Setting an Intention

An intention is a thing intended, an aim or a plan.

During this time before the new year begins, it's common for people to pause and reflect on what happened throughout the year, how they spent their time, who they surrounded themselves with, and if goals that were set, were actually met.

For many years I've heard yoga teachers suggest setting an intention at the beginning of class as a way to help people remain mindful throughout the practice.

I interpret intention setting as a way to tame the mind by bringing focused attention onto one purposeful thought, want, need or desire that we wish to see actualized.

In 2014, I decided that setting intentions outside of yoga class, in day to day life would be just as helpful in keeping me centered on what my heart, mind, and spirit are longing for. When you set an intention, you actively engage these parts of yourself and allow them to speak to you so that you are able to know what it is that you truly need. The trick is knowing how to be silent and still long enough to hear what these parts of you are saying.

You can set an intention for just about anything you want to see happen in your life or within your own self. Set an intention for love, for peace, for prosperity, for the day, or even for the entire year. The simplest way for me to know what intention to set is to notice which thoughts come to mind most often or which thoughts I invest more energy in.

Here are a few intentions I set for myself this past year:

• Be fully present for others and to life as it is now

• Love others just as they are

• Love you exactly the way you are

• Trust that all is as it should be

• Surrender

• Accept

• Feel and Show Gratitude

• Believe

• Peace of Mind

• What I Seek is Seeking Me

Now it's your turn. Set an intention for 2015 and stay mindful on whatever it is. Happy New Year!!

Giving

The season of giving is almost to an end. During the month of December, I took the time to talk with my groups about giving by first asking them to reflect on what giving meant to each of them on a personal level.

The question I posed was, “How do you give?

Initially, the response was a room full of men with blank stares so I felt the need to further explain.

One of the things that most all of us have been programmed to believe is that Christmas is a time to shop for gifts so we actually have something to give to the ones we love. This notion that the only meaningful way to give is by spending money on stuff for others has changed the purpose of celebrating Christmas and misguided our focus on what giving this time of year is all about.

Jesus taught us that to give is to love and it is true that when we receive a gift from someone, we feel loved by them. The important thing to remember is that there are many ways for us to give to others that doesn't involve spending money, stressing about not having enough money, or feeling less because we don't have stuff to give.

These few words helped the men in group to understand what I was encouraging them to realize: That we have a wealth of gifts to give to others that exist within us, always available, and at no cost. These are the emotional gifts that make lasting imprints creating memories that often times mean more than any one thing you put on a shelf or store in a closet.

When we give to others from our hearts, the gift of Love is shared and truly felt. Isn't that the whole meaning of Christmas?

I think that is what Jesus would want all of us to remember on the day of his birthday. Rather than giving from having, we give from our being.

The group shared this list and so my gift is to share it with you.

What I Give is:

• Time

• Attention

• Affection

• Understanding

• Support

• Help

• Encouragement

• Knowledge

• Words that Express How I Feel

• An Open Heart

• Empathy

• Compassion

Letting Go

Have you ever noticed how you feel when someone tells you to “let it go?”

Try telling a child who is frustrated, angry or throwing a temper tantrum to “let it go” and see what happens.

There is something really powerful about these three words. Something that resonates with all of us or should I say, most of us when we hear these words spoken. There is a reason why the song “Let it Go” in the 2013 movie Frozen has gotten roughly 184 million hits on Youtube. Children of all ages love to sing this song, but why?

Perhaps it is because there is something we all know as truth and when we hear it, we suddenly feel a sense of calm and peace in our hearts and minds.

I think that most of us have heard something along the lines of... “When you allow yourself to really let go and stop trying to control the outcome of how you want things to be, things will just naturally begin to unfold and change for the better.” As much as I believe this, I still struggle with letting go. I struggle because uncertainty and feeling powerless can feel scary, uncomfortable, and extremely vulnerable.

Sometimes all I want (or my ego wants) to do is hold on tighter, react, overreact, speak my mind, justify, blame, convince, control. Anything to keep me from having to let go and rest in a place of simply being.

The difference between letting go and letting be is that there is a certain action involved with letting go, whereas, letting be is an openness and acceptance to just allow things to be as they are.

The next time that you feel yourself struggling with something internally or battling with your ego who wants to be right and whispers to you that your pride is more important than anything else...try telling yourself (and your ego) to let go and let be.

