I've created the habit of doing every single one of these...just never at the same time.  Who says you can't do it all at once?  It should be like riding a bike, yes? 

Join me in a month of Efficiency and Peace.  What do you do that feels really productive with little effort and creates ease and peace in the process?  Please share in the comments below.  I would love to know!

Here are mine...all starting tomorrow...again! ;)

Things that work miracles in creating peace and efficiency in my life:

1)Meal planning once a week

2)Writing MIT list the night before (Most Important Things list- 3 things- that's it!)

3)Getting up early...like 5am every day and allowing myself quiet, reflective time, reading or writing time BEFORE the day begins with my girls or the days tasks

4) Cutting fruits/veggies, prepping and storing all snack foods for self and girls once a week

5)Light exercise...a walk or some yoga poses, shaking or dancing once a day

6) Looking at the week ahead on Sunday

7) Looking/assessing at finances (personal/biz) every day even if it's a quick check

8)Prepping any necessities for girls the night before...dance bags, lunches, etc.

9) Meditating at least 15 minutes every morning

10) Flexibly blocking my work and Mama schedule and sticking to it, staying singularly focused whether I am with girls or with a client, exercising or online

11) Technology breaks. No tech on Sundays and finishing up online by 10pm.

Welcome June...my birthday month!  Woohoo!

Tonight I let the sadness come.

I feel disconnected from my children, still there and going through the motions to feed and bathe them but distant…

And tonight I choose gentleness.

Instead of judging and condemning myself again…

For disengaging…

For self-preserving…

For closing my raw heart…

I forgive.

I walk to fill up another glass of milk and I say…

It is okay. 

You can distance yourself. 

Your heart matters too.

So I do.

And I soften.

And I am gentle…

With myself and

Even more so with my children.

I float up and just keep moving.

Allowing this space from the intensity of the ground level…

And it is okay.

I still love.

I still feel peace and presence…

I don’t want to stay here forever…

Too many years were spent floating and removed.

But for tonight

It is okay.

It is a welcomed reprieve.

An ethereal breath.

I love and forgive me tonight.

Tonight I let the sadness come.

Tonight I choose gentleness.

What is the ONE thing you can do to invite more presence, pleasure and peace into your life?

That’s right!  Just as the title explicitly states, “sit your butt down!”

Meditation.

Just the word brings up so many feelings for people.  It sounds nice, but what does it really mean and do I REALLY have to let go of ALL my thoughts?

Impossible, right?!

WRONG.

I’m not going to take this time to tell you the thousands of benefits of meditation, the different kinds or products, apps and novelties you can use to enhance your sitting meditation practice. 

Here are some links for those who are interested:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/meditation/HQ01070

http://www.mindvalley.com/blog/announcements/the-greatest-innovation-in-meditation-in-3000-years/

http://noetic.org/topics/meditation/

I AM going to give you simple steps that anyone can do no matter rich or poor, stationary or mobile, ridiculously busy or perfectly balanced.


Here is a short simple guide to sitting meditating:

 

1)    IMPORTANT:  Give yourself permission to just sit.  This is crucial as our western mind is always coming up with better things to do with our time before we’ve even fully experienced what is right in front of us…what we are doing right now.  So trust you inclination to just sit and that all good things will come from it!

It sounds something like this in your head – “All I have to do for the next 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes is sit and breathe.”

Then if your mind still needs a reason – “I am doing more good for myself, my family and the world in these 5 minutes than I am rushing around like a like a crazy person for two hours not really accomplishing anything of meaning!”



2)    You guessed it!  Sit your ass down!

Here’s the kicker – it doesn’t’ matter where! You can make a “sacred space” or alter or find a beautiful setting for sure, but I can tell you I wasted years NOT meditating looking for the perfect spot!  I used to sit under our fig tree but since we moved into a 700 square foot apartment, I now wake up, put my butt on the pillow my head was just laying on and sit criss-cross-applesauce first thing in the morning.  You can sit on your patio, on the floor, next to your kids as they drift of to sleep…. it doesn’t matter, just SIT STILL.



3)    Sit as tall as you can, spine towards the sky.  If this is uncomfortable, then screw it!  Just sit. :)



4)    Close your eyes. Um, yeah, that’s it. J :)



5)    Breathe. In and out.  Inhale and exhale.

You do NOT have to breath any particular way!  If your mind needs something to do simple say to yourself, “I am breathing in” (yep, when you are indeed breathing in) and “I’m and breathing out” (you guessed it, when you are exhaling). 

