Ahh 2012 …. don’t you all just love a new year?

Of course all moments are a new beginning but there is something essentially symbolic about starting a new number when we write the date.  Plus I love … let me rephrase … I LOVE starting a new diary with all the fresh pages and filling in all the reminders.  Small things delight me, what can I say…

After all the excesses of the last week or two I’m definitely ready to get back into living a more economical life again.  All those mulled wine, chocolate filled and yes I will have another slice days are over and to be perfectly honest I say good riddance  … I don’t know about you but I get a bit bored with it all after Christmas Day.  My thoughts turn to newness and activity around the 27^th Dec and I like to go into prep mode.  Unfortunately I still carry on eating all the bits whilst prepping so by the time the new year actually begins I am not only ready mentally to move on but my body is as well!

Each year I like to set an intention or two for the year; not a goal but more of an underpinning for all my choices.  This year my main one is to have greater awareness & understanding about the wider effects my decisions have [especially with what I choose to purchase] my second one is to be a whole lot more proactive when it comes to getting things done – basically to be a bit more gutsy/ballsy.  All up I’m excited about the year ahead … it’s going to be a great one! 

What are your intentions for 2012?

Some previous postings you might like to read:

•  Delight in all the turns of your life
• Simplicity Thursday – 5 things to do whilst boiling the kettle
• 20 ways to make life harder

*cue round of virtual applause*

Last week the lovely Olga over at Self Expression passed onto me the Versatile Blogger Award – thanks O

It is a real feel good award as I am now here to pay it forward and let you all know of some of the other bloggers I think are great as well.

There are a few rules when accepting the award:

• Thank the person [well that is just manners isn’t it?]

• Share 7 things about yourself [err..am I not notoriously known for being mysterious?]

• Pass it onto 15 other bloggers [ for those who regularly read my blog you will already know I am also known for simplicity and keeping things concise so I shall pass it on to only five]

• let the other bloggers know you have chosen them [will do]

Seven things about me:

1. I have completed 55 out of my 100 lifetime goals

2. In my first year of studying philosophy at uni the teacher spoke so far above all of our heads that after a few weeks a few of us felt we had to speak up and say that we didn’t understand what she was talking about …to which she answered ‘what do any of us understand?’ and continued to teach as usual

3. When I go to a restaurant I will always order something that I haven’t eaten before or will try a local dish where possible.  My favourite food: seafood and cheese.

4. My great great great grandfather was a Scottish sea captain who had 21 children by three wives.  He was widowed twice and I am descended from wife number 2.

5. I have eaten frog legs in Scotland and snails in Paris

6. My favourite movie is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off….all time favourite bit is when they cut to the graffiti on the school bus  at the end of the movie which reads… ‘Rooney eats it’   It gets me everytime

7. Until I was twenty years old I thought everyone drank tea out of a tea cup and coffee out of a mug!!

I’ve picked five terrific blogs to pass the award onto that I personally like reading and find useful.  There is no pressure for any of the recipients to do anything with the award except receive it in the spirit of gratitude in which it was given.

Beyond Karma – great thoughts and great comments too

Jungle of Life - Lance always has a great story to tell that is amusing and enlightening

The Happiness Business – Hilda’s thought of the week is always good

Productivity Bits – great practical tips on improving productivity

The Moonskin Journals – heartfelt thoughts with lovely artwork

Be mindful and enjoy

Some of my other posts you might like to have a look at:

Are you utilising this moment?

1:55 minutes of reconnection

Being productive and mindful – 20 one minute to dos

you can check this poster and all the others out in my e-shop

Mindfulness is the energy of awareness.  It is being conscious of the existing moment. Of living life deeply throughout each day, of being fully alive, right here in this now.   It is being at one with what we are doing and also with what and who is around us.

Being mindful is to be in touch with the experience of what we are feeling within the present moment.  To be aware of it without judging or contemplating it.  To not try to figure out what is happening or why we are feeling what we are feeling but simply to observe the moment that we find ourselves in and be with it.

It is a way of living that can be incorporated into our lives at a pace that suits us.  We don’t have to go the whole hog straight away for it is an understanding, not a thing.  It is a connection that we make with our own life.  A way of living which we invite in which fully enriches our life and enables us to live it as best we can.

Mindfulness can be incorporated into our daily life easily.  It can be fitted in to the busiest of lives as easily as it can be into a life that is slower paced.  It is as simple as taking a few breaths upon rising.  It is reading this post and just reading it………and then when you have finished reading it, move onto something else.  It is about doing what we are doing when we are doing it and not thinking about the next thing we have to do instead.

This week try to incorporate some mindfulness into your life

Enjoy

Other posts you might like:

• Being productive and mindful: 20 one minute to dos
• Work is life and life is work: it’s all balance
• Look for the oneness in others today
• The external journey is so passe

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This month marks two years since my blogging debut.  It has gone by very quickly and I have enjoyed posting and learning things of an online nature.  It has also been educational for me from a personal angle and this has certainly been the case over the last twelve months in particular.  As a result I have evolved and am ready for new pastures and new ways to explore life and all it offers.  Ready to delve further within and see what comes up or comes out; ready to see what I can let go of so as to be ready for what I can receive.  I am excited.

