For leading a more mindful lifestyle, I am a big advocate that a formal mindfulness practice feeds informal, everyday mindfulness. There are many ways to formally practice mindfulness (sitting meditation, yoga, chanting, walking meditation, contemplative prayer…and hundreds more) and you are training yourself to focus your attention on something and releasing the habit of getting carried away in thought. By formally training yourself in this way, you prepare your mind to become more mindful in everyday life — you will find pausing comes more spontaneously and your awareness of the present moment expanded.

I equate this to getting a healthy and fit body — you have to formally exercise to physically get your body in overall better shape. On the flip side, you can’t expect your bodies to become fit without regular exercise. Your mind will naturally become more mindful if you formally practice and yet, without a formal practice, your mind is not conditioned toward mindfulness making everyday mindfulness more challenging.

In my work with clients who want to lead more mindful lifestyles, it has now become clear that practicing pausing throughout the day can be a powerful part of the path that also *feeds* the formal practice. So, my perspective has shifted somewhat to see it more as a cycle — formal feeds informal and informal, in turn, feeds formal. And, for some people, learning to pause throughout the day is less intimidating than learning to meditate. So start now. Here are 10 ways that you can Pause….TODAY!

1. Make eye contact with your kids or partner when they walk in the door. Linger with this moment.

2. When you reach to turn on the sink, hold the handle and take a deep breath before turning on the water.

3. Before you shift your car into “Drive”, sit there for a moment and feel your hands on the steering wheel.

4. Before you take a bite of your next meal, pause and look at the food on your plate. As you take your first bite, pause to fully taste and notice yourself chewing.

5. As you get into bed at night, take a moment to feel your body relax into the bed. Notice the feeling of release and any sensations that arise.

6. Take a moment in the shower to do nothing but feel the water running down your back.

7. Next time you reach for your cell phone, just hold it in your hands for a moment without answering or typing; feel your hand on the phone.

8. At your computer, stop typing or reading, place your hands gently on the keyboard and close your eyes. Take a few deep breathes and invite any tension in your shoulders to relax.

9. Next time you go to the refrigerator, place both hands on the handles but do not open. Just pause and breathe a few moments before opening the doors.

10. When you put on or take off your shoes, feel the contact between your feet and the ground. Wiggle your toes and feet enough to make a solid connection.

It isn’t rocket science, it is simply practicing (over and over) and reminding yourself to pause and connect with the breath. You will be amazed by how creating these little openings for mindfulness throughout your day allows for more ease and peace to seep into your everyday life. So go ahead…pause, right now.

Keeping a soft, compassionate, subtle heart is a skill that has to be cultivated and practiced. I have been exploring ways to soften my heart and I have a few tips (many not so new; just good old fashion wisdom that has been around forever!) that can help train our hearts in this way:

1. Gratitude, gratitude and more gratitude — continually reminding ourselves of what we have to be grateful for promotes a quality of compassion and softness. It helps keep our woes in perspective and keeps the good and bad in life in better balance. Taking this a step deeper, it is important to not only mentally think about what we have to be grateful for but to also take that into our hearts and pause to feel the emotion of gratitude; pause to notice what emotions float through our bodies when we consider that for which we are grateful. Ask yourself: What sensations am I experiencing when I think about this? I was recently given the assignment to make a list of 500 things I am grateful for and it has been a beautiful exercise on cultivating awareness and a loving heart.
2. Metta (Loving Kindness) meditation — This meditation fosters compassion for self and others. It begins by inviting kind thoughts toward yourself and gradually shifts the focus of the kind thoughts to others and the larger community.
3. Just breathe — I mention this is so much of my writing but if only we each truly knew the power of this ever present tool. Close your eyes and take several deep, intentional breathes in, hold for a few seconds and then slowly, deliberately, release…all possible breath. After several cycles of this, imagine the breath as a gentle, comforting blanket that will travel into the chest cavity and wrap itself around the heart. Sometimes, I even take it a little further and imagine that this blanket is gently hugging the hard edges of my heart — creating softness and gently brushing away the saturated negative energy. This imagery can be very powerful first step in cultivating compassion or working with forgiveness. And, just the intention of breathing in comforting breath begins the process of softening and releasing a hardened heart.
4. Float up — many of my clients will attest that I often use this tool in coaching work and I have also found it greatly helpful in softening the heart. Simply shifting our perspective (or floating up above the trees so we view the forest of life) to look at our lives from a broader or higher place can often help us be more gentle with whatever is in our lives and release some of the intensity or negativing making our hearts hard. It puts things in their place and gives us some space to invite in more of a loving heart.
5. Laugh or Cry — a great belly laugh or a release of tears can be very serving to remove blockage or walls around our heart. So putting ourselves in the position to do either and being willing to release can open us up some…and have you paused enough recently to really feel how good either of these experiences actually feels in the body? A good laugh or a hard cry are both just good for the soul!

