Lesson 1
The Two Journeys
Something odd that seems to be happening as you were born into human hood is that you are on two separate journeys happening at the same time (maybe even more). The two journeys we will talk about are the journey of discovering the self, and the journey of discovering that the self you're discovering is actually only a very small part of who you really are. Another way of looking at this is by looking at your clothing. It's like most of my life, I thought i was my clothes (my personality) and as long as I thought I was my clothes, I felt a TON of pressure to make them perfect! Every time I had a stain or a tear, I would feel the need to run and "fix it". Until I started meditating. After my meditation practice really took off, I had all of these moments, where it felt like I had taken my clothes off, where there was no one there anymore. But I was still there! Or something was at least. So on it went like this, taking my clothes on and off. Throughout this process, as I started realizing that my clothes were simply "part" of me; I would put them back on, and feel a bit less pressure to make them perfect. I would still clean them up, and make them look pretty, but it now came from a sense of softness, rather than a sense of pressure.
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Lesson 2
The Breath And Our Perception Of Time
As a human on planet earth, you'll surely be breathing quite often. The breath is a fascinating part of our being. It's almost like its the bridge between our two layers, the physical and non physical. You'll start to notice that your state of being seems to be associated with your breath. Fast breath = Fast heart beat = Ready to run (or maybe already running). Slow Breath = Slow Heartbeat = Ready to relax and digest my food. This relationship seems to work both ways. When my body is activated, my breath is fast, and when I speed up my breath, my body starts to activate. This is the cool part! We all have access to our state of being, based on whether we want to influence our breaths movement. In this module, we'll start to look at the breath, the body, and how we perceive time! Exercise: Set a timer for 1 minute and breathe really really fast. See what changes in your body. Afterwards, set a timer for 5 minutes, and breathe super slow (if you can, make your exhales longer than your inhales), and see what changes in your body.
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Lesson 3
Uncovering Unconscious Beliefs And Co-Creating Our Reality
What's going on here on planet earth? When I was born, I went through a washing machine of different belief systems. My parents had their view on life, while my school and friends had a different one. The media fed me one story and my grandparents fed me another. After many years of active exploration, I've started uncovering these hidden beliefs that have been guiding every decision that I was making, without my permission! As I've started recognizing the beliefs that have been handed down to me, I've become more able to plant my own beliefs and install my own compass into my framework of reality. The more my beliefs are aligned with my truth, the more magical my life seems to become, as I am now making choices that are of the same flavor as me, rather than the environment I grew up in. So c'mon; It's time to co-create our own reality and this is our first step.
Exercise: Create a list of "I shoulds/I shouldn'ts" and a list of "I wants"
(Example: I should be nice to everyone----->I want to be authentic and considerate of those around me
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Lesson 4
Emotions As Allies
I was watching a child a couple of days ago, she was running around, she fell down, started crying and a couple of minutes later was laughing and playing again. This was such an inspiring moment, as I look back at my relationship with my emotions. What if our emotions were a group of friends who lived inside of us, and were here to be the messengers of our inner wisdom? Would I still swallow my tears or my anger? This is our exploration in Module 2. Learning to invite our emotions a bit closer and listen to what they are wanting to share with us. This can include screaming into a pillow in my room when I'm alone, or taking a moment aside to cry and fully let my emotional body to arrive, without needing to project it at someone else. So this one is about celebrating our emotional body, all the shapes, colors and sizes. How lovely would it be to live in a world where we could feel safe to cry without needing to explain ourselves or justify or apologize. Opening our connection to our emotional body is step one to being a part of that world :)
Exercise: Write a letter to one (or more) of your emotions, and after you finish, write a letter from the emotion, back to you. See what you discover
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Lesson 5
A Framework For Meditation
Meditation comes in many shapes and forms. It can be a bit overwhelming to navigate which meditations and which style are right for us. This module will be exploring a framework for meditations in order to simplify the vast variety. When we can start to see these categories, then we will have the wisdom to individualize our mediation to suit the present moment or situation. In addition we can make sure that we are finding a balanced meditation practice, incorporating each of these categories to develop all aspects of ourselves.
