Tag: meditation

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A Little Hiccup in the Road

We finally made it to Germany. I can’t believe November 12 was one month already. We had a temporary apartment for the first 30 days while we looked, and looked, and looked some more for a rental home.

We finally found one and we moved into it on November 10. The day before my hubby came home from work sick to his stomach. We thought he had food poisoning. He kept complaining of the side of his stomach hurting. After spending a night in our new rental home freezing because the floor heat and radiators weren’t working my hubby went to the urgent care on the Army base. I didn’t go because he thought he’d be home that night. He ended up texting me telling me he was going to be hospitalized for a blocked intestine!! WHAT?!! He had the rental car. How was I supposed to go there? WHY didn’t I go WITH him??!! All of these things were going through my mind.

Luckily his immediate boss and wife helped me out. The wife came to get me to bring me to the hospital to get the keys to the car. I confessed I hadn’t yet driven the rental car; I had driven our landlord of the apartment car that was an automatic. She kept going in these roundabout ways to get to the Army base. My anxiety started to spike and I wondered out loud can I drive home without getting lost, and drive the stick shift?!! We ended up at her house to pick up her husband so he could drive the car back to my house. We all (FINALLY) got to the hospital to see my hubby. He confessed the doctor told him it might be stomach cancer. Trying to not show my anxiety I put on my brave face. I don’t want to bore you with the details but if the medical plan wasn’t going to work they would have to do surgery.

Here’s the thing with anxiety. It likes to LIE to you about everything!! You can listen to it or you can say no I am going to look on the positive side and everything will just have to work out. I didn’t want to believe we had our dream come true to move to Germany, and then have something bad happen to my husband. A lot of things kept entering my mind while I lay on our air mattress at night!! Our household goods still aren’t here so we are “camping” out.

Things that helped me out:

  • TAPPING (EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE): In the Tapping Solution APP I tapped on releasing anxiety and release overwhelm.

MEDITATION: On bringing in Light and love, and Appreciation. After my appreciation meditation, I wrote in my journal all of the things I appreciated and was grateful for.

This helps me to calm my anxiety down and keep my mind positive instead of dragging me into a dark hole. I have been there before, I don’t like being there. I know to take care of myself mentally and physically as well. It’s been a lot of trial and error, but I now know what I need to do to keep staying positive. It’s just like exercising every day. We need to work on being mindful. It’s easy to think of all the bad things that could go *wrong*. But I don’t want to dwell on that. Why should I? It will just add more stress and anxiety. And luckily none of those things came true. So I would have just worried for nothing.

If you ever go through something stressful please be gentle with yourself. It takes time to change your thinking to be mindful. It takes practice. I recommend doing 1 meditation or Tapping exercise and repeating it as necessary. Try to stay in the moment as well. Try not to dwell on the future. If you do gently bring yourself back to the now, and here.

What are some of the things you do to stay positive?

Here are 2 good Apps to have in your collection.

  1. Tapping Solution: This has really good subjects to TAP on. You can pick the category that you need for that day.
  2. Gabby Bernstein: this newly redesigned App has meditations, lectures, and a journal.

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Change In the New Year, Change Your Thinking

It’s that time of year again when everyone wants to start new year’s resolutions. Then after a few weeks they forget about them, or think it’s too hard to continue.  

How can you be successful when wanting to have a new year’s resolution? What do you need to be successful? 

First, Let’s think differently. Let’s call it an intention and not a resolution.  

According to the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary (a New Year’s) resolution is defined as: a promise to do something differently in the new year.

Intention is defined in the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary as: the thing that you plan to do or achieve: an aim or purpose. 

How do we achieve a goal that we want to do for the New Year? I have several steps that I personally have applied to my goals, and they have worked for me.

First, write down what you want to start. If it is not written down it will not count. You have to state your Intention. What is it you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve it? And finally, how are you going to achieve it? Writing it down is sort of a contract with yourself. You will be able to see clearly what your intention is.

Writing down the why and how will mentally prepare you to start your intention and achieve it. You can clearly see a roadmap while writing it all down. If you focus on it mentally you will be able to feel it emotionally.  

If you feel it emotionally you will be able to achieve it better than saying to yourself what it is that you want to achieve. Your brain will be able to make sense to what it is you want and it will be easier to adapt to the new skill that you want to do. 

 You can change your thought patterns and your beliefs by becoming conscious of your unconscious thoughts and behaviors. 

Then you can choose to experience more positive emotions and less negative ones. 

Second, Meditate. Keeping calm will help you keep focus. It will help you stay in the present moment and not the past or the future. 

Third, Keep your thoughts in the Here and NOW! If you feel yourself thinking about the past and how you had failed, direct yourself to think about NOW and what you want to achieve!  Envision your goal. Do you want to lose weight? Think about what you will look like after a few months of working out and changing your eating patterns.

You have the power to control your own mind, a power that has been withheld for your entire life and it’s time to take your power back. 

Next month, on my blog I am going to write on how you can stay in the Present and what to do when your thoughts keep going to the past, or the future.  

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How to Survive the Holiday’s during grief

For me, Christmas is really hard since we lost our son to cancer. He loved Christmas! As soon as the ads would come in he’d circle everything! He had to biggest smile you could imagine!

Now I just have the memories. How do I, even you, get thru the Holidays without that loved one, and just a memory?

