Tag: Focus

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I Just Don’t Feel Like It

I Just Don't Want To Do It

I Just Don't Want To Do It

I Just Don’t Feel Like It.  Would missing that class be a total abomination of my physique, training, or education?  Would not going out with my friends, making me a bad friend, a recluse, or to never meet my match?..  What happens when I don’t feel like doing what’s on the agenda?   Would missing all those things affect me in a negative way?

So far, by ditching what I don’t feel like (even if it’s a last minute change of heart) and taking the time to listen to what I do want to do; I’ve gained ridiculous energy for other, previously neglected areas of my life.  For example, finding new interests, fixing my bike, contact with family and old friends, taking better care of myself, and more in depth research into the niggles which have been bothering me for years.

The I Just Don’t Feel Like It scenario I’ve recognised when working with clients too, as I work partially in the fitness industry, and it’s here people want to be pushed and pushed to achieve and do more.  You name it, it’s on the table, better buns, abs, biceps, smaller waist..  I don’t consider my teaching as fitness per se, but Pilates and yoga are both tied up in it in our society, and I’ve been constantly doubting if I push my clients enough, especially in group classes..  My thinking is, if you have the energy there to pay attention and apply yourself to a situation, THEN You’ll do the work, if you don’t, then maybe take the time to rest?  Give your best to a situation you feel like applying yourself to, though this might be hardcore napping or having tea with friends. I’d suggest, anything that isn’t wasting energy by staring into a screen..  Work with good form, not in a half assed kinda gonna do something..  In my opinion, that’s just time wasting.

Why can’t we do our best and when we need to, take a rest so we can evaluate if we need to keep going or, change track?  Why do we have to run ourselves into the ground and rely on caffeine, supplements and other people to get us going?  Why can’t we tune into our innate intelligence and realise what it is that we do have energy for?

The more we leave ourselves to NOT do the things we don’t feel like, the more we come to understand WHAT it is that we do feel like doing.  When you keep doing things because you think you ‘should’, they act as distractions from the things which may otherwise ignite our enthusiasm to be proactive and get out into the world; however that looks for each individual.   It might feel a bit messy at first, but trust yourself, that if you don’t feel like doing something or going somewhere, then there’s another part of life waiting for you to discover it..  Of course, this isn’t going to work for everyone, I’m still investigating what it is when people are so called ‘Lazy’, as I’ve never been considered as lazy, to me it seems like hardcore procrastination; perhaps fear based, but that’s a whole other topic..

I’d love to hear any comments…

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Nervous Fibres

nervous-fibres1There IS an ease about which this body can move.

A way with no pain, no pushing and yet with full FUNction, form and freedom;

nothing to prove.

 

Having a substantial range for flexibility and strength suggests, a focal point would help one to manifest..

It’s a challenge to find ones midline when it feels like so much is on a wonk..

Eccentrically flowing through one curve to another,

even the best educated in trigonometry would end up wrong.

The centre line isn’t a matter of mode, median, middle or tangent,

rather a fluctuating sensing space beyond the intelligent.

 

The meat and bones, they simply grow,

but what is that alchemic energetic place in which they flow?

 

The subtle, the deep, the connecting place..

That which houses our energy and nerves;

the media through which ones perception translates what the senses observe..

How is it that with this bundle of fibres I can create experience from my dreams?

Yet also, co-create with you unimaginable scenes?

 

To be tuned in

To feel from  every part of the skin

To witness more than the thoughts

Move into freedom away from limiting self-talk..

 

It’s from fear we push back and fight,

but by moving through fear it leads into alright..

 

 

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Flow Forwards..

flowforwards

If water doesn’t flow it stagnates.  You can’t drink stagnant water, it becomes toxic.  Just like water, if we stand still we’ll stagnate.  Some of the hardest lessons can be to let go of the familiar.

