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Checking in …

How do you check in with yourself each day? Does your morning start with an intentional pause to discern things like:

  • What MUST happen today?
  • Who needs a bit of attention today?
  • How prepared am I for what’s ahead?
  • What do I need to get grounded and ready?

I’ve had a “morning practice” for many years now, though it has changed many times. Recently, I made yet another change — inspired, actually, by a strong sense that my “grounding check-in” was actually ungrounding me and rendering me less prepared for the day ahead than before I got out of bed!

Curious?

Continue reading “Checking in …”

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Your Secrets Have Power

You’ve got them – secret thoughts, ideas, behaviors that you keep to yourself and don’t want anyone to know about. I’m talking about:

  • judgments that we would never share with that other person
  • beliefs that we are afraid to speak aloud
  • habits we’d be embarrassed to have another person witness

You get the idea. Here’s the truth. Everything we are trying to hide, all of our secrets, the messages in our shadow side, have tremendous power. This power may be: Continue reading “Your Secrets Have Power”

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Catch Yourself!

How often do you hear yourself begin a response with “I can’t … I never … I always …”?

“I never take a break when there’s a deadline.”
“I can’t do that – I’m not talented enough.”
“No, I won’t drive through town – I always take the highway.”

Scan the various areas of your life (home, parenting, relationships, work, recreation…). Listen for your inner I Never … I Can’t … I Always …”. My “favorite” such phrases have included: Continue reading “Catch Yourself!”

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Opening Your Presence

The holiday season is upon us. While not everyone celebrates Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, all of us are bombarded with the sights and sounds and shopping frenzy this time of year in addition to holiday parties with friends and coworkers.

Today, I would like to invite you into a practice around how you show up – regardless of your religious tradition:

Opening Your Presence

Not presents, though there may be many – but presence – the qualities you bring to your relationships. Continue reading “Opening Your Presence”

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A message from your hands

Become aware of your hands. Are they tense or relaxed? Closed in a fist or soft? Are they gripping tightly or open to receive? If our hands are a metaphor for our lives, then the fist, the gripping, could point to:

  • holding onto ideas, plans, jobs – perhaps for too long
  • trying to control people and situations around us
  • refusing to change, staying in the known

Alternatively,  soft and open, “palms up” hands could invite: Continue reading “A message from your hands”