First, Meditation! Sit and send LOVE to yourself. Send LOVE to your heart. Send LOVE to your loved one.

Second, It’s ok to grieve. There is no timetable when we need to be “over” grieving! I was watching a Hallmark Christmas movie with a woman with 2 kids that lost her husband, and the kid’s dad. She moves back to the town near her mom thinking it would be good for them. The mom pushes them all to decorate for Christmas, and to celebrate Christmas even though she keeps insisting she is not ready! The mom finally gets fed up with the pushback and says “It’s been 2 ( or3?) years since he died! You need to celebrate Christmas!! I turned it off after that! The lady is heartbroken and needs to grieve. She needs support from her family. She doesn’t need someone to tell her to get “over” it! I was told to decorate for Christmas after my son passed away. I didn’t want to! It was horrible enough to not have him there but to decorate would bring up all kinds of emotions! My friend told me to do it for my other 2 kids. They deserve to have decorations. She was right, they did deserve it. We deserved new traditions as well as the old traditions. We were a new family unit of 4 now instead of 5. We needed to find out what we all liked and loved again about the Holiday. We went slow and small. We tried to make it special but we talked about our son, their brother, as well. We didn’t shut him out. We let him in. It’s ok to be sad and grieve. Don’t push it away. It will fester and you will have bigger problems ahead mentally.

When my brother died in my first year of community college and my younger sister was in High School my mom pulled away from us. I remember years later when my younger sister said “it was like we weren’t even there!” She said she wanted to scream We are still living!!! I vowed not to let that happen to my kids. I wanted to be there for them as well. It sucks! It really does! But live in the Present Moment and give love to your loved ones. Slowly it will get better! It will never be the same, but it will get better.

If you are emotionally and/or physically drained ask people for help. We don’t have to be superheroes all of the time. We can rest and take care of ourselves physically. Take an Epsom salt bath with lighted candles. Buy a new book or find an old book that you love, and want to read again.

I love journaling and meditation, and also EFT (Tapping). This is a tremendous help to get through the hard days. I love having Tea with lavender or Rose in it. I have 2 rose quartz that I love putting on my chest while I meditate. For so long I always took care of others and neglected myself. It was my time now.

If you are worried about the future. Start watching your thoughts and bring them back to the present. Enjoy the time right now. Focus on what is in front of you, and who is in front of you. Don’t judge yourself when you need to remind yourself again to stay in the present moment. Be kind and gentle with yourself. You are retraining your brain from years of worrying about the future.

You and your family deserve time to live in the present with joy and love. Give yourself that gift. It doesn’t even have to be wrapped.

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season filled with Love, Light, Happiness, and Peace. Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself time to heal. You deserve it.

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Have less stress according to a cat

During the unsettling time of COVID and the lockdown, something good came out of it. We bought a house in July around the corner from our rental.  Since moving to Southern Florida 3 years ago, we decided to put our roots down. Having stress can be in many forms whether it’s from working at home, not able to go out like we did before, or moving. Watching the cats settle into the new house taught me some valuable lessons which I highlight below, and reduce my overall stress.

Naps: My cat was happy when he got a nap with me. Even if you set the timer for 20 minutes can help with fatigue. Rest is essential when you get grumpy. Removing yourself from the situation can help with the anger, or stress, that you are feeling.  

Schedule: Sticking to a schedule is essential as well. We went to bed early every night. Meditating, and exercising in the morning helped me feel better and less stressed. Keeping up on our green juice every morning once I unpacked the juicer helped with the fatigue. I felt ungrounded when I didn’t meditate or say my daily affirmations. It took me a while to work it into the schedule because I wanted to unpack the house first. When I set up my office space, I set up my altar in there too. Once I had my own space I started to feel safe and worked meditation into my morning routine.  Exercise is essential for me as well. After the move, I would take a walk in the morning for as long as my body wanted to. I didn’t overdo it. Some mornings I only walked 10 minutes. Unpacking was an exercise in itself!  I now do my Pilates and walk on alternating days. Having a routine helped the cats as well. They crave routines as much as I do. They know what to expect when I stick to a schedule.

Play: Play helps relieve stress that you didn’t even know you were holding onto! Every night before bed the cat and I would play Tag (yes he plays Tag with me! ) and then we would play with the laser. We would run up and down the hall having a blast. It helped both of us sleep better at night.  It helped both of us unwind from the day.

Nurture: Our chiropractor reminded us that we needed to take a break from unpacking on the weekends. She reminded us that we should just chill, watch a movie, or Netflix.  She reminded us we would be in the house for life, and we would have time to get it perfect. Comfort yourself in the only you know-how; the work will slow down enough for you to see whatever you are going through and will work itself out in time. The cats were happy because they could lay with us and relax as well.

Indulge: When you bring harmony and balance into your life it helps with your heart rate and helps you feel relaxed. Relax in a nice bath with healing essential oils and mineral salt. Go for a healing massage. Get a manicure and a pedicure. Breathe deep and let your concerns drift away. Here in Southern Florida, we are lucky that we can do these things again while wearing a mask. I have been lucky to not experience a lot of people while at the spa. My massage therapist only allows 2 clients into her business at a time, and I am happy that she puts in the effort into keeping us all safe.

Garden: Our cat loves to go in our little back yard to relax and enjoy the sunshine. While tending to the earth helped me release the stress. I would breathe deep and let the sunshine take my worries away.

Fuzz The Cat