When we surrender and choose acceptance, we allow and make space for things to be just as they are. We live in the present and the outcome is the only one that really matters for the here and now- liberation, peace of mind, and trust that the universe IS working in your favor EVEN when it doesn't feel as though it is.

Think of letting go as your life saver and keep swimming through the waves.

SELF

This past weekend I attended the Texas Yoga Retreat for the 2nd time at the Hindu Temple formerly called Barsana Dham and now called Radha Madhav Dham here in Austin. It is a magical place where I had the pleasure of attending workshops with some of the most amazing teachers I have ever come across.

One of the presenters named Rahgu Clark struck me as an old soul with lots of wisdom and inner peace. He is a yogi, a minister, a kirtan leader, and an inspiring teacher who has been meditating and teaching yoga philosophy for 35 years.

The name of his workshop was “Tried and True Tools for Self-Realization” so of course I thought this would be a great resource for my work as a therapist and also for what I am trying to accomplish through Root & Connect. If I had to explain in one or two words why I started Root & Connect it would be Healing and Self-Realization.

One of the things that Rahgu said in the beginning of his presentation was that he had lived in many beautiful places in his life, but that now he was living in Dallas because that was where he needed to be to serve the Ananda community. He then said something that rang very true for me, “Wherever you are, you are with your consciousness.”

When I heard this, I immediately thought back to a time in the year 2000 when I saw a sticker somewhere that read SELF. I was drawn to this sticker and decided to keep it and put it in a place where I knew I would be forced to look at it daily.

For some reason, that word SELF really resonated with me and what I began discovering back then, was that finding my SELF and beginning my journey towards self-realization was something that I felt very passionate about and that I wanted to keep exploring.

During the workshop, it suddenly dawned on me that my path towards self-realization had brought me to this exact place with this enlightened teacher who was assisting me in deepening my own understanding of self so that I could then teach others the way to try and do the same for themselves.

My vision of Root & Connect is to help others in their personal development of becoming more grounded, centered, and comfortable while on their path of healing and learning to love themselves.

Lastly, this came to my mind and I wrote it down as I thought it worth the share:

Seek your purpose and serve others

Exist with intention

Love and learn

Find your path and fulfill your heart’s deepest desires

Meditation is...

• Unplugging yourself from the stimulus we call “Life”
• Taking your energizer bunny batteries out to recharge while you sit in stillness
• Looking into your own mind from the outside with a different lens that slows everything down
• Sitting on a beach and watching the waves of the ocean come and go without jumping on any one wave (or attaching to any one thought)
• A monkey that stops swinging from branch to branch to find rest
• Connecting to your breath
• Getting out of your head and into your body
• Focusing on your breath or on a mantra so that you are able to stop the jibber jabber we call “Thinking”
• Allowing your breath to be the master of your mind so that your mind can be a better master for your body
• Healing
• Feeling body sensations, aches or pains and learning to how to release what does not serve you
• Feeling, feeling, feeling
• A way to being less reactive and more Mindful
• Listening to your higher self
• Practicing silence while accepting that sounds can exist without becoming distractions
• Observing your thoughts without feeling the need to control them
• How I go inward to get back to myself
• A gift for all of us to practice at any given moment
• Freedom from being controlled by our thoughts
• A natural elation
• A state of calm and peace that we search for in every other place, but ourselves
• Wonderful for your mind, body, spirit, and emotions
• To root and connect

If you want to know more about one form of meditation and its health benefits,  visit http://www.tm.org/benefits-of-meditation

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Make Time for Time

Are you an “I don’t have time” kind of a person or are you an “I will make time for that” kind of a person?

Time is such a funny thing. Most of us feel as though we don’t have enough of it, when in reality, we all have just about the same amount. The difference between each of us is what we do with our time, how much we HAVE to do, and how much we also CHOOSE to put on our plate.

During group yesterday, one of the participants was talking about a church retreat he had just been to over the weekend. He lit up as he began to share the experience of feeling closer to God and ‘taking time’ to give thanks for all the ways that he has been blessed.

Something he said that stuck with me was that for many years he had been telling himself that he did not have time to go to church or get closer to God. He then said that he had had a realization during the retreat that saying he did not have time for God was silly when God was the one who was giving him time to begin with. 

This got me to thinking about how time truly is a gift. From the moment we are born, time becomes a permanent part of our existence and each day we are either racing against the clock or moving along with it.

