We can't possibly know what is going on inside someone else's head and thoughts -- even though we know someone really well. It's always better to check. And the best way to check is by asking questions.
One great sadness in my life is the seeming lack of magic that can, when tended, illuminate people from the inside. These are the people who, when we meet them, give out a real sense that here is someone doing justice to a life.
Opposites are complementary. The contradictory things that most folks believe defeat a project, destroy a dream, or invalidate a theory actually work together to make a whole. To put it another way: What contrasts can also complete.
Each and every one of us brings energy to our co-workers, loved ones, and even the stranger in line behind us at the grocery store. It would serve us all well to realize that the energy we radiate affects others' lives, and we need to be responsible for it.
I shot this video in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Join me for this one-minute Power Living Mini-Escape. To capture its power, say it out loud.
Be here. Be still; quietly remember the presence of and within yourself, and you will know, without thinking, that while all around you everything changes, within you lives something unchanging.
When people would divide us, polarize us, fill us with fear and make us defensive, when we are encouraged to spend trillions of dollars killing our enemies instead of praying for them -- let us remember in those instances that we are not separate, we are one.
Gazing at Polaris, I asked myself, "What's my North Star?" One answer came to me immediately, and another just seconds later. Immediately I felt better, calmer and more resolved.
Once we assess a person's current balance point and determine counterbalance techniques that they agree to employ, measure and adjust, we can create a life map to take this person from "here" to "there," wherever "there" is for them.
While mindfulness is a simple practice, it's not always so easy to practice it in our lives. Our mind pops up with reasons why we're too busy, skeptical or just unmotivated.
Serendipity means allowing yourself the chance to go down that unexpected path or through that unknown door -- scary perhaps, but more often it leads to wondrous adventures!
Even more impressive than the power of yoga in this story is the fierce resiliency of these teens' spirits. Perhaps yoga and meditation awaken something in the human spirit that was always there, but which we lose sight of or neglect.
How often do you talk yourself out of even looking into something or checking out a possibility because of that voice inside your head saying things like "gee, they must get bombarded with things like this all the time," or "that's never going to work"?
Stop and think about it. You have to make choices and decisions in life. There's no guide that tells us how to do this best, or how to make no mistakes, or keep everyone around you happy. You just have to choose and ride it out.
While we have control over what we post and share to the world to tell our story, we sometimes forget we have the same control over the story we tell to ourselves.
Most of the time, it feels incredibly hard to access any inkling of a state of calm, and this assumed difficulty means that most of us have given calm up for impossible. We simply don't know how to make the space for another way of being.