by Shiv | Jan 13, 2019 | life
Quick note to self as I sit in tranquility on a Sunday evening, perhaps it’s a note that speaks to you as well:
Appliances take batteries and electricity to charge, humans need love and friendship. When appliances run out of power they merely need to have their batteries changed, or be plugged into a power source.
If only it were that easy for humans-or is it? Is there a way we can plug in to get charged that we may have forgotten about?
We are living in a world of an uber-connected state. That is to say we claim to be connected, yet what if it is that very connection that is actually draining us of our power?
What if our true power lies in the ability to disconnect in order that we may reconnect, and in doing so, power up from the inside?
Sometimes the simplest way to power up yourself is to power down everything else-get offline, put the phone down, better yet turn it off, put it away. Airplane it, it will all be there later for you.
You don’t have to become a hermit, but you perhaps do need to find yourself a middle way-a way to be with it all and a way to be with all of you. This is where powering down to power up comes in.
If your inner power light in is on low, turning off your devices can be one way to charge yourself back up. In our Get Your Happy Back Reset Lifetime Membership Program we do four 40 days practices a year, working on small habits to bring about big change.
This season, as in many others, I am implementing a technology curfew-my phone has an alarm at 7.45 PM to let me know I have 15 minutes to curfew. I then put the phone on airplane. At 8 AM, another alarm sounds and lets me know curfew has been lifted.
That gives me 12 hours on and 12 hours off-I don’t look at my phone, nor do I check email and social media during the off time. You can make your own times, but imagine how you might feel not scrolling through your SM of choice just before going to bed, or immediately upon waking-and yes, this includes checking email as well.
Your nervous system will thank you in so many ways. Could some kind of technology curfew be just the power up you are looking for? What’s possible for you when you turn off the outside world and become open to what’s inside?
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or over on our FaceBook page. I will be back with Part 2, because there is more to you powering up than turning off your devices, but it is the place to start.
Alone we can do so much, and together we can do so much more. When we each share our experiences, we connect into the universal consciousness. And it is there that we can truly realize we are not alone, we are not the only ones feeling the way we do, and that there is a path we can each carve to find our middle way to be be more of who we were born to be.
Love you so much,
Sat nam
by Shiv | Jan 13, 2019 | Uncategorized
In my last post we talked about powering down our devices to power up our very selves.
But what if it’s not just your devices that are draining you. Other factors that can come into play are people, places and circumstances.
Perhaps you are feeling down, plain old dog tired, or just out of it in some way. Maybe you don’t feel like anything, in fact you might not even have words for the way you feel.
This is where our environmental check up comes in. Who are the people around you? Who are paying attention to, who is demanding attention from you? How do these people make you feel when you interact with them? Are you energized from the flow between you, or do you feel exhausted?
How do the places you spend most of your time make you feel? Think about being at work, at home and anywhere else you spend a good amount of your time. How do you feel in these places?
Put another way, which people in your life make you feel good, and which make you feel exhausted, depleted to even hopeless-we all have had people in our lives that make us feel like the world is doomed-when you are in a low power state this is not the energy you need to be around.
How can you have more of the former and less of the latter?
Check to see if you have the right friends connected, or maybe you disconnected them and need to reconnect. Check in with yourself after interactions, in person, online, or on the phone.
If you were a balloon, do those people fill you up, drain you, or perhaps even burst your balloon?
Then there’s the places and circumstances we find ourselves, some fill us up, and others make us crawl further back into our shells, not wanting to see the light of day. Sometimes this is an easy fix, and others it is a longer term plan.
Easy fix, or longer term plan, it all starts with an awareness of what is not working. Co-workers that only share the doom and gloom of the news cannot be turned off, but maybe they can be avoided. Don’t go to lunch with them, take yourself for a walk, listen to some uplifting (to you) music, gaze all the infinite sky above you.
Check the media that you are consuming. When I returned from my first trip to Mexico in 2000, I gave up newspapers, and magazines because I realized they did nothing to bring me up, they only made me feel less than in the case of magazines, and doomed in the case of the news.
Oh but Shiv, isn’t that putting your head in the sand? This is a question I am often asked. Well, in return I would question what good, and especially what change, comes from knowing all the news?
It all boils down to knowing what is within our control and that which is not. Does knowing and worrying make any change to the point in question, or does it just get you hot and lathered and in a constant bad news cycle spin? Is there a better way to make change that is more within your control?
I would answer yes, but again it’s a path each of us has to carve out according to what makes us feel better, but know this, feeling better is always within your realm of choices.
Sometimes the simplest start to feeling better is not dieting, stoppping smoking, changing jobs or partners, but to eliminate what does not feel good. For me it was the constant barrage of news I consumed from first waking up to the news on TV, to reading the papers on the way to work, and constant updates during the day, to going to sleep.
We were not designed to in a constant state of taking in information.
Our nervous system, our brain, our bodies, and our very being, need time to be-we are not human doings, but human beings, yet we seem to have lost the way to be in all our doing-ness.
When you allow a little being time into your life, it will ripple out to power you up from the inside out.