I could go on and on about ways to work with softening the heart and I continue to explore this for myself. I know that putting into practice some of these wise, old tips can be challenging when we are struggling with a hard heart but without a doubt, I can say that life is much more meaningful and fun when led from a warm, soft heart. So, I encourage you to muster up the *umph* when needed and practice being a softy!

“I don’t stop short of the red gate.”

These words rang through my head as I was contemplating stopping my run about half a mile short of the end of the loop. A friend had said this one morning while we were running — emphatically staked her ground with a rod of discipline. This is also the same friend that very comfortably announced: “ I don’t share my pizza with others. I eat a whole one by myself” the first time that I ate out with her for a work related event. I loved her immediately.

I needed this nudge of “red gate discipline” this particular day. I had set out for a bit of longer run than usual. Not because I am training for anything. Only to make amends with that determined part of myself that had been drained of spunk. I simply needed to do what I said I was going to do. Just for myself. Period.

Discipline can take on many personalities for each of us…type A, driven, strict, structured, organized. It can also be a very powerful tool for growth and staying connected with our real, inner self. As with anything in life, too much of it can cause harm, but just enough of it can be very serving. Learning when to exert enough discipline to get you to your red gate is a skill that takes practice. Learning what it feels like to stop short of the red gate is also helpful – letting ourself down isn’t such a great feeling. Neither is muscling our way to the gate when we know it would be more serving to stop.

I have been working with this concept of discipline for a while now and I have learned a few key things to share:

1. Discipline is a tool that can and should be used to help me continue to stay aligned with my values and to help me grow. I have learned to let go of the negative connotations of discipline (“You are too disciplined”) and I have developed a lot of gratitude for the tool.
2. Discipline comes more easily at some times and not at others. That’s okay. That doesn’t mean that I AM a disciplined or I AM a lazy person. It simply means that sometimes I have to dig deeper than other times and sometimes, when I kick into discipline overdrive, I need to back up and gain some perspective.
3. Red Gate Discipline is most effectively used when it is grounded in clear goals or intentions. Being thoughtful about *what* you intend is an important first step in the practice of living mindfully. Discipline is part of the *how* you carry out this intention or meet your goal.
4. Discipline is directly related to staying balanced in life. Sometimes we get into habits that become so comfortable and lead us to put too much of our life energy into a few areas of our lives. Even though we know the importance and value of other areas of life, these habits are so easy and comfortable that it is easier to stay out of balance…for a while…until we are no longer satisfied or joyful. That is where the discipline needs an invitation into our lives. It takes discipline — Red Gate Discipline — to say no to some things and yes to others. And through this practice of saying no to some things and then yes to others, we come back into better balance.
5. It is an amazing feeling when you reach that red gate and contribute another little drop of confidence into the “I can do this” bucket.

Where could your life use a little Red Gate Discipline? Is there anywhere in your life that  has too much Red Gate Discipline? I’d love to hear about your red gates!