Letting go of stable jobs, ideals for how you saw yourself living, people, places, things..  By holding on to the edges, or those things you need to surpass, you limit the flow in life and in essence, deteriorate, loose vitality..  Allowing the rawness of new  territories, fully feeling the flow cannot only be painful but liberating..

2 years ago I left my cushy office job.  I had fantastic bosses, space to do handstands in the kitchen, easy work, good pay and walked to the office in no time from my studio flat.  It was amazing.  All except the fact that I had a constant deep gut feeling that I didn’t belong there (that and the fact I was the only one who would practice yoga in the office space, why not?.. ).  It was far from easy but it was simple.  I ended up landing a lot of new work very quickly under the wing of an amazing woman who needed lots of help with her work, it got me started..   It’s beautiful when you trust and let go into the flow, nothing can stop you!  It’s that trusting to let go part which is the hardest..

If it excites you, you’re on to a good thing for your flow..  If there are still too many obstacles which you cannot yet clear, then there is something still not right for that particular alignment.  You can only make the move if you really believe in yourself and what it is you are sharing, confidence helps, a lot (even if it’s only based on a feeling of it’s do or die!).

2 Months ago I left my marriage.  My wonderful adoring husband, someone who loved me more than I had experienced anyone else loving me.  But again, it didn’t feel right.  Although I was growing in other areas of my life I felt I had stagnated in my relationship, thus realised it was time to get back into the flow.  This decision was not made overnight but there were signs that it was no longer right for me.  The self-doubt I was carrying felt crippling, how could I leave someone who loved me so much?..  Someone so professionally and personally grand; such a fantastic human being..  Was I mad?..  Heightened insecurities creeping in at every opportunity, the stagnation of my situation further feeding into making it even harder to feel the clarity about leaving or not.  Learning to find my centered space is what was ultimately the key, finding that central channel which connects self to source..  I couldn’t have done it without once again tuning into my flow..

Less than 2 weeks ago I left my home!  MY home, with a separate yoga room I would teach classes, clients and workshops from; MY kitchen and bathroom (shared with your partner doesn’t really count I feel ha), my space, my front door..  It was comfortable but again I could feel myself stewing in there..  This was of course an inevitable part of what had happened earlier, but life was raw enough..  Trying to find a place to live in London ain’t much fun, consider the rat race on steroids is how I view the rental market here..  I found yet more of myself and my centre through this process, one easy and convenient option found me, after nearly pushing it away due to it being TOO easy I realised further about ALLOWING the flow within my life..

Like the work which just came up (and the angel(s) who provided it!), the room which was just so, making the decision I had been toying with for some time, it is all about the flow.  But without your centre, your flow isn’t your own, it can be pulled and pushed and [unintentionally] manipulated to help your environment rather than your soul and that, is unsustainable.

Over this time my yoga practice has been changing a lot too – much more about bringing everything back in, I save the acrobatics for other types of training now..  For me this helps.  If you’re in tempestuous times, have decisions to make or waves to ride, just remember, find your centre and you’ll find your flow.  If you can’t find your centre find yourself a good yoga or meditation teacher, book, or whatever else resonates for you..

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Meditation in Daily Life – Calming the mind

mike1

There are many types and styles of meditation all of which are practiced for a variety of reasons.  These reasons span from simply finding a calm space in a hectic world to actually changing ones view of how one perceives the world.  Whatever your motivation or reason to meditate then hopefully you will find some useful information and guidance within the following series entitled Meditation in Daily Life.

Meditation & Calming the mind

Whether you are a complete beginner to meditation or an experienced Buddhist practitioner the first goal in meditation is to calm the mind.  There are several techniques to help with this although by far the most common way is to have something to concentrate the mind on, like a point of reference or a focus point.  Whilst this may sound a little contradictory when you say calming the mind by focusing on something, it may help to understand that as well as calming the mind, when meditating we also need to be fully aware and consciously working with our mind otherwise we may as well just be asleep.

