Have you ever noticed how your head and your body seem to often be in two different places at the same time?
Choose to arrive here and now.
Be in your body.
Follow your breath as you inhale.
Exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
I recently sold my house and I am living for a few weeks in a friend's apartment.
She's in Portugal for six months and she kindly offered me her space while I wait for my place to become available.
Inhale.
Exhale.
It took me less than 24 hours to discover a few important lessons.
The first is how odd it feels to live in someone else's space.
I'm beyond grateful that she's let me use this space and yet it just doesn't fit.
This is not me.
This is not my life.
I keep thinking.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Have you ever tried to live someone else's life rather than your own?
It's easy to do.
You see someone else's life in a magazine on Facebook or you hear about their amazing new job or love or you get bombarded by messages that say,
This is what a happy life looks like and it's where you have to buy,
Achieve,
Strive.
Inhale.
Exhale.
What might your life look like if you commit to being the most you and letting other people live their lives?
Inhale.
Exhale.
The second thing I learned has to do with power.
When I woke up my first morning here,
I put English muffins in the toaster and turned on the timer.
I could hear it tick,
Tick,
Ticking away.
After five minutes,
There was a little ding.
I went to retrieve my breakfast and it was still cold.
I did the same thing again.
Nothing.
That's when I realized the toaster oven was not plugged in.
Inhale.
Exhale.
How often are we caught in the tick,
Tick,
Ticking of time without being plugged into a power source?
I'm not necessarily talking about the divine,
Although that could be the case for some.
But this has to do with how we are in the world.
Are our lives run by the clock,
By a frantic sense of toil?
I'm late.
I'm behind.
I have so much to do.
Run,
Run,
Run.
Inhale.
Exhale.
How can you make sure you are filled with good energy that brings light and warmth into this world?
What can you do to feel full and charged rather than cold,
Dark,
And empty?
Inhale.
Exhale.
The last lesson has to do with connection.
My friend doesn't have Wi-Fi.
She lives just close enough to the university where we teach that she can get internet sometimes in one spot in the entire apartment.
Now this could prove frustrating for me at some point,
But for right now,
It's a perfect metaphor for meditation.
The more I run here and there in my life,
The more I strive to do,
The less connected I feel to my true self and to others.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The demands and pressures of the outside world can leave us feeling fragmented,
Broken.
If you turn in and take the one seat of meditation,
It might not always be perfect bliss,
But I think there's a much better chance you'll get a strong sense of connection to all of your wisdom and to what really matters.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Be still.
Be you.
Plug into your power source.
Find your connection to yourself,
To your breath.
Be still.
Be you.
Live Light.