And then there is love. Not just love for a partner, but love for life, love for all beings, love for the beauty that surrounds, even love for the deepest challenges you face.
Love is the answer many of us have given up on. I know I certainly gave up on any concept of love in my life, be it for my surroundings, or a partner at my side. I often joke that when I gave up on love she came and found me.
How much love is there in your life? Have you, like I did, given up on love?
Or maybe you have love that is not really love but the idea of love-this can be a tough one to admit to, be honest, look at what you conceive to be love and how many conditions come with it. True love is unconditional-do you have that?
Where is love leaking out and where is it pouring in? Seek more of the latter, weed out the former.
Imagine a hose that is watering your garden of life. There is a constant flow of just the right amount of water in all the right places. Yet, over time, little leaks spring up in the hose, causing water to escape along the way.
Now there is not as much water reaching your garden, and weeds are cropping up along the way as you water the areas outside of your being.
You cannot repair leaks you are not aware of, so it always starts with an awareness, which often begins with taking an honest look and inventory of your life.
Life is a process, don’t beat yourself up for where you are.
You are where you need to be in order to go where you need to go. Celebrate how far you have come, and the awareness you are gaining from simply going within. See the possibility of the infinite unknown that stretches forth like a blank canvas waiting for your hand to form a picture, or let it be done by brush strokes, not leaving it all to the life that lives in a world of shoulds.
Time unfolds neither quick or slow, but we perceive it as so, and we catch ourselves caught up in the wheels of time and a life of “shoulds, wants and to do lists”, striving for the next carrot dangled in front of our tired and labored bodies.
Struggling to reach the next post but unable to live without doing so. Always “out there” without being “right here”. Having your very own definition wrapped up in a others opinion is never going to end pretty, and will always leave you striving for more and feeling less than.
What is it in the now that you are rushing to the future for?
Be here while you are here. The paradox is that there is always there, out of reach, but here is right now, you have here all the time.
The opportunity for miracles can happen at any tiny moment breaking open a world that felt stable and firm (this is when you should expect it to blow up, stable and firm is no life for you).
Miracles don’t come out of misery, they come from faith and hope. Dark halls that dim hope foreshadow miracles. Breathe. It’s OK. You don’t have to know it all at once. Shit you don’t have to know what’s in the next hour. Get to peace with that and so much more will fall into place.
It’s all in the name of blooming.
These notes to myself from Self are one of the ways I help myself create a life that feels better. Maybe there’s something in there for you too.
May your life bloom from your awareness that the power you often seek outside, is inside, and that the more you are looking for is not “over there” but in being “right here”. Often all we need to do is take away all that takes us away from being here! I do hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or over on our FaceBook page.
Alone we can do so much, and together we can do so much more-when we each share our experiences, we connect into the universal consciousness. And it is there that we can truly realize we are not alone, we are not the only ones feeling the way we do, and that there is a path we can each carve to find our middle way to be be more of who we were born to be.
Always in love and service
Sat nam.
by Shiv | Jan 7, 2019 | Uncategorized
It has often been said that the three things we shouldn’t talk about are religion, politics and money. I think we need to add a fourth topic, and I’d dare to say it’s probably the most volatile of the four-yep, I’m talking diet. Everyone has an opinion on what we should and should not eat, and some hold that opinion so sacred that they cannot conceive of anything outside of their ways and beliefs.
I recently shared that change has been knocking at my door with regard to my diet and health. If you missed that post, you can check it out here.
It’s easy to judge others for doing something different to what we believe in. It was not an easy decision for me to come to. But like all big decisions, I let it percolate and arise organically dealing with the information I have, and always checking in on the progress along the way.
After 16 years of being vegan, I have introduced a small amount of animal products into my diet. I could easily not have shared this, but you know me, I like to be transparent. Not only that, I have been around the raw and vegan health domains for long enough to know many well known advocates who do not practice what they teach and preach-don’t even get me started on this one!
I also knew it would likely get some scalding comments. I was not wrong, but I was surprised at the voracity of hate this topic can spawn. I share more of why I’m not vegan anymore in this video.
Now if you are vegan or plant based, please be mindful of how you address your comments. I am quite blown away by one person’s comments on the video.
Yes be passionate, but rude? No. Swearing and cursing at others? Not going to be tolerated-I still have to deal with the interchange this video caused between what can only be called a rude vegan and a meat eater…ugh…there is much compassion we can exercise when others do not follow what we think is right, but that’s another topic.
For now, I will share the original video and will be making a follow up to answer the comment thus far received.
In the meantime I’d love to know how change has knocked at your door? What mountains do you find yourself climbing over and over again? How have you dealt with the challenges change has presented, or are you still trying to find a way that works for you?
Maybe there’s change calling at your door and you’re scared to answer it because of what others may think of you. I totally get it. But I also know that the wisest voice is the one that lives deep within. Haters be hating. There is no right or wrong way, no matter what others say-one size will not fit all, and no-one but you knows how it is to walk in your shoes.
You know you are always welcome to come and share your tales with us on FaceBook, be it a public post, or private message.
Alone we can do so much, together we can do so much more.
Sending you buckets of love on this ever changing path.
Sat nam
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