Create the Life you Want!

We live in an ever-expanding universe. This macrocosm can be cultivated within your own consciousness through a number of ways. The first step is always to stop and discover your own personal state of being. Are you tired and sluggish from long hours at work? Are you uninspired from your monotonous daily routine? Are you wired from the caffeine or jittery from the sugary snacks? Are you daydreaming of being anywhere but here? Am I breathing shallow or deep? Am I slouching or sitting up tall?
When we begin to take the time to look within ourselves and allow the honest answers to arise, if we listen carefully, we will be surprised at how just slight changes can improve our lives.
The most common conversations I have with friends and acquaintances revolve around how to change one's perspective. This also happens to be one of my biggest passions and greatest challenges, which is why I study so much about this topic.
I remember during the Blackout of 2003, when the entire Northeastern powergrid went down, I remember meeting a new group of friends because we all shared this experience. During our long walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, my friend spoke about how his life was successful financially but terribly boring and routine.  The frustration of his soul is what I remember most, he felt trapped but the routine nature of his life. The advice I gave him was to try simple things to change his experience of the everyday. For instance because we live in NYC where we all walk to our destinations, which is in itself a blessing for keeping our bodies in use, I suggested that he try walking a different way to the office and a different way home. Rather that walk the same way, taking the same route, seeing the same shops and people, just turning a different corner may alert you to a new discovery. Something that brings joy to you and that you never knew was right around the corner because you simply never walked that way.
I ran into this friend a year later and his life had completely changed. He looked happy and was living more proactively. He told me he started walking a different way to work and one day he ran into an old college friend who alerted him to an opening available at a design firm. He applied and was offered the new job and now loves the work he is doing. He thanked me and went on his way. 
The lesson being that because we are creatures of habit, it's easy for us to become complacent, especially if life affords a certain amount of comfort.
We recreate our lives every day we wake up from sleep. No, it's not a completely blank slate, that would be too much.  But the little ways we create our days begins when we wake up. Taking a minute to say I love you to yourself when you look in the bathroom mirror to walking or driving a different way to work. Try saying hello to stranger and be surprised by the extend of power you have to respond to the world around you.
May you be blessed to experience more of joys and wonders of life.

Self-Healing through Repairative Medicine

Krista Tippet on Being is a radio program broadcast by American Public Media on National Public Radio. In New York City, her program is aired on Sunday mornings from 7-8am.  I know there are podcasts that I can download and listen to whenever I want but there is something special about the ritual of waking up early on a Sunday and have a hot cup of coffee and thinking about the deeper quests of understanding life and our place within the greater sphere of existence.
Tippet's program name has recently changed from "Speaking of Faith" to "Being", a curious but seemless shift in language that doesn't alter the material of the program but gives it stronger roots in the present. Today's program was about stem-cell research and the remarkable insight that Doris Taylor still doesn't understand the cell but is able to watch it renew itself. She says we could spend the next 30 years trying to figure out how they work or we could allow the cells to do what they know how to do and save lives. This program also goes into the amazing observation that the blood changes to create positive cells during meditation.  The second part of the program focuses on the healing potential of the body and the positive effects of meditation on the body's stem cells.
Hearing this additional information reminds me of a remarkable experience on the Ms Westerdam during one of the meditation workshops I had given.

photo courtesy of

30daysofhealthandwellbeing.com.au

Eloise, a graceful passenger and former nurse, was attending the workshop to explore a practice that has been recommended to her by her doctor to lower her blood pressure.  Out of the 10 participants, 4 were currently suffering from high blood pressure. Yogi Bhajan always said not to believe him on faith but to try the practice for yourself and see what it can do for you.
Eloise brought her portable blood pressure monitor and tested the four for their blood pressure before the meditation practice and then she tested everyone afterwards.  Well not only did they simply feel relaxed and happy, their blood pressure had dropped significantly to healthy levels.
It was a small and informal test of the possibilities for the body to heal itself if we give it the opportunity to do so. Too often we get in the way of our own healing because we refuse to TAKE THE TIME OUT that the body needs to repair itself.
It doesn't take a lot of time but it takes intention and discipline but the changes you can impart in simply three minutes of one's life can change the outcome of the stress we receive. Instead of destroying us, we can renew ourselves and truly reach for a greater, more fulfilling life.