Since I began to incorporate mindfulness practices such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing, pauses to notice my surroundings, and focused attention on the present moment, my view on time has shifted.

If I can be mindful when I am eating, exercising, cleaning, working, relating with others, and when I am with myself, then is it not possible to be more mindful about what I do with my time?

Bottom line: we make time for what we want to make time for.  Just like everything that you want to see happen in your life, it seems as though you have to be willing to make time for time just as much as you make time for your priorities. What does your list of priorities look like? Does it include self-care? Does it include time to slow down?

Think of it this way:  if you make time for your own wellness to nurture the parts of you that make you feel whole (complete), the people that you do dedicate time to will begin to notice that there is a better version of you that is more energetic, that feels good, and looks great!

Now who doesn’t want to spend time with someone like that? I know I do.

What is Fear?

The most common FEAR acronym I’ve heard is False Evidence Appearing Real. A few others I’ve come across are:

• Failure Expected And Received
• Few Ever Arrive Rejoicing
• Frustration Ego Anxiety Resentment
• F**k Everything And Run

Fear is not a useless emotion. It is something that we feel because our body is telling us that something isn’t right. It can sometimes serve as a signal that we need to take action or change something. Fear keeps us from being open to change and if we do not change, we do not grow. A wise friend of mine once said, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

The problem is when fear becomes all encompassing, it begins to interfere with our daily life and eventually becomes so much a part of our existence that we stop being the way we want to be and we no longer live the life we want for ourselves. Fear gets in the way of how we make choices, how we treat others (and ourselves), and how much we are able to practice acceptance of what is.

You may have heard that Fear is the opposite of Love, but I consider Fear to be the opposite of Faith.

When I have faith, I am trusting that everything is happening just as it should. When I feel anxiety coming on, I recognize that it’s my fear and my desire to control the outcome of things. When the outcome is not what I wanted or expected, I feel disappointment and notice that my self-confidence goes down. It’s a vicious cycle, that gets me nowhere instead of now here.

My process for snapping back into faith mode and out of fear mode is:

• Check in and ask myself if what I’m thinking is real
• Take deep breaths to get out of my head and more present
• Feel and observe any emotional discomfort in my body
• Be mindful to what is actually happening instead of what I’m creating with my thoughts
• Repeat the mantra: TRUST and repeat over and over again in my mind
• Most importantly, BELIEVE that things are occurring just as they should
• Lastly, KNOW that all is good and that I am okay right where I am

Why Community?

The older we get the more we realize that service to others is the only way to stay happy. If we do nothing to benefit others we will do nothing to benefit ourselves.

~Carl Holmes – Politician

When Root&Connect came to mind, one of the things I thought would be an essential part of the program (or therapy) was the Community piece. If you look at the Root&Connect tree, you will see that the pinky finger has two people holding hands as a symbol for community. 

Through my own experiences in battling with depression, I went through various phases of acknowledging what it was, accepting that I had it, and finally learning how to overcome it by learning how to manage it in my life.  I discovered that doing for others was one of the best remedies to fend off depression and often times the anxiety that came along with it.

My path led me to join various groups and organizations where I could feel a sense of community while also becoming involved with things that I felt passionate about such as meditation, yoga, and gardening. Most recently, I have also decided to become a mentor for a child who is part of a mentoring program that serves children who have an incarcerated parent.

These are ways that I feed my spirit, as well as, take part in something that gives back and encourages me to connect with other like-minded givers. There is something inspiring and transformational about being part of a community of people who come together to serve with the sole purpose of doing good for others.

I see becoming part of a community as one of the keys to feeling true fulfillment, happiness, and health. When my clients begin to figure out what they enjoy or what makes them truly feel happy, I encourage them to get involved in it even it doesn’t mean that they are giving back in any particular way. Sometimes, the person they are needing to give back to most is their own self, and what better way to do this than by doing something they love that makes them feel good inside.

If you are someone who struggles with depression or anxiety or someone who feels like something is missing in your life, think about something you like whether it be music, gardening, art or even recycling. Nowadays, there is something for everyone and plenty of organizations or groups of people just waiting for you to join them in helping to fight for a good cause or just make things better for people and the world we live in.

Going Inward

‘Going inward’ is a relatively new term I learned through the course of my supervision and studies towards becoming a licensed professional counselor. The act of going inward is something that I have been diligently practicing since 2010, when I finally decided to buckle down (onto a cushion) and begin a daily meditation practice.

