Oh good morning. My mug is really kind of plain today. I do like the simplicity of it. It feels nice and smooth. It’s always about how it feels, but more than anything I wanted to show you this. This is my new yummy, yummy, yummy coffee from the Breaker. I ordered it the day before yesterday, picked it up yesterday, full of beans, grounded, so yummy.
But that plainness, the simplicity of my mug is kind of where I’m at today. My TGIF, my plan wa,s to do a yoga class I actually taped one. I didn’t like it. I’m just not feeling the vibe. I am sorry and I’m going to not make this a Debbie Downer video but I’m just kinda just here. There’s just a little wave that’s going through me, and it’s going through my sleep. The past two nights have been really yucky, I think generally the past month I haven’t really slept phenomenally. And prior to that, I was a girl that could sleep six out of seven nights, no problem.
But there’s just that little, I don’t think I need to tell you, but if you have kids, regardless of what age they are, whether they are with you or they’re not, there’s just an uncomfortableness. There’s an uncomfortableness as providers, and as parents, and partners, and just living, and just within yourself, and I don’t really have any words. I really don’t think I’m in a place to have any words of wisdom for you.
But what I thought I would do, which was this whole week of sharing and caring, and being kind to yourself and just rejuvenating and taking the exercises or the conversation that I’ve given you this week. Take it, don’t take it. It’s OK, we get to do whatever you want. The idea is just for you to continue to feel full and replenish as you need to.
I started thinking though like, “what do you do Andrea?” Like what? I’m sitting here, I love to meditate. Sometimes I can’t. I think I was mentioning earlier that in 2008 is the first time that I had actually meditated, and I actually got into a place and I was like, “Oh my God that’s what it is!” It didn’t happen again for another four years. Couldn’t do it. I’d done it in a class, and then to do it on my own, I couldn’t.
It is a very interesting thing to step into it, but I’ve also heard so many people talk about meditation, and how you need to do it, and I just find I’m not really good with “need to” at any time. So, I found ways to do it myself. First I started with just listening on YouTube, just somebody talking through it. Deepak Chopra has a wonderful soulful voice and that I enjoyed, and some of the people that work for him, they have some free online stuff, and or you just find somebody who’s voice soothes you, and they can talk you through.
Meditation has no rights or wrongs to it. You can sit with your legs crossed, you can put your feet down, you can cross your arms. You can get cozy. I found in the past couple days, with the weirdness of the weather, I was so cold yesterday, so cold all day, even though I’d see the sun come out, and then I’d see a huge snowstorm happen. I felt like that was the roller coaster of how I’ve been feeling. I felt it was perfect and I was lucky though, I was inside, I could wrap myself up.
Well I woke up this morning, and I’m still in my sweats, and I have my favorite blanket, and I just want to be cozy. So, I’m just sitting here tight on the couch, and I was sitting meditating. But my meditation is really soft. It’s just allowing thoughts to come into my head, and then what I do is I just say, “thanks, thank you”, and then I just move them over. I just move them with my eyes closed. And I move them actually into a wardrobe, a really nice-looking wardrobe. A woody wardrobe, and I just say, “go hang out there, I’m not going to think about that right now”. I need to go back, I want to go back, to this thought.
So the other part of meditation is that my favorite is to…my most favorite place when I go to it in my mind is water, the beach. I love the feel of sand on my toes and I love the soothing sounds of the ocean or Lake Ontario or whatever it might be. The surf coming up to the shore. So with that I took, when I can’t think or my mind is spinning and spinning, I focus on a wave, and what I do is I take my breath or with that wave, and I take it out to a cap, and then I take it back in.
And so I’d mentioned earlier (Just Be) when I put my hand on my chest, and hand on my belly, I would count four breaths in and four breaths out. Well if that’s too narrow for you, you can now add to or simply try, breathing in to whatever you want that wave and peak to go to, and then let it out as the peak comes down, and the wave releases.
You can also look up on Spotify, your Apple music or wherever, and look at some music that just is, has waves going or maybe you like the idea of rain or birds chirping in the background. Whatever it is, find something that maybe soothes you, and that sound. I actually fine my diffuser really relaxing, it just is like a wave of air kind of going through. So whatever it is, allow yourself to just sit and quiet or somewhere. Hopefully you have that space. But what I’ve also been doing it, I’ve been doing it in bed as I’m trying to fall asleep. I close my eyes and I go through this wave of peaking and then releasing. I used to fall asleep with pods in my ears, and the same idea, I would put that music on and soothe myself to sleep.
The last bit that I have used, is I close my eyes, and I focus on a white light. You imagine the light surrounding you. It’s really simple. Simple in the sense of the simplicity but it’s not always easy to have it surround you. But it’s something to focus on and that’s really what meditation is, it’s a focus of something that doesn’t have a meaning necessarily or something that’s going to veer you off. It’s just something that calms you, and meditation is also about calming your breathing. It’s powerful, it’s relaxing in the most unbelievable way but it can also be very empowering.
I totally understand if you are somebody who says I cannot meditate I used to be that girl. As I had said, it has taken me a long time to get to that place but I think my biggest part of allowing myself to get there, with that, I had to do exactly that, I had to allow myself. I had to surrender to just being, and not judging. I used to judge it. Judgie, judgie, judgie.
And so I encourage you to allow yourself to try that. I spoke to you a little bit earlier this week about, I think it was our Thirsty Thursday (Just Be) and trying something new, maybe changing your ways, changing habits. This is something that I would really encourage you to do. Time frame? Start with a couple minutes. Some people put timers on, so they just put a timer on for five minutes and just allow yourself to sit. Hold your mug of coffee or tea and just sit in warmth and just relax. Just breathe. If it’s just breathing? Perfect, perfect, there’s no judgy judgy.
So I hope you enjoy your day. I hope you, you find some peace. Maybe today might be a day to get outside, it’s gorgeous out and it looks gorgeous out. We’ll see, hopefully no snow storms coming. But this week was all about taking care of yourself, and that is the best that we can do. And I’m going to actually leave you with a poem. This particular poem, I went to a conference in 1992, the beginning of me starting my business almost 30 years ago, and this fellow was speaking. He was an Australian guy, and I was so captivated by his accent, just delicious.
But I must say this particular poem has carried me all the way through for the past 30 years as I continued to step into a place of uncomfortableness or wondering if I was even worthy to be speaking to something. Because I don’t, obviously, clearly, I’m only living my own life. But it’s similar to Mother Teresa’s really famous quote, and it’s about just cleaning your own doorstep. Just focus on yourself, and let your light shine, and be contagious.
Here is the poem that I’m going to leave with you, as we sit and so many people are going through many different waves, like this week, and maybe perhaps where you’re at. Focusing on yourself, taking care of yourself is the best gift that you can be giving yourself, giving your family, giving your friends, your community, is take care of yourself first.
So here we go,
He said to “build a better world”, I said I would, but how?
The world is such a cold dark place and complicated now.
For I am small and helpless, there is nothing I can do.
He said, “of course there is, just build a better you”
– Author Unknown
And a better you is inward. It’s taking time for yourself, being your best self, listening to your voice. Happy TGIF, See ya Monday.