Tag Archives: kick perfection to the curb

A Holiday Riddle…

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What do you get if you crossed, Paula Deen, Martha Stewart and June Cleaver… a migraine for all us mere mortal women!

I was recently strolling thru an airport and came upon a bookstore. So of course I wasted a nice chunk of change on magazines.

They were all Christmas magazines and each had copious tips for me as to how to create that ever so special holiday.

I began to make a list and it was appalling how many things I HAD to do to make my family, friends and the community at large happy.

The list is far too long so I will just give you some highlights…

  •  Make cookies from scratch, cut outs that must be iced and drop cookies, because as we all know people like variety!
  • Do extra special community deeds, because as we all know, all the volunteer stuff we do is NOT enough to make us feel worthwhile.
  • Put a special ornament on all the cabinet knobs, because we all know, every room must be festive.
  • Make all your own floral arrangements and get only the freshest buds, because as we all know, people will know that I am a slouch if I buy them from the grocery store.
  • Group glass containers together and place candles in them, because as we all know, electric lights are too harsh for the holidays.
  • Write a special note in all my holiday cards, because as we all know, it is extremely tacky to just say “Happy Holidays”.
  • Decorate the tree, preferable trees, in its own special theme, because as we all know, a hodge podge of ornaments from years of life well lived, just looks too damn dull.
  • Have scents of cinnamon and oranges wafting all thru the house, because as we all know, our houses stink the whole rest of the year.
  • Decorate every room with fresh sprigs (from our gardens) especially the guest rooms, because as we all know we want those pesky guests to feel so comfy, they’ll stay an extra month.

I can go on, but I have a lot to do in the next few weeks, as you can clearly see.

So I’ll be sure to start tomorrow because it’s too dark to get sprigs and such and I don’t have all the ingredients for the 13 kinds of cookies I intend to make.

Wait, I can’t start tomorrow… I have a massage scheduled and that tea I must go to, and oh yea I gotta go the work. Hmmm, ok the day after tomorrow then. Wait…

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

Surrender

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Surrendering does not usually have positive connotations. Recently I had been traveling a lot, meetings, obligations, running here, running there. Just simply overwhelmed. I would lay in bed exhausted not able to even sleep well.

I decided to start looking at my obligations, my schedule to see what I could eliminate. I started thinking what would happen if I surrendered. Not give up, but give in. Give in to the my mind, body and spirit which needed time to rest, recharge, and be still.

If I kept my hectic schedule and burden load I would only be running myself down more.

What would others think if I postponed my appointments with them? I worried that they would think less of me.

What would my loved ones think if I chose to take time by myself and not rush home to them? I felt guilty wanting to indulge myself in rest and rejuvenation.

I decided to surrender to my body, mind and spirit to get the rest and develop the clarity needed.

Once I made the decision to surrender, to give in, the healing actually began at once.

What can you surrender to, that would be for your well being?

When PERFECTION bites you on the butt… kick it to the curb!

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Recently I had the great fortune to be a speaker at a woman’s day of wellness. I wanted to say a big Thank you to the women in the audience by giving away a month of coaching. I did not want a big production about the give away so as I was attaching my business cards to my hand outs I decided to place one on upside down and the person who got that handout would be the winner of the coaching sessions.

The woman who won was so happy and she can hardly wait to start… but the story does not end here. As I was chatting and being social another woman approached me and said

” You know, I got that hand out but did not want it because the card was upside down, so I put it back and took one off the bottom of the pile.” She was clearly upset. She continued ” This is going to bother me for a long time.”

Talk about letting the search for perfection bite you on the butt!

You know what, it would bother me too if I allowed an such opportunity to pass me by.

Then I started to wonder, how many of us MISS OUT on life by searching for perfection? What does perfection look like? Would we even recognize it if we came face to face with it?

If I want perfect legs, would I recognize that legs with cellulite that work well and carry me through my day IS as perfect as it gets?

I remember one day in the summer, I was fussing about my fat arms and did not want to wear a sleeve less shirt, so in 100 degree weather I put on long sleeves.. then I saw a woman in shorts and short sleeves who had clearly survived a bad fire and she was so happy to be free to walk and shop and be independent!

If I want perfect children, will I recognize when they are trying their best and being their perfect selves?

If I want a perfect marriage, will I understand that when my spouse comes home every night, hugs and kisses me and watches some mundane TV show with me and listens to my day… that that is indeed perfection?

Will I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that using all my gifts and talents in service and gratitude is as a perfect life as anyone can create?

No, I do not always recognize these perfect moments, but I want to, I really do!

Today, I invite you to recognize all the perfection around you and to accept that you are perfect also.

Today, my wish for you is to KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that life is sweet, perfect and ever changing… tomorrow you will create a new perfect!

Now, go forth and create some glorious imperfect perfection!