When I am working with clients, I begin most sessions with a mindfulness exercise to help the person root by getting more grounded within themselves and connect with their body and emotions through awareness of their breath.

Recently, I attended a mindfulness workshop where the presenter asked us to free write on what vulnerability is and what vulnerability feels like. Here’s what I wrote for both.

Vulnerability is: raw, open, scary, freeing, painful, courageous, truth, and connection. It is loving yourself enough and another enough to be, feel, and share the real you.

Vulnerability feels like:

-You’re ripping open a piece of your heart

-Unpeeling a hard orange

-Overwhelming

-Anxiousness in my belly

-Unlocking a treasure box

-Putting my sword and armor down

-Weakness and strength

-Removing a brick from the wall

-Being naked

-Fire and light

After writing, the presenter instructed us to close our eyes and see how we were feeling after having reflected on vulnerability and written about it. Going inward for me meant getting out of my head and feeling more of what was happening in my body. I felt my heart beating faster and pressure in my chest. She asked us to feel the sensations in our body and locate the place where we might be feeling emotional discomfort. She then asked us to soften into that place, then soothe ourselves by putting one hand on that place, and finally to allow for the discomfort to be there without being afraid of it.

The power of writing never ceases to amaze me. This exercise of reflection, writing, then closing my eyes to really feel and acknowledge what was happening inside is what I consider to be a beautiful path of going inward.

The next time that you feel angry, stressed, confusion or doubt about something happening in your life, try going inward and see what you find.

Remember these simple things: soften, soothe, and allow.

Where Do Your Thoughts Go?

There is an alternative rock bank from California that I like a lot called Cake. They are noted for their songs being composed of sarcastic lyrics with a wide-range of musical influences that include rock, funk, hip hop, country music, Iranian folk music, and even some Mariachi.

One of their best songs (in my opinion) is called “When You Sleep” and the beginning lyrics go like this:

When you sleep, where do your fingers go?

What do your fingers know

What do your fingers show

Where do your fingers go

In group therapy, I recently adopted a new ritual of presenting the group with one meaningful question to reflect on and then share as a way to break up the monotony and build cohesion. The result has been amazing in that this simple exercise has allowed the group participants to be more introspective and open, while simultaneously learning more about themselves.

The question for group this week was “Where do your Thoughts go?”

My intention for asking this question was to help them acknowledge and become more aware of the thoughts that take up space in their heads and keep them from living in the moment (being more mindful).

I had to explain further to one person in the group who stated that his thoughts were always different. I agreed with him before explaining that yes, we may have all kinds of different thoughts depending on situations that arise each day, but that for almost all of us, there is a tendency for our thoughts to regularly stick to 3 to 5 common themes.

The answers shared were very telling of how much we as people are much more alike than we think. Here are a few I thought worth the share:

“My thoughts go to: my mother who is lonely, my father who hasn’t spoken to me in 7 years, my daughter who lives far away from me, my ex-wife’s instability and if she will ever be able to raise our kids properly, finances, finding love again, if I have enough to pay the bills, my husband cheating on me, the land I want to own some day, the house I want to build, the death of someone I loved very much, my business and how I can make it grow, making my dreams come true, moving to Hawaii someday.”

Now, it’s your turn.

When you live, where do your thoughts go?

What do your thoughts know

What do your thoughts show

Where do your thoughts go

Depression is to the Mind what Cancer is to the Body

I heard about Robin William’s death Monday evening on my way home from working with a client. When I heard about how he died, I instantly felt this wave of sadness come over me and my eyes watered up. The first thing I thought was that his depression had gotten the best of him.

Even though I knew that he suffered from depression and struggled with substance abuse, for some reason…I thought that life and age meant that he had somehow gotten past that and learned how to better cope.

It seems as though many of us who were fans can recall the different times he made us laugh. As a child of the 70’s, I became a huge fan of his during Mork and Mindy days and loved him even more when he played the role of Popeye. I thought he was the perfect Popeye.

The irony is that Robin Williams played Popeye, who was a character with purposeful contradictions. He was often depicted as capable of coming up with solutions to problems that seemed too great to overcome. A can of spinach devoured and he would have superhuman strength to persevere in overcoming any obstacle that involved the guarantee of world peace or winning back his love, Olive Oyl.

