8 Tips for Holiday Mindfulness

So often when planning for the holiday season we can get stressed. Whether dealing with family dynamics, planning to navigate holiday parties, or fitting in family time in busy holiday schedules. So I have put together a list of mindfulness tips to help reduce stress and bring a calming peace to your holiday season.

How to Let Go? Learning to Surrender Differently

You were born in the age of Ignorance – the more you know, the more anxious you become, the more you try, the more energy you lose. Sounds familiar? This is what most of people’s lives looks like. You believe that getting more knowledge and putting more effort is the only way to reach something in your life. But is it really true? Haven’t you ever noticed that when you give up trying so hard, things starts to flow? When you give up a desire, it finally manifests in your life? Well this is what the so-called Golden age is about.

Kirtan Kriya – The Art & Science to Heal Mind, Body & Spirit

Kirtan Kriya is given for everything from breaking negative mental patterns that hold us back from achieving our dreams to establishing emotional balance, heightening intuition & increasing radiance. It also will help to release deeply held impressions from past negative sexual encounters, cleanses the aura, arc line & psyche. It reestablishes your aura as your own, gifting you with clarity, joy & vibrance. In fact, this meditation is considered the highest meditation for a woman in the teachings of Kundalini Yoga and was one of the first meditations that Yogi Bhajan, Master of Kundalini Yoga taught.

Engaging With Engagement

‘Engagement’ is the current name of the game. In Education, for example, students need to be fully engaged, and research staff need to be engaging with the wider community. Excellent. It’s common sense, but useful to highlight such needs and to commit to satisfying them. But . . .

From my observations, engagement is in danger of becoming just the latest in-thing that achieves very little. Why? Largely because it will be treated as the latest flavour of the month, in a short-term programme with a well-meaning intent and appealing words . . . but without really understanding what’s actually required.

Do I Hoard? How Do I Stop?

Do you hoard? What is the first answer that comes to mind? What is the first visual image you see when you think of the word? Let us first look at the definitions of the word hoard to give us some perspective before we dive in a little deeper.

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Forget the Size – You Are Beautiful!

I was a fat girl. In middle school, I asked my mom if I could go to fat camp. I wanted to lose weight and for once in my young life be a skinny girl, so away I went. I clearly remember that first mortifying day when all of us kids lined up – girls in leotards, boys in swim trunks – to take our “before” photos. We got weighed and measured, our fat pinched, every unwanted inch discerned. Our “calories in” were counted to the milli-bite, and “calories out” were tracked with every step and jump in the exercise of our choice. That set me up for a lifetime of this-or-that new diet fad or fitness routine in my never-ending quest to be thin – to have that perfect body that every girl but me seemed to have. One summer in high school I decided to drink nothing but orange juice for a month. I tried my hand at bulimia in college along with several of my girlfriends, but wasn’t dedicated enough to stick with it. As with most women on this journey, I yo-yo’ed between 3 clothes sizes – my skinny clothes, my fat clothes, and my average clothes.

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Mindfulness

Do you text while driving? Even though too many people still do, I hope in your heart you can answer no. I think enough awareness has been created to know that as drivers, it is so important that we put 100% of our attention and focus on the road. But what about when you’re eating? Do you text while at the table? Perhaps catching up on Instagram over lunch or mid-bite you’re reaching for the phone seconds after that *ding*? Or maybe you’re not texting but you are distracted in other ways… What has your attention?

Your Own Reality Check

With so many untruths, if not downright lies being shared on social media these days, now more than ever we need a reliable way of separating fact from fiction. If we read something on-line, how do we know whether we can trust it or not?

The 10 Things That Each Made Me 10% Happier

It seems like everywhere we look someone is telling us how to be happier. Commercials telling us what we need to buy to be happier. Store windows showing us the look of happier. Memberships to buy happiness long term. So how does this manifest? Being told over and over what we need to be happy, ultimately makes us question what we already have. It’s like that dangling carrot we can never quite reach. So how do we actually be happier?