see what the wall was originally, what its intent was.  Like a spray painted subway car, my life and wall have evolved into a montage of other peoples art on my canvas.  I wonder how I had let that happen.  Like any graffiti, some of it is good, creative, and inspiring and some of it is ugly, distasteful and depreciating.

While searching for something deep inside I started peeling off the layers of paint, scrubbing off the dirt and dust of the years, and scratched below the surface to see what was underneath.  What I found was the same foundation of dreams, aspirations, ambitions, core beliefs and principles.  They had not be lost amongst the Jackson Pollock-like splatter of the whos’ who of whose been here.

In my excitement of seeing that my true self still exists I am empowered to apply fresh paint to my wall of life.  The new paint accents my convictions and truths, enhancing the beauty of the work done by others, but removing the old, unloving defacements. I feel a sense of renovation, renewal and inspiration.  Preparing myself to stand strong again to the elements of this lifetime.

 

 

 

Is your mobile phone more important that your child?

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I was in a store the other day and overheard this: “Sit down and be quiet, you cannot disturb your mother while she shops” said a male voice. Then I saw that mom was about 8 months pregnant and sent her some silent blessings and good energy. It was hot, her belly was heavy and she needed nursing bras. Been there…it’s not so much fun!

As I was leaving the store, I saw the father happily playing on the telephone as the 2-1/2 or 3 year old just SAT alone, STARING into space. I opened the door…and then changed my mind. I went over to the sweet little boy and gave him a magazine from the shelf with these LOUD words, “Here honey, it’s not a KIDS magazine but there are some pretty pictures”. Dad smiled at me and then I said, still looking and smiling at the little one “Dad, give your son the telephone so he can play games and you sit and stare into space” and I left.

PEOPLE what are we doing? I see moms pushing babies in strollers and talking on cell phones. What is so damned important? Is EVERYONE a brain surgeon?

I hear parents complaining that their teenagers sit at the dinner table texting and ignore the family. Where are they learning it? What are we modeling for this generation?

It is the ADULTS who are modeling how, when, and where to use cell phones. The kids are SIMPLY following our leads.

I have a challenge for my readers:

  •  If you have young kids, do not talk on the cell phone when you are supposed to be actively parenting.
  • If your kids are grown and you see a young mom ignoring their young kids to chat on the phone, go up and engage the child and ask mom if she’s having an emergency and needs help.
  • If you see a father ignoring his children to be on the phone, find a way to say something.

If we all just shake our heads and say “who’s minding the kids while we chat away?” then NOTHING will change.

 Maybe these parents were themselves ignored. So let’s save a generation. Let’s speak up for the little ones so that they get as much parent time as they get free minutes.

Here’s a great guide to the time you spend with your kids:

  • Take a stab at the NUMBER of QUALITY hours you have given your kids over the past few months. Write it down. Look at the last 6 months of cell phone usage and take the average and compare the two numbers.

Guess what? If you are on the phone, you are not engaged with your kids.

I hope that is a wake-up call for this generation of parents. If you do not change, please do not complain that your kids are ignoring you when they are all grown up. After all, you must ask yourself “where did they learn to ignore their families so brilliantly?”

Maybe we should all just be looking in the mirrors.

 

Love and light from Indrani

These united states of CONFUSION – PART 2

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If you missed last week’s Unites States of Confusion, here it is… 

Let’s take it from there, shall we?

The only way to get someplace other than where you are… Is first to KNOW that you want to make the journey. I want to journey from this confusion… It is suffocating here. I can barely breathe. My throat dries up when I try to speak my truth. My legs feel too heavy to move and I feel stuck. So clearly this is NO place to be…Even though these feelings are familiar, it is still not a safe place.

But what is the first step?

The first step is to be gentle with myself… Not beat myself up for landing here yet again… Shit happens…Quite frequently… So what?

No beat-up-of-self allowed!

The next step is to know which areas of my life need some care and to use the road map (the 8 principles) to map my way into a different space. These are in my book available at http://indranislight.org/products-page/

Let’s focus of my physical body. I have become quite lazy with my exercise and training. I have used all kinds of lame excuses and have allowed myself to gain weight and had to buy bigger clothing.

No beat-up-of-self allowed!

So I must start on a program of physical health.

How do I feel about getting so off course? Kinda crummy…But my INTUITION has been whispering in my ear to pay attention and to FOCUS more on self-care.

I hear my intuition by making time for silence, prayer, meditation. I also hear it by noticing how my body feels. INTUITION speaks with energy in our physical bodies and instead of labeling the feelings with words like Anxiety, Panic attacks, etc… Try just describing the physical sensations as if you did not know how to label them. That takes you out of the trance of the labels.

The intuitions lead me to register for another marathon… Now the event will determine what my PLAN looks like.

I must run/ walk 26.2 miles next March. My training program when worked backwards will have me starting at 2 or 3 miles a few times per week and gently increasing each week. My PLAN will also include yoga, strength training and weekly massage to help me recover from my workouts.

I started on the plan already and surprised myself by walking faster than I have in a few years and not being winded. I cannot change the plan because my body still has to be reintroduced to the regimen of training.

So what is your plan? How can you work it backwards so that you can begin to take baby steps? Why baby steps? If my marathon were in 2 months, I would be going crazy and I would already have failed. I know that I cannot get ready to 26.2 miles in 60 days. 6 months is my absolute limit. Your end goal and where you are now will determine the time you need to be successful.

Here’s another hint… State the goal and halve it. Now create a timeline and place the end goal at the end, then the half goal at the…you got it…the halfway mark. Half that again and place that at the quarter mark and half again at the eight mark. Now look at how much time you have from the start to the eighth mark and begin to create the small steps to get there. You may decide to shorten the overall time or to lengthen it, your steps will be your guide.

My marathon steps would look like this:

26.2 miles March 2012

13.1 miles December 2011

6.5 miles October 2011

3.2 miles September

2 miles now until September

Now I would work the daily schedule that has me running each of those long distances only once a week, the rest of the week is for endurance, speed work and other disciplines like yoga and Pilates.

Then you have to kick your FOCUS into action. Everything, and I do mean everything you do has to have your goal be the guide post. If, for instance, I need to swim every day and I choose hotels without pools when I travel, then I have lost my focus. Or if I have room for 3 pairs of shoes but no room for my running shoes, then I have lost focus. So my GOAL is my GUIDE.

This whole process is painted with the INTENTION and the PLANNING brush. The whole event, from beginning to end has to be in clear FOCUS and your Intention, your daily Planning principle all over it and is guided by your Intuition and your Intention. Every step you take solidifies your Intention to make your goal your reality.

This could mean that your ENVIRONMENT has to be tweaked, so you can accomplish this goal. If I have to do long runs on Sundays, I cannot go bar hoping on Saturday nights because I have to rest, hydrate with water not booze and eat right the night before. So I may have to give up some of my drinking buddies until my race is over.

The CREATION Principle, begs deeper question…WHY do you care? In other words, why do you want to see this thru? What will you gain? Who will lose if you lose focus?

For me the answers are quite clear. I will lose ME. I will LOSE ME! There is nothing more precious than ME and I will lose that.

So what am I creating?A more powerful and positive me!

Why? Because half of who I am or can become is not acceptable.  I will not settle for less than ALL that I am!

I was not born to live just half of my potential… I was created to live full out. I was created to live completely and to use all of my gifts. All day, every day.

The other Principles are the Ultimate and the You Principles and I will tell you more about those next week.

Come back won’t you?

What will you start today?

 

Love and light