That’s it.



6)    ***EXTRA CREDIT FOR YOU OVER ACHEIVERS***

 

SMILE! :)


Do it once a day for a week and I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below! 

Do you think anyone could do this?  Too hard?  Too easy?  Just right? 

Thanks for making the world a better place by sitting yo’ ass down!

 

Happy New Year!   This post is inspired (read poured onto my notebook) by the 10th week and final week of The Presence Process.  If you often find yourself seeking appreciation and approval of what you do,  what you know or who you"be" in this crazy world this post is for you.  Through writing this, I was able to FINALLY feel and embody appreciation of myself last Thursday morning. Perhaps you won't have to take yourself though such an intense process and purging in order to embody this by writing your own letter.

Dear Leslie,

I appreciate that you lose sleep over minor injustices done to kids on the playground and brainstorm ways to make it right in the wee hours of the morning.

I appreciate that you see clearly the illusion of separation between humans as well as between humans and nature.  I appreciate that you try to fill in the gap with love, acceptance and truth and fiercely commit to shaking people (however ineffective sometimes) from their slumber.

I appreciate that you feel things deeply, sometimes painfully, blissfully and almost always viscerally.  I appreciate that you attempt to communicate these Oneness experiences with the intent that others may understand the ridiculousness of continuing the belief of the illusion of our separation.

I appreciate that although you fail over and over in filling this gap...bridging the worlds, that you continue to try over and over (many times to your own detriment and that of your family).

I appreciate the purity of your intentions and motivations. 

I appreciate the love you feel to and through your bones for humanity and the earth. 

I appreciate that it feels hard sometimes to not have this recognized consistently by the outer world.

Dearest Leslie,

I now give you permission to just be.

You have in your body the perpetual feeling of love for other and world, I now give you permission to stop trying,

to stop filling,

to stop bridging,

to stop fighting,

to stop sharing,

to stop talking,

to stop proving,

to stop giving away the love and peace and presence that has been gifted you from God and the Universe.

I give you permission to hold that love, presence and peace in the chambers of your physical body,

allowing them to filter through every system, replenishing and growing to overflow so that your be-ing becomes a natural expression of service, love and peace wherever you go.

Rest now, love.

Peace,

Leslie

For lifetime upon lifetime I was nurtured, grown, groomed, prompted, forced, beaten, raped and tortured, encouraged and demanded, patronized and cohered into being a very strong and powerful woman.  In THIS lifetime, being a strong and powerful woman has meant fitting into the masculine archetype, structure, idea and reality of what strong and powerful mean.  My body is beginning to violently reject the generations of control and even the subtle (cordial) manipulations of our current time and space.

 

I forgot my indigenous and tribal roots!  My natural and animalistic blueprint that burns from the depth of my being… “You have given life to ALL!”

 

Today I remember.

 

I let my rage, anger and fear teach me.  I allow it to come to the surface, be expressed!  I have felt remorse and become curious…

 

Curious about “why” it was even there and “how” to tame it (NO MORE TAMING)!

 

And I felt, really felt and I remembered…and I lived….and I learned  ...am learning.

 

In this lifetime I am again made to be a strong and powerful, influential leader!  Yet there are no maidens waiting to brush and braid my hair, bath my body and anoint my feet.  There is no one to tighten my corset and arrange my features in a statuesque manner as to please the men and masses.

 

It is up to me to care, to take extreme and luscious care of myself.

 

This is my work.

 

I have ruled over souls and kingdoms.  I have been the muse and master.  I have been the willing courtisane and confidant of many through which my hidden voice made it to the ears that mattered. 

 

Yet I have never ruled over my own body. 

 

This is my work.

 

I have held meetings in public and in secret, led counsels, kept schedules and agendas to meet the expectations of armies and royalty.  I have had time and space handed to me on an elusive golden platter that dictated my comings and goings to the good of all! 

 

And now my body yearns for timelessness.

 

My body desires to feel safe enough to relax, receive and return to it the compassion that sustained empires.

 

And that is my work.

 

To dispel the illusion of my own mind and practice – every day and every moment caring immaculately for my own body, mind and soul. 

 

To relax into my reality to allow the show to go on…because it must.

 

It must go on and I am the river, trees, mountains, caves and fields of wildflowers through which it lives.

 

My body, my sacred system cared for exquisitely can and will contain the illusion as it undoes itself.

 

No more fighting.  No more rage.

 

Only unwinding…

 

 and peace.