Meditating on the breath is one of the most popular methods and especially easy for beginners to practice.  This involves focusing on the breath, not forcing the breath but just being aware and conscious of our breath; ideally using the stomach to control your breathing and inhaling and exhaling through the nose.  Perhaps just try this for a minute before you move to the next paragraph and see how it feels.

Before talking in more depth about meditation practice, maybe it would be helpful to explain how having this focus helps to calm the mind.  We all have distracting thoughts to contend with whilst meditating, no matter how much meditation experience one has.  The difference is that the more you meditate the less the thoughts distract you.

To analyse thoughts is sometimes referred to as contemplation and whilst this can be positive in some situations, it is not particularly beneficial for calming the mind.  Neither, on the other hand, should one try and block these thoughts as this will just dull the mind and in the end make you feel quite tired.  What we do when a thought pops into our mind when we are meditating is simply acknowledge the thought but then let it go without judging or focusing on it; give it the least amount of energy possible.  Then we return to our focus, in this case our breath.  Without something to return our focus to it would be difficult to steady and calm our mind as it would soon start to follow its own picture show and before long we would be off on a daydream.

There are many scientifically proved benefits from meditating and calming the mind that we start to experience as part of our daily lives:  It is known to increase our ability to focus and concentrate, increase our self awareness, develops a real sense of well being and calmness and if this is not enough, extensive research claims meditation leads to an increase in happiness!!

The next article in this series talks about practical aspects of meditation such as where and when to meditate along with useful tips to help motivate you to get your bum on the cushion 🙂

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Mindfulness & Meditation

What is Meditation?  How do you ‘do’ meditation?  What is mindfulness?

I want to clear my mind, so why do I want to be mind-full more than now?!..

I don’t have time to sleep, let alone meditate!..  It all sounds a bit stressful?!..  ..Anything sound familiar?

I guess the best place to begin, is to highlight, for me, what the benefits of meditation are.  Of course, this will vary from person to person, but I’ll substantiate with some science from studies further down the page; as there seems to be much correlation with what the scientists are finding and what, I, as an individual, am living..

  • Better focus and concentration on task in hand.  I.e. able to cut some veggies up, without cutting myself..
  • Feel calmer, able to manage ‘stress’ more easily
  • Not so worried about what others think of me
  • Getting to sleep easier and better
  • Improved relationship with myself and my body
  • Better relationships with other people
  • Enhanced creativity and allowing my own ‘spark’ to shine

..Thus, to name but a few reasons why life feels better since including mindfulness meditation into my personal practices..

Mindfulness seems to be the meditation technique to best suit my personality, so far; from what I’ve explored meditation wise.  There are many other techniques one can use to get to know ones self, different techniques to suit different people at different times; as if a specific technique doesn’t feel right, listen to that inner voice and change course if necessary.  As Ekhart Tolle describes in his book, “The Power of Now”, everything is about this moment; whatever it is we’re feeling, living, exploring, it all happens right now, and mindfulness is a great way to get you into that space of the Now.

Through being mindful, we can pay attention to what is going on internally, in each moment, and therefore respond to external events in a way which is more congruent to our core beliefs; rather than perhaps to fall into habitual patterns and not knowing what is right for us.

Paying attention to the present moment not only helps our response abilities, but it also gets you out of worries, regrets, fears, anxieties and judgments.  None of these exist in the present moment, right now, how are you?  Where are you now?  Why worry about what’s not happened  yet, or, what you can’t change from past happenings.  When living in this moment, worry cannot exist.  Judgement comes from comparison and unseen dark corners of ourselves, by highlighting these corners, and taking time to presently explore how you feel about certain things, let emotions run their course, and, bring a whole new wealth of understanding of yourself, to yourself.

Mindfulness in the moment = You + Extra Space + Extra Time = Relief from the confines of the thoughts in your mind

Have a holiday from self-limiting beliefs and raise the roof on what you think is possible for you…  Breathe..