There are many other roles where Robin Williams played a kind of hero that we all could admire. I think that the question leaving many of us in the dark is why Robin could play these roles of saving others, but when it came time to save his own self, he failed.

It seems like the most important thing to take away from a tragedy like this, is to note the crucial need there is for people to take mental illness more seriously. Just like the diseases of the body that health professionals and people treat with urgent care, so must we get to a place where diseases of the mind are better understood and provided the proper treatment.

After all, if the brain is the organ that acts on the rest of the body and forms the physical structure associated with the mind, shouldn’t we begin to look at this more closely and take into account that depression is just as harmful to our existence as cancer is?

Relation ships

I am fascinated with people and relationships.  One of the reasons, I studied journalism in college was because I loved hearing people’s stories.  When you think about it, people’s most interesting stories usually have to do with relationships.

From a very young age, I was naturally drawn to analyzing people by paying close attention to the way they looked, how big their noses were, how their voices sounded, how they used their hands to talk, what they talked about and why, all the way down to the shoes they would choose to wear. I was especially intrigued with how they interacted with each other.

What I didn’t realize as a child was that I was practicing psychology without even knowing it. Psychology is the study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting the behavior or attitude of a person. Our relationships have so much to do with all of these things- our mind, the way it works, how it affects our actions and the ways in which we treat people, places, and things.

Relationships play a huge role in our existence. Without them, we would all be coexisting without feeling any sort of connection to one another. Imagine how different your perception of yourself would be if you had no relationships to mirror you. The truth is that we know ourselves better by how we are in relation with others.  Everyone and everything is your mirror and knowing this can serve as a powerful tool for personal transformation.

How do you determine the quality of your relationships?

• is it quality time you spend together
• the kind of conversations you have
• how frequently you connect
• what you have common
• how much you know about someone or how much they know about you
• the experiences you share
• the amount of give and take (I scratch yours and you scratch mine)

Relationship building is an art. It takes time, effort, curiosity, empathy, and love. Relationships are like plants, the more you nurture and lend your attention to them, the more beautiful they grow and hold space in your life.

Recently, A wise man shared a great metaphor that inspired me to write this. He said that the child life is a ship. The mother is the hull, the father is the rudder, the grandparents are the sails, and the child is the captain. What I took from this is that we all need relationships to survive.  

Feel to Heal

Most people don’t like talking about feelings. Many of us grow up in households where uncomfortable situations and feelings get brushed under the rug and so we are taught to bottle things up.

During my anger management group, we often discuss the effects of what happens to people when we swallow our words, ignore or shove our feelings down for the sake of forcing them away. Usually what results from this is a lot of sadness, anger, fear, and even sometimes shame or guilt that often manifests itself as anxiety or depression.

For some reason, our society holds this notion that if something doesn’t feel good or pleasurable, then it’s not worth talking about or focusing attention on. We go to great lengths to avoid feelings that make us feel uneasy, uncomfortable or scared, when in fact these are the feelings that desperately need attention and compassion from us.

What I have discovered to be the best remedy for uncovering feelings that have been repressed and ignored for years (maybe even since we were kids), that could be getting in the way of us experiencing life peacefully are the 3 S’s:

Silence, Stillness, and Spaciousness

When we are silent, we allow for our higher self to think and speak to us. This is our intuition that seeks to guide us inward so that we can identify feelings and get curious about why they exist.

When we are still, we are better able to connect with our whole self and discover that anger doesn’t just live in your head, but resides in your body as well. This can often contribute to why we have aches and pains, along with tightness and tension in particular areas of our body.

When we stop resisting silence and stillness, we then create space for our deepest thoughts and feelings to arise. In this spaciousness, we can give real attention to what these thoughts and feelings want or need from us. Quite often, what they need most is to be accepted instead of pushed away. They need to be genuinely felt, expressed, processed, and even befriended so that they can slowly begin to dissipate from the system (our whole self).

Even though these thoughts and feelings may cause you discomfort or pain, keep in mind that the pain is only temporary. Pain is fleeting just like everything else. Try not to be so afraid of it. Without pain, we would not know joy. Without fear, we would not know love.

As far as I know, this is a true path to healing. You can try to take short cuts and go around, but eventually life will find a way for you to have to go through it and feel to really heal. 