Thanks, Amy, for your red gate discipline inspiration!

What perfect timing! A friend just passed this along: www.winterfeastforthesoul.com. It is a commitment of 40 minutes of spiritual practice each day for 40 days. A “retreat” to deepen in one’s spiritual practice and it begins tomorrow.

I am in…! I have been craving some rhythm to life (after the holidays, snow days, sick kids…) only to realize  while running this morning that there are two parts of this to look at — the CRAVING and the concept of RHYTHM. This craving feeling is really an indicator that I feel out of control. When will I realize that I am never actually *in* control! Craving has an edginess, a rawness, a vulnerable quality to it — all feelings that dissolve when life is clicking along as “planned.” So I conclude that the craving is my way of trying to grasp onto to something solid — get some ground beneath me.

Pema Chodron has been a wise teacher for me and a powerful concept from her teachings is groundlessness. Life is really always in process, in change, never still. So our real journey is learning how to navigate life and all the groundlessness with wisdom and more ease. She has taught me that there really isn’t solid ground beneath me; and there never will be. Learning to dance with whatever terrain I encounter is much more fun and peace filling than spending my energy searching for flat, solid ground.

Rhythm is also interesting — I am constantly planning, fixing, organizing in an attempt to have rhythm to life. I have been doing this for years…yet as I reflect back on it all, I really don’t see rhythm, really ever. Maybe glimpses of times of balance and equinimity but rhythm? Not so sure. Rhythm has been this expectation that I have carried around unknowingly for years and it was powerful to run with that awareness this morning. It gave me some freedom to even consider an intention of leaving this expectation of rhythm in the woods as I turned back toward home.

So, my intention – for now – is to let go of the craving for rhythm and feast on whatever my soul holds here and now — 40 minutes a day for the next 40 days.

Are you constantly reacting to whatever life throws your way? Do you take time to reflect of how you spend your time, energy and money on a regular basis? Do you know what feeds your soul and regularly prepares you for giving out fully from your strong, healthy inner self? Are you tired of running on the hamster treadmill of life?

Chances are, if you are whizzing through life and feeling uneasy or unfulfilled, it could be helpful for you to explore living with more intention. Another way to phrase this is living out a life that is meaningful and thoughtful for you. Living with intention is a different way of living. Peace and fulfillment increase when you develop skills and tools for living intentionally.

Living intentionally means learning to pause throughout the days and have enough perspective to recognize your choices for what to say, what to do next, and how to spend your money. It means understanding that some choices are better aligned with what you really care about and what is right for you and those you love. It means feeling that icky feeling when you make a choice that isn’t aligned with your purpose and learning that maybe next time…you could make a different choice.

Living intentionally also involves challenging yourself to make some changes or try some things differently. Do you know of some change that you want to make in your life or something new that you want to try but for various reasons just never do it? Part of living with more intention will mean pausing to evaluate these things and then taking action — small steps at a time — to come more into alignment with what is purposeful for you.

Lots to explore and that is exactly what the Living with Intention Group is designed to do. We will create a space to pause, reflect on and act on living with more intention in a small group setting with time for quieting the mind as well as group discussion.

Join us!  Wednesdays 9:30-11; January 19, February 2 & 16, March 2 & 16; $85 per person for 5 sessions; Carrboro Yoga Company; space is limited to 12 participants. Register Here.

For more information, please contact Mandy Murphy at mandy@mindsightcoaching.com or 919.616.6158.

The mantra ”let go, let be” is a frequent flyer in my mind. It is a wonderful reminder to release that usual drive to control, fix or try to make something be a certain a way. I have been attempting to cultivate the “let go, let be” perspective most notably at times when I sense myself grasping or attaching to something. It usually comes up for me when I am uncomfortable with a situation, feel as if I am not enough or not doing enough, or something feels wrong and I want to fix it. I use that edgy “need to control this” feeling as a red flag for what is really being called for is: let go, let be.