I would like to become more creative in what I do and to branch out into other areas and see what happens.  With the blog, I have decided to focus a bit more on two areas: mindfulness and productivity.  This carries on from what I have been blogging about over the last two years but sort of streamlines it a bit more.  The blog was always an ‘exploration of how to find a happy medium between the internal and external aspects of who we are as a whole human being’ and whilst it will still be that it will be less broad.

As I have been dabbling into both these areas for some time my awareness as well as their importance has grown and together that has brought me to the changes I would like to make.   I am really looking forward to broadening my own knowledge in both mindfulness and productivity as well as passing on things which I trust will be useful to you and help you on your own journey as I move along on my own.  To define the changes to the blog I will be altering the blogs name to Mindful Productivity [mindfulproductivity.net].  This will take place in the next few weeks or so as I have to work out how to do it all first   I would also like to change the theme a bit so I can use more photos etc.  So stay tuned and we can see how it all turns out together.

If you have any comments about the changes or things you would like to see on the blog please leave a comment as I would like to make it as good as possible.

Enjoy

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photo by bikehikedive via Flickr

other posts you may like:

Some of life’s rythyms

Are internal possessions cluttering your space for potential?

The external journey is so passe

Look for the oneness in others today

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It’s a foggy old morning outside today [see above pic] – sort of how we can feel sometimes within ourselves.  That misty feeling we get where we cannot seem to see things clearly.  Where if we try to look too far ahead of where we are it all seems blank, murky and unsafe.  A time when taking it slow and being a bit more cautious seems thrust upon us like a big heavy blanket, weighing us down as we walk.  All around seems to say ‘be still’.  When the fog comes to our surroundings, quietness seems de rigueur, the wind doesn’t blow, the birds don’t make much noise and there never seems to be anyone out and about.  Nature appears to shut down, to have a post slumber slumber…sort of a Sunday lay in even though it may not be a Sunday.

Yet often these foggy mornings give rise to a fabulous afternoon of glorious sunshine; one which seems to have more hours in it than it should, appears to last longer and ends up being very productive.  There appears to be more life around, more movement, more laughter and activity; the lethargic fogginess of the previous hours is long forgotten as we make use of the bright sunshine that now seems to cocoon us and inject us with cheerfulness and vitality.

So, if like me, you are feeling a tad foggy this Monday morning – brace yourself.  The haze will soon lift; our inner sunshine will shine bright and where earlier we could not see what to do next we will soon be seeing into the distance.  Imbued with renewed energy after our inner lay in……ready and eager for all that is ahead.

Enjoy

photo by B

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Some previous postings you might like to read:

Life is in the doing not the having

Delight in all the turns of your life

Simplicity Thursday – 5 things to do whilst boiling the kettle

In the silence are all the answers you seek

20 ways to make life harder

Every now and then, the tussle of showing externally what we understand and know within can feel like trying to blend oil and water.  No matter how hard we try it seems to not make any difference to our current actions.  Our inner calm will not be heard and we react in the moment instead of making a conscious decision and acting from a centred point.

Hard enough as it is to struggle with self imposed hurdles and boundaries, those which appear to be put in front of us by others can often be even harder.  When confronted by people who we perceive to be ‘pushing our buttons’ we can become frustrated and our reactions can intensify over time.

Yet, if we take a moment when we are not in reaction mode, we can see that all things/people/events etc are presented to us as an opportunity to learn; to grow.  That maybe, our increased frustration towards a certain something or someone is merely a combination of that opportunity making itself a bit more obvious [because we haven’t already learnt from it what we should] and our external self puffing up to appear larger to meet the assumed threat to its dominance.

If we wish our inner self to grow we should recognise the learning and growth in all; especially those situations where we may feel we need to inflate.  As a defence a toad can puff up until it is too big for the predator to swallow.   What sort of defences do you put up when confronted by the actions/attitudes of another?

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Photo by Sam Fraser- Smith via Flick (cc)

Some previous postings you might like to read:

Life is in the doing not the having

Delight in all the turns of your life

Simplicity Thursday – 5 things to do whilst boiling the kettle

In the silence are all the answers you seek

20 ways to make life harder

Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote

for the kind of world you want

During last week I posted the above Anna Lappe quote on twitter.

It got me thinking about the power that each and every one of us wields when we choose what to spend our money on.  For myself, and I am sure for countless others, not many days go by when money isn’t handed over for something – a bill, a coffee, petrol, groceries &c.  Over the course of a year or lifetime, it all adds up to an awful lot of pats on the back to other people and companies.  It adds up to a massive ‘vote for the kind of world we want’.

Often we may feel that we – the individual – cannot make a big difference; that our singular voice will not be heard amid big business and big money.  Yet, all companies need turnover and each of us that make the choice to give custom to a particular business is a part of their turnover – less support from us =  less business.  So how we choose to spend each and every penny or cent of our money is a way of us having a say in how we would like the world to be.