Resources:

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Easy Breathing Meditation, Relaxation

breathin med

This breathing meditation is simple to do yet effective at its head-space creation capabilities.. You can vary the length/counts for your breathing to suit you in that moment..  It’s also a great pre-cursor to the Yogic Breath technique.

Meditation or Mindfulness can help you to:

  • Feel calmer, happier and more content
  • Sleep better
  • Be more able to deal with difficult situations
  • Increase attention span
  • Have improved immunity, better health and less signs of aging (as are bi-products with stress reduction techniques naturally)

Safety points, if you suffer from heart conditions, are pregnant then it is NOT advised that you hold your breath between your inhale and exhale, otherwise, see how it feels and only include it if it works for you in any given moment…  Also, always inhale through your nose, to allow for better filtration of the air you intake, especially when in built up urban areas. Optimally, also exhale through your nose but this need not be so strict.

How to :

  1. Sit comfortably, preferably on a thick cushion or pillow on the floor.  If your knees don’t allow this then sit in a chair but with your spine self supporting, away from the back of the chair, or lay down on a mat or rug – or, of course, standing or walking can work too – main point is that your spine wants to be softly straight.
  2. As you breathe in, count how long your inhale takes.  As you breathe out, count your exhale duration too.  Do this for a few rounds of breath to get an idea of your normal.  You want to aim to fill up and empty your lungs with each breath a bit more each time until you reach your comfortable capacity.
  3. Next we want to lengthen and moderate the inhalations and exhalations.  Aiming to make them both the same count can help to regulate not just the breath but your awareness about how much and how quickly you take things in and how you let them go again.  A good starting point might be:
    • Breathe in (inhale) through the nose and down into your belly for a count of 3,
    • Breathe out (exhale), completely empty your lungs, through the nose for a count of 3.
      (I.e. Count to 3 in your head, slowly whilst you’re breathing..)
  4. After a few breaths if it feels OK then extend your breathing to a count of 4 inhaling and 4 exhaling.
    • If filling your belly and emptying your lungs doesn’t happen for you at first then play with it.  It may feel strange to begin with, but, if it feels too hard, not beneficial, or you get a headache; try making less effort with it, keep the practice simple and easy!..
  5. Repeat this pattern for at least a further 10 cycles (don’t worry if you loose count of something, it all takes practice, be kind to your learning process)
  6. To advance (if none of the conditions mentioned above):
    • Pause your breathing after you’ve filled your lungs.  Hold your breath for half the count of your inhale.  E.g. Inhale for 1, 2, 3, 4.  Hold for 1, 2.  Exhale for 1, 2, 3, 4..
    • And/Or extend the count for each part of the breath to a point you can manage easily. In more advanced yogic practices the ratios of inhale, exhale and holds do vary, so if you feel comfortable then be playful with this practice.  If you’re unsure it’s always best to seek some face to face guidance from a teacher you trust to check your technique, as we’re not all made the same, therefore it’s not one glove fits all for something as vital as our breathing..

Personally, I do this while on the train, walking, i.e. Pairing the count with my steps or, waiting in line or before any situation which might feel frustrating or bring me anxiety.  Or simply to remind me about the here and now.. This is my intention at least lol, as being human and fabulously imperfect, life doesn’t always happen as planned 😉

And that’s it, your mindful and meditating..!  Be kind to yourself and if you get frustrated trying to do this then keep it simple and take it back to counting your natural breath pattern with no intent to change it, simply count it.

Get out of your head! 😉

Love

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Candle Meditation

candelmed

One of the most enLightening (excuse the pun) meditations, for me, is the Candle meditation.  Couldn’t be simpler and yet neither more beautiful and effective to calm the mind and bring you into the present.

Set yourself a timer, if you’re new to meditation make it 5 minutes only, if you  have more experience and feel able to give more time then set longer, up to 30 minutes, but be modest so you put the time aside without worry.

