We have a chance to change things for a more unified future

where all things integrate homogeneously.

Where we each play a unique note in the universe’s tune

- a tune which is not complete if we do not add our own part

~

We are as much a part of the world as anything else

we are each equally important

- as is our contribution, our song

~

We know the song we each need to sing, we just have to admit it to our selves,

pretty soon,

as more people begin to live their own song, their own vibration

a harmony will begin.

and all our unique songs will band together

in unison

like a dawn chorus.

Wonderful in variety yet beautiful in the way each compliments all others

~

Enjoy

Those who wish to sing always find a song ~ Swedish proverb

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This post was first published last year but after the events in Japan I found it appropriate to put up again.  It is good for us to realise that we are all one, all interconnected.   Each of us plays a part in the world and what we do is important.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same ~ M Williamson

Each man has his own vocation, his talent is his call.  There is one direction in which all space is open to him ~ Emerson

.Other postings you might like to read:

• 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
• Money talks…what does yours say?

~

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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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

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

Although we are already ten days into 2011, for a lot of us, today marks the first day that we move out of holiday mode and back into our usual routine.  Being on holidays and enjoying all the festivities and seasonal delights that come with the end of a year is good fun.  Yet for myself [and I would venture to say many others] I am ready to get back into doing things of a more productive nature, too much of anything can become same old same old.

Often, that is one of the points of festivities, especially long ones like Christmas.  We enjoy the late starts, late nights, too much food and general moseying around doing not much except catching up with others and doing nothing in particular.  As non focused and uneventful as that may sound it is in itself useful and necessary; we all need periods of downtime to recharge and to reach a point of feeling that we have relaxed and feasted enough.  We become fed up with and almost yearn to be back doing activities that nurture us and add meaning to our life; to wake up in the morning with the knowledge that we have stuff to do, to learn, to offer others.

We have partaken of all the stuff we thought we would like more of yet after a short time we realise that too much of it is not what we really want; it offers us no long term satisfaction.  It merely emphasises that that which is external to us is only a tool to enable us to nourish our inner self.  That external pleasures and material objects are fleeting and should be used as an aide to our inner journey; not as a life in themselves.

So I wish you all a wonderful 2011 filled with learning and enjoyment.  Take it easy yet at the same time march onward with purpose doing what you are called to do.

Live your gifts, that is why you have them.

Enjoy

photo by Sean McEntee via Flickr

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Some of my posts from last year you might like to read:

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

Live your  song

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

..

No matter how slowly a duck or even an insect moves on a pond, ripples will still be made.  Movement other than that which is created by the mover will happen.  The water cannot help but to react to what ever is moving through it.

So it is with life.

No matter how quietly we may feel we move through life, what we do [and don't do] ripples far beyond the immediate spot we fill.  Tiny waves of energy emanate from our movements, meeting with energy that has originated from others to create new movement that neither may ever know about.

We may feel we live a non eventful life, that we achieve nothing spectacular, historic or dramatic during our day or our time here on earth.  Yet the energy which flows from us is powerful.  It continues to reverberate long after we are gone in a physical sense.

The life we lead and our attitude to our time is precious and powerful.  Use it wisely; send forth good energies – for they live on after we have finished with them.  They continue to create when we no longer can in a physical sense.

photo by Dawn via Flickr cc

idttmosvr

Some other postings:

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

Earlier this week I was reading a post on a blog by a lovely lady called Andie which is 101 things in 1001 days.  Andie has 101 goals to accomplish and one of those goals is to list 100 things that make her happy.  I thought that was a great idea and it inspired me to pen my own 100 things.   So later that day I sat down and began to write type, all the while picturing myself feeling happy and listing all the pictures and feelings that came into my mind.  One hundred of them flowed out pretty easily – there was a bit of a pause around the #28 mark when I looked at the number wondered if I would get to 100.  I didn’t try to list big or ‘deep’ things as I believe it is in the small that our lives are lived, moment by moment.  Happiness is felt in the now and I wrote the list from the place of what gives me happiness as it happens not so much what makes me happy over the longer term, though a few of them crept in as well.

My list was varied and I shan’t bore you will the complete 100 but shall give a few snippets to give you the gist.

#24 having a computer

#25 the internet

#96 travelling and holidays

#26 watching a good movie

#5 being me *flicks hair over shoulder*

#87 eating sushi in one of those places where it revolves around [love this]

#72 all the possibilities that are ahead of me

#88 warmth from the sun

#17 when I achieve a life time goal

#4 feeling loved

#36 going to sleep

Making the list reminded me how much happiness I have in my life [thanks Andie].  A lot of the things on my list cost nothing; they are gifted to me – like love or warmth from the sun.  Happiness is truly in the way we view things.  If we look for the goodness in all things that is what we shall find and being grateful for what we currently have in our lives instantly makes our life great.  Life is good if we decide it is good, similarly if we decide everything in our life is crap then a crap life is what we will get.

Whether we currently feel we have a little or a lot [especially in a material sense] if we look at all that makes us happy we instantly have a lot, we instantly live a rich life.  When you go shopping do you bother looking at the stuff to don’t like?

~ You might like to do your own list of 100 things that make you happy or even share some in the comments section below.  Either way it is focusing you on what is good and great in your life.  Sending the signal out to the universe that this is your life, your happy life.  What you focus on expands as they say, so focus on the happiness in your life and watch it grow.

Enjoy

above photo by renaissancechambara via Flickr [cc]

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Some other postings you might like:

Happiness, fulfilment – what’s stopping you?

Life is in the doing not the having

Allow your inner voice to speak

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#101 my ‘official’ two cups of morning coffee always makes me happy

photo by ballistik coffee boy via Flickr [cc]

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Expectations are slippery characters.  In themselves they are fine but it is how we attach ourselves to them; or them to us, which imbues them with a power which can be hazardous.   In one way they can be good in another not so good.  The good way with expectations is not to hold on to them too tightly, not to incorporate them too deeply into the part of us which resides in the physical world.  Savour an expectation, feel it arise  within and visualise its outcome, let the  mind know this is how we would like things to be.  Expect good things of our self – to be and do all that we believe is possible [and then some]……. then set the expectation free.

What we expect is usually what we get, though sometimes not in the form we expected.  If we do not get what we expect then we must not be disappointed or downhearted.  Expectations send out a message to the universe that this is what we want or think we deserve; yet if we do not let go of them, they cannot go forth to do their work.  They will not come back to us for they never left to be fulfilled.  However, by fearing our expectations will not be fulfilled we doom them to failure by not  letting go of them.

Expectations must be taken on board then released, that is their way, the way.  Expectations are powerful and can have a positive effect on our life, yet if we do not set that power free it turns inward.  It builds in us and consumes us as the weight of increasing unfulfilled expectations are pilled higher and higher upon ourselves, by ourselves and our inability to release them.   They are made to move, to be free and to wander – their energy doing its work in freedom.  They do not operate when caged; they are inhabitants of the open.  They only like to rest upon our thoughts momentarily before taking flight again to spread their goodness.

~~ So by all means enjoy your expectations and have high ones but remember you do not own them, they will do you the most good by letting them go.  They are like a summer breeze, touching you for a moment so you can shape how they flow but always and ever they are free flowing.

Enjoy

Photo by: lucyfrench123

You might like reading another post I wrote on expectations

Great Expectations?

Some other postings:

Happiness, fulfilment – what’s stopping you?

Life is in the doing not the having