Exercise: Create a 10 - 15 minute meditation which as 3 parts. 1/3 Concentration, 1/3 Insight (body scan or noticing your thoughts etc.), 1/3 Loving Kindness (metta)
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Lesson 6
Finding Pleasure In Awareness
When I was introduced to meditation, I often found in quite boring or monotonous. We were given a raisin in one of our meditation classes. With this raisin, we were to listen, smell and taste the raisin slowly, as to develop a deeper sense of mindfullness around our senses. After the exercise, I thought to my self; "why didn't we use chocolate?" Eventually as I deepened into the world of Tantra and Taoism and other mystical practices, I started discovering alternative ways to develop awareness that were centered around finding pleasure in the body. I noticed that it was actually a pretty powerful and challenging practice to consciously move into a pleasurful experience and stay present. From then, I've started supporting others in integrating conscious pleasure into their lives as a form of more deeply connecting with themselves. Simply put, why not make the practice of meditation fun.
Exercise: Set a timer for a period of time (2-10 mins?) and give yourself some loving touch (could be on the face, neck and head) and explore different ways of touch. In this process, you can practice staying present with the experience and see how pleasure affects your state of being.
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Lesson 7
Decision Making, Intuition And Listening To The Body
We spoke earlier about the emotional body and navigating that world. We spoke a bit about our belief systems, and the mind. In this round, we'll explore the intuitive body, that perhaps lies just another layer deeper than the emotional body. I like to think of my intuition as the part of me that is most near to the core of my essence. The part that is connected to everything and everyone else. As if the outside layer of me is what is reffered to as "individual" yet very deep inside of me, I am connected to everything. Think of ice cream. Chocolate and Vanilla are different flavors (unique individuals) yet they are both ice cream underneath their unique flavor. I feel the same in my human experience. I look and express different than others, but we all come from the same source. Based on this, I choose, when making decisions throughout my life, to consider the part of me that is connected to everything else, as a form of wisdom. This module we'll explore a couple of different models for decision making and how to consult the different layers of us when moving through life.
Exercise: Either find a 20 minute time period to walk around your town/city/nature and take pauses from time to time to check in with your body (face one direction vs. another and see what the difference is in your body) And/Or if there is a difficult decision in your life coming up, check in with your 4 centers: Head, Heart, Gut, Root. Put a 1 minute timer for each of them and give them a voice/words/writing etc. See what they say about your decision.
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Lesson 8
Your Blue Ball And Your Center Of Power
When navigating life here on planet earth, it turns out there's a lot going on. We have our ENTIRE inner world, and right outside of our body, we have an ENTIRE external world. In this module, we will start to explore the relationship between what is happening inside of me, and what is happening outside. We'll speak about how to stay in my center while almost everything outside of me is an opportunity to get distracted. A teacher of mine once said. Remember when you get to the airport, that you can feel free to stop and look in the shops, but don't forget that you're here to take a flight. This module is about staying in our center and recognizing when we've fallen out.
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Lesson 9
Interpersonal Boundaries
We spoke about the relationship between the inner and outer worlds. What about interpersonal relationships with others? How do I navigate situations where something isn't feeling quite right for me in an interaction? How do I even recognize in my body that something happening doesn't feel aligned for me? What do I do when someone I love wants or needs something from me that I don't wish to give? Does this make me a bad person/partner/friend? This module will start to look at finding a way to orient myself in relation to others. We will talk about the value of saying yes and saying no, and how boundaries are a wonderful way to support us to stay fully present with another, because we are aligned with what we truly desire, and have the capacity to offer.
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Lesson 10
Embracing The Shadow World
So, remember the "two journeys" we were speaking about at the very beginning? The first of them, was the journey of who I think I am. We have a term for my "identity"; it's called the Ego. Its what I identify as! Everything else, in some ways is called "my shadow". That which I don't identify as. In this episode, we'll explore that your shadow is also part of you too, its just an expanded version of you! The closer we bring in this piece of us, the more empowered we become and the softer the world becomes. We'll explore how that all comes to be, during the lesson. So for our final moments together, we'll learn to welcome all that we are, with love love love! Exercise: Make a circle and inside the circle, write down "things that describe me". Outside the circle, write "things that I don't like about others". Then look at the words outside the circle (that you hate about others) and ask yourself two questions for each one. "Could I still love myself if I was like this sometimes." and "Are there moments where this energy comes through me? And what is going on for me in that moment where this energy comes through me?" (ex: I hate when other people cut me off in traffic. There are times where I cut people off, and it's because I didn't even notice that their car was there because maybe I was nervous for a date that I was about to go on. etc.)
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