Don't Believe Everything You Think

During a really difficult time in my life, a colleague/friend of mine referred me to his therapist. She lived in the hilly part of Austin and her house was nestled among trees and greenery. It felt like the perfect place to escape to where I was always received with a warm welcome and a smile.

Even pulling into her driveway offered a sense of relief because undoubtedly I knew I would be feeling better after being there. One thing I noticed that remained stuck in my mind from those visits was the bumper sticker on her car that read, “Don’t believe everything you think”.

I remember the first time I read it, I had to reread it again and then really contemplate its message. See for many years in my life, I was a walking head. I was completely consumed by own thoughts and perceptions of how I saw the world. I put a lot of stock into what my mind would tell me whether good thoughts or bad thoughts, I believed them all to be true. I mean they were my thoughts after all so why would they lie to me?

Well, the truth is that our minds do think a lot of things that are often not true and many times, it is up to us to put a stop to the thoughts that bring us down. As a school counselor, I explained this to kids by asking them to imagine all of us having an angel and a devil in our minds. One says things that make us believe in ourselves and feel good, while the other attempts to fill us up with fear and doubt.

It’s funny how our perspective constantly changes depending on our life experiences. We may read or hear about something that seems new and maybe even difficult to comprehend at first. Then a life experience happens that changes us and in the process, changes our complete outlook and understanding of it.

One of my yoga teachers would frequently say in class during practice, “You are not your thoughts”. At this point in my life, I know this for certain. My thoughts are simply a part of me. I have the choice to believe the good ones and shoo off the ones that weigh me down.

Whenever you catch yourself thinking something that causes you strife or worry, ask yourself “Am I 100% certain this is true?” And remember our mind will play tricks on us if we let it.

Listening with your eyes, ears, and heart

How good of a listener are you?

Active listening is a form of communication that assures understanding, where the listener confirms what they hear from the speaker by repeating what they have heard in their own words.

As a school counselor, whenever I went into the classrooms to give guidance lessons on the importance of good self-esteem, showing integrity or how having empathy could keep you from being a bully, I began each lesson by asking the kids to listen to me with their eyes, ears, and hearts. Some of them would look at me with confusion wondering what the heart part was about and I would explain that listening with your heart meant to really care about what was being shared.

The simple act of my asking for their attention by looking at me, hearing me, and caring about what I had to say, was enough to shift the focus in the room to just me and my words. The truth is that it felt really good to have this kind of undivided attention, feeling as though my being there all of the sudden had much more meaning.

In my working with adults as a group leader for anger management and domestic violence prevention, I work to teach people communication techniques such as active listening to resolve conflicts in their lives. During our sessions, members of the group often don’t realize that they already know how to actively listen even though they may have failed at doing so in their personal relationships. There is something about being in a room with a bunch of strangers who are sharing stories of why they ended up in jail for flipping their lid that intrigues people and entices them to really listen to each other.

The moral of this story: We all know how to be active listeners. When we actively listen, we learn more, we connect better with others, we practice empathy, we may avoid conflict, and we allow others to feel heard and seen.

Isn’t that what we all want?

The next time you are hanging out with a friend, at a business meeting, engaging with your kids, talking with your mom or dad or spending time with your sweetie, remember to be present enough to listen with your eyes, your ears, and an open heart. 

Disconnect to Connect

This is Sasha. He is a big fat neighborhood cat who I recently just met and who now spends most of his time outside my front door, laying around all day waiting for people to feed and love on him. I’ve been a cat lover all my life and one thing I know is that when I am in the presence of a cat, I immediately feel more calm, relaxed, and lovable.

Whenever I get home from running around all day, no matter how busy I am, I take a moment to connect with Sasha. I run my hands through his fluffy fur, chat him up a bit, and enjoy listening to his melodic meows. He seems to revel in these few minutes of attention I give him and meanwhile I appreciate that he reminds me to slow down and connect.

To connect means to bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established. For me connecting is a kind of give and take. Isn’t that what life is all about?

Nowadays more than ever, it seems as though we are connected to a lot of things that are not actually tangible. Don’t get me wrong, the interweb is an astounding invention that I use just as much as the next person.  The thing is that the connections we make through technology cannot substitute for the real connections we need as humans to feel alive and nourished.

Just a tip: Try disconnecting from all the things that distract you from being present and take some time each day to connect with something more solid and substantial. The calm you will feel is worth every minute you spared. 