So next time you hand over cash or click on the ‘buy now’ button for something which is, say 10 euro/dollars/pounds, think more along the lines of you giving 10 votes instead.  10 big pats on the back to that company or person to continue doing what they are doing.  10 big thank yous to say we like and approve of how you produce your product.  It is our money and therefore our choice.

Money talks…..make sure yours says what you want it to say

Enjoy

Photo by Richard Heaven via Flickr

Money is energy.  We give energy [work] and get energy in return [money] then we go and trade that energy for another form of energy [food, clothing etc] which in turn was created by others giving their energy [work].  The question then becomes – When we give over our money energy what sort of product energy are we getting in return?

.Some other postings you might like to read:

Life is in the doing not the having

Delight in all the turns of your life

A great life is only a choice away

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January is passing by rather quickly.  Well, it isn’t actually passing by any quicker than a day at a time but it feels like it is!  So far it has been a busy time for me, not so much doing things for myself but rather choosing to do things for others….is that procrastination or altruism?  I am a bit concerned it might be the former so I shall knuckle down this week and get cracking on some projects I would like to complete in the next few weeks.  I feel for these last weeks I have been treading water, not making a lot of ground, but that is of my own choosing – whatever the day brings is my own choice.

….In life sometimes we do things we may not wish to be doing.  Nonetheless we have a choice and all the choices we make, make our life.  Even if we feel we ‘have no choice’ we still have a choice about how we feel about it, how we approach the task.

If something has to be done then we may as well enjoy it; life is made of all the moments we live and not just the ones we think we enjoy at the time.  Life isn’t just made up of our holidays, weekends or romantic dinner evenings; it is also made up of the times we mop the floor, do the weekly food shop or scrub the loo; of the time when the proverbial hits the fan and when it is ‘just one of those days’.

Therefore, it makes sense [to me at least] to find something within all of these things which we do enjoy or which we can learn from.  At the end of our days here on earth, if we looked at our life from the point of the relaxing and ‘good’ bits then it would be one short life.  For most of our time we are maintaining what we have, keeping things at a level which we feel comfortable with, which nurtures and sustains us.

So find in the mundane the beauty of your life.  Embrace the wonder that is life itself.  Choose to love all you do, all you are.  Bring to it that which only you are able to; for with all things, each of us plays a vital role.  We all matter all of the time; whether we are creating something new or preserving the status quo.

Enjoy

Whatever crops up for us we are capable of navigating, of deciding not only on our course but on how we choose to sail the seas.

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship ~ Louisa May Alcott

Around about this time of year, my thoughts often start to wander as I begin to recall what I have accomplished during the year and if there is anything I would like to put extra energy into and finish up before the year is out.  With you know what fast approaching, it is a good time to get jizzed up about any projects that you may not want to carry over to the new year or have to bother with during the coming festivities.

We all need a bit of a boost every now and then and with only nine days before December begins it is a great time to flick the old inner switch for a bit of extra motivation/power.

I really enjoy all the stuff that goes on during December and try to make the whole month about catching up and doing nice things with friends and family – sort of like a bonding month.  Of course other more mundane things still need to be accomplished but even with those I try to imbue a sense of seasonality into them – after all, it is about enjoying life and not just going through the motions.

photo by fRandi-shooters via creative commons

Some previous postings you might like to read:

Life is in the doing not the having

Delight in all the turns of your life

Simplicity Thursday – 5 things to do whilst boiling the kettle

In the silence are all the answers you seek

20 ways to make life harder

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Well, helloooo to all   It has been quite the while since I graced the virtual pages of this blog and I am glad to be returning.  I am giving my typing fingers a try out today to pen a few lines in an effort to reacquaint myself with things and for you all to reacquaint with me.

Much has happened to me – both externally and most certainly internally – since I was greeting you all weekly.  My inner journey is beginning to mellow slightly now though, my ascent is not as steep and I am getting back this week into doing many of the things which I did prior to my sojourn.  However, as with many things that happen to us in life and this most certainly is the case with inner growth, I feel I carry a new attitude with me this time as I go back to things that were once so familiar.  Possibly, not so much an attitude but a deeper understanding of my own place within this world along with a redistribution of the hierarchy of what is and is not important in life. 

2010 thus far, has really been quite the humdinger for me and in all I have learnt a lot about myself – from experiences, from revisiting my teenage brain and from people telling me their impressions of me from years ago – all very enlightening.  Whilst some of the external happenings have been upsetting and unexpected, they were none the less all part of a journey.  A journey, which for the most part, I was a mere bystander to; not the ‘main attraction’. 

Although my role was crucial it was also to be secondary.  It is, I feel, about understanding that sometimes when we give of ourselves we do so, so others can fully receive.  That it is in our acceptance of not being the centre and asking for nothing in return that we are gifted with both the knowledge of another’s depth as well as an insight into our own.

I am looking forward to getting back into blogging as well as catching up with some of my Twitter friends and inspirers who I have greatly neglected of late.  I have been toying with some new plans for on here so I will keep you all posted and we shall see together what road we/I/the blog takes. 

Enjoy

photo courtesy of Scott*eric via Flickr [cc]

A few of my previous blogs you might like to check out:

Life is in the doing not the having 

Delight in all the turns of your life

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