This perspective takes on a different meaning when it comes to parenting. There is such a fine line between the responsibilities of parenting to help our children grow to be thoughtful, respectful and responsible people and to truly grow into themselves. This same edgy feeling of control can arise sometimes when I feel myself imposing myself or my way of navigating life onto my kids. They have their own way of navigating life and I think it is often most useful to…let go and let them be. If I am caught in my narrow perspective of self though, it can be hard to catch this tendency. This is where a regular meditation practice comes in.

Through quieting my mind and connecting to a true, deeper sense of self, I learn to see my patterns. I set myself up to start the day without that grip of control already at work. I open and soften my heart so that it can voluntarily take a quiet bus ride when it feels that wonderful tug of genuine love. I learn onceagain that one of the main themes in this journey of life it to let go and let be. Over and over and over again.

I have a variety of these “tapes” and I seem to rotate through which one I put into the player. My husband insightfully pointed out that it is as if I have several “bus stops” and I linger at each one for a while trying to “fix” something about myself. He is right — I have 3-4 stops where I get off the bus, convinced that this time I will correct the imperfections in this area of my life. Each time I get off the bus, I explore the landscape, strategize, put a plan in place, set some goals, fuel myself back up with motivation and get back on the bus ready to tackle that imperfect part of myself or my life. I ride the bus a while, then get distracted by a beautiful landscape and forget to focus on my recent determined commitment to some set of “rules” to fix me. Then, the imperfect self sees an opportunity and rears her powerful voice again. The next bus stop is in site and what do you know? I am departing, exploring the landscape, strategizing, planning and setting goals to rid these imperfections again. The same cycle. A trance.

Waking up from this cycle is a journey just like almost all parts of life. It involves cultivating many challenging skills and perspectives — compassion, acceptance, awareness, discipline and courage to name a few.  There is an invitation here to become aware of what our bus stops are — what are the places in your life that you continually “beat yourself up?” What are the familiar stories that play out regularly in your life? How do you typically react to these stories?

Exploring these questions with compassion, with a kindness toward yourself is an important element to helping you see clearly the cycle. How can you be as kind and gentle with yourself as you are with a child or a dear friend?

And lastly, how can you start riding the acceptance bus instead of the bus of hostility? Or maybe it is more like a magic carpet – yet there is no magic involved. You are riding high on the air of freedom from acceptance of all the beautiful and not so beautiful parts of yourself.

I have always thought of peace as residing somewhere deep in the core of our bodies from which our mind (thankfully and sometimes annoyingly) pulls us away. I regularly practice connecting to this inner, soul place of peace and I put energy into cultivating an awareness of this peaceful presence in my being. A common reminder to myself is “honor the thought and let it go; sink OUT of the brain and into the body.”  Without truly realizing it, I have made the mind my enemy of peace.

This week, a circle friend read from the book My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor:

“This stroke of insight has given me the priceless gift of knowing that deep inner peace is just a thought/ feeling away. To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into the blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life. I realize that for many of us, the distance between out thinking mind and our compassionate heart sometimes feels miles apart. Some of us traverse this distance on command. Others of us are so committed to our hopelessness, anger, and misery that the mere concept of a peaceful heart feels foreign and unsafe.

Base upon my experience with losing my left mind, I wholeheartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain. This circuitry is constantly running and always available for us to hook into. The feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment. It is not something that we bring with us from the past or project into the future. Step one to experiencing inner peace is the willingness to be present in the right here, right now.”

I love the ways she frames the distance between thinking mind and compassionate heart. I also appreciate the way she has opened up a whole new way for me to think about where peace resides within us and she confirms of my understanding of experiencing inner peace. Now I am exploring this new perspective: Peace originates in the brain, is experienced throughout the body and is tapped into by being present with what is here, right now. That’s some peace of brain!