To be Rooted, or Not to Be

This picture was taken a few months ago when I went back to one of the most beautiful beaches on earth- Playa del Carmen. The beach is a place where I feel most rooted because it is so natural for me to ground myself through the calming effects of the sun’s rays, swimming in the ocean, listening to the soothing sounds of waves, and connecting to the earth when digging my feet into the soft warm sand.

I think of the beach as a playground for stimulating our five senses. When we can connect to our sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, we are experiencing a euphoric sense of freedom as we tap into what makes being human and alive so fascinating.

To be rooted is to be established deeply and firmly in something. Besides being at the beach, there are a few other places and things where I feel inspired to grow roots.

I see these roots as links to what I consider to be most important for my physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional growth.

 Here is a list of what makes me feel more rooted each day:

• Breathing
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Mindful eating
• Helping others to heal
• Writing about what I know
• Believing
• Trusting
• Letting Go
• Being present
• Giving
• Caring
• Savoring the moment
• Connecting with others
• Connecting with myself
• Learning
• Novelty
• Riding my bike
• Being outside with nature
• Loving others
• Loving myself
• Feeling gratitude

Think about it:

Where do you feel most rooted?

What inspires you to grow your roots?

Today

"Forget yesterday - it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow - you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift - today."     ~Steve Maraboli

Today’s insight of the day seemed worth the share. What I like most about it is that it personifies the past and future while inviting you to practice mindfulness- today. When we allow ourselves to be in the moment, to open our eyes and really see all that is around us, we are being mindful and present to what is. The here and now becomes our reality being the only thing that really matters and so…we are able to relax and LET GO of all expectations of how we think things should be. We let go of our need to control the outcome and in the process we feel less anxiety, less tension, more ease, and more fulfillment.

This practice can be a natural part of your everyday. It’s simple. Just open your eyes and connect with the moment by focusing your attention on what is right in front of you. Take it all in and allow your thoughts to be solely about what's happening right then and there.

Mindfulness can change your life and view of the world. People, places, things, animals and most of all nature will take on new shapes, vibrant colors, and more meaning.

Stop. Look around.  Connect. This IS it.

Depression and Gratitude

For a long time now, I have subscribed to a few websites that send daily emails with inspirational messages that usually change my perspective on things for the better.

In my recent blog post called Daily Gems, I mentioned a few things that I try to do each day to nurture and ground myself. Reading these inspirational quotes is one I left off.

This particular quote below is one I received from Bob Proctor’s “Insight of the Day”.

"It is impossible to be both grateful and depressed. Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up."   ~Steve Maraboli, Author and Speaker

I share it here now because I felt it to be a very thought provoking statement, especially for someone in my profession who deals with depression quite often and is in the business of using mindfulness practices to help others heal from their depressed state of being.

Have you ever looked up the definition of depression? I did. What I found was that depression is a depressed or sunken place or part, a prolonged sadness, and a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal.

For me, what this says is that depression is when there is a part of you (inside you) that needs to be explored, given some attention to, nurtured, befriended, and maybe even forgiven.

What I mean is that there is a certain part of you that is disrupting the whole system you are made up of because it has been ignored, stuffed, numbed, shushed, or beaten up with harsh words from others and perhaps even your own self.

When this certain part or parts of you have finally had enough, they depress (push or pull down) you because they feel saddened and so they begin to make you feel sunken.

Once our system has experienced this for some time and reached its wit’s end, I believe in the power of talking it out, connecting, and finding ways to feel gratitude.

Talking it Out- Through counseling, you are able to tell your untold story (or stories) that sit inside of you and cause you to feel agony.

Connecting- Through counseling, you are able to connect with someone who will listen to how you really feel inside, support you, and teach you how to have compassion for yourself and befriend the parts of you that are sunken or disheartened.

Gratitude- No matter what, there is always something to be grateful for. During times of deep sadness, even the simple act of being outside and admiring nature can help you to make small shifts from darkness to noticing that there IS still light and beauty in your world. 

These are some of the key things that I hope to offer people through Root&Connect.

Had I not experienced depression myself, I would not be able to write this with such confidence in knowing that counseling, along with nurturing the whole person (the system) is a true way to feeling good that does work. My goal is to help others so that they are able to wake up each day saying goodbye to depression and naturally feeling gratitude for who they are, the life they live, and the world around them.

This post is dedicated to some of my loved ones, as well as, the loved ones of others.