Light a candle, one with an open, naked flame (probably better a pillar or stick candle, but tea light also works).

Sit about 1 or 2 foot away from your candle  and start your timer.

Setting a timer means you can let go of the mind thinking it needs to be busy or controlling the situation, thus easing into the time you’ve set aside.  Make sure you’re alert and not hungry or thirsty when you start to help you to stay still.

If you get distracted by thinking or trying to do something else, remind yourself it’s only for a few minutes and go back to watching the flame; see it dance and change and flow with every moment..  If you keep getting distracted, then notice where your distractions take you, if needs be pause the timer and write down what came up but get right back to the candle!

The hardest thing is starting the timer, if you can get to that point you’re winning.  Let me know how you get on!

Love

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Frazzled?

 frazzled

I’m being blessed with many sessions to instruct recently, from meditation through to strong Pilates classes, thus I see a lot of bodies and the majority of them seem to be more tired than I realised at this time of year!

Caffeine helps but for how long?

Getting more into instructing the physical side of my job (yoga and Pilates more so than Reiki or meditations), it’s great the more I get to know different groups of people so that they can appreciate I’ll give them a VERY hard work out if that’s what I feel I’m needed to give, but sometimes, the minds of many are up for super physical Ra Ra Ra!! (which is very fun to deliver!) But, their bodies and eyes seem to say something totally different to me, more like, “be kind and gentle with me, I’ve had a hard xxx”.  This feels challenging to administer, as the mind/ego quite often will not thank you for leaving out the super sweatathon in favor of something more ahhhhhhhhhh than Ra Ra Ra (both session types require similar energy from me so it makes no difference except to my gut instincts)..

Finding this balance in my own life too can be mystifying when living in such a hardworking and fast paced city, I’m getting better at it, but, being freelance I’ve realised is rewarding but tricky to self-manage at times.

When you’re shattered and frazzled do you still push yourself 120%?  Or do you listen and perhaps rest or go for more gentle activity?

Why is it so many of us seem ruled by the head rather than what our body maybe screaming at us about in signs of pain, fatigue or everyday niggles?  This morning I had no choice, I missed my alarm to instruct a 07.15am class, *gulp*, so not cool but I guess this is the universe telling me I need to rest this morning!  Not great for future of covering that class, but this is enough of a wake up call for me to ensure I get that rest when it’s feeling needed..

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Building life a new

Change

Nutrition, movement, fitness and food have been fastidious points in my life since I can remember.  How exciting it feels for me to be working with them in a more organised and structured manner!  As well as having the potential to not only further optimise my own condition, but the general health of others too!

By working with my TRUE passions and my husband and community; I am finally able to let go of my financial safety blanket (which I am very grateful to have had); checking out of the full-time office role and into following my excitement!  I feel very blessed and grateful for this opportunity I’ve created along with much support from my husband, you and everyone else in this community, and believe strongly that when following ones TRUE PASSION, with FOCUS, DEDICATION and FULL ATTENTION; we can literally achieve ANYTHING..

Much love & thanks

x

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Focus and All WILL Come..

focuskyte2

What’s at the core of your desires?  What intention(s) are you focusing on? maybe take a few moments to reflect on this..

I have an experiment for you.  I’m doing it right now and it really works!

Bring one thing to mind; just ONE e.g. if you’re on your way somewhere, focus on being on your journey and getting to that place; or if you’re creating something, meditate on it so all your other mental distractions subside for that moment.

Then, be with this one things and stay focused on it.  With this focused intention, NOTHING will get in your way..

Clearly, if you have many life aims, you’ll want to change your focus at times, but intend to keep to the one thing which feels the most relevant in each moment and you’ll get there sooner than you think 😉

In order for this to work, remember, just one thing at the time and let go of all your other background intentions; allow the subconscious to work it’s magic on them..

Be careful what you wish for…. 😉

x