Do you know the ADD love song?

I love you; oh I love you. La la la. You’re so beautiful. … Is that a quarter?

Between your to-do list and that pile of papers over there, can you see that great idea you have? That’s the one that’s going to change everything. Or it won’t. At this rate, you’re never going to find out. How are you supposed to get anywhere when you spend your days moving from Facebook to your to-do list and back again? Bonus points if you create with a baby on your boob.

Your meanderings from point-A to anywhere but point-B are not your problem. They’re definitely a problem, but they’re not the problem. They’re also what makes you awesome. Banker types don’t spin in circles like this, but they’re also not as creatively juicy. You need the banker types; they need you.

Dance with your distractions

Give thanks for your enthusiasm and curiosity. They will take you places no to-do list ever will. What you notice you notice [...]]]>

Do you know the ADD love song?

I love you; oh I love you. La la la. You’re so beautiful. … Is that a quarter?

Between your to-do list and that pile of papers over there, can you see that great idea you have? That’s the one that’s going to change everything. Or it won’t. At this rate, you’re never going to find out. How are you supposed to get anywhere when you spend your days moving from Facebook to your to-do list and back again? Bonus points if you create with a baby on your boob.

Your meanderings from point-A to anywhere but point-B are not your problem. They’re definitely a problem, but they’re not the problem. They’re also what makes you awesome. Banker types don’t spin in circles like this, but they’re also not as creatively juicy. You need the banker types; they need you.

Dance with your distractions

Give thanks for your enthusiasm and curiosity. They will take you places no to-do list ever will. What you notice you notice with. That means that if you’re looking at all the shiny objects, it’s because you’re full of shiny goodness. If you’re in the shiny object camp, appreciate the objects for what they are: interesting. But don’t sacrifice your long-term desire for short-term excitement.

Productivity is like a diet

The diet’s not the point. If you change the amount and type of food you eat without changing why you eat it, no diet is sustainable. Same thing with productivity. Lists and project management techniques and special software are nice, but they’re incidental. Your idea won’t happen until birthing it is more important than following your distractions.

Cast a spell to make it happen.

1. Be specific.

What is it you want to happen? If you don’t know or feel stuck, it’s because you’re misbelieving something in your noggin. You’ll recognize your intention because it will be clear, to the point and positive.

Like this: I intend to go through my email and delete everything I don’t need. 15 minutes. When I’m done, I’ll reply to the most pressing. 15 more minutes.

See how that’s totally different from cruising in and out of your inbox in between starting a new blog post and then checking Facebook? Same principle applies to any scope of project.

• I intend to write the very best shitty first draft I can. I’ll give it everything, knowing there’s plenty more where this came from.
• I intend to zone out on TMZ.com for 15 minutes. Setting a timer now.
• I intend to pay attention to this meal by feeling and tasting the food in my mouth.

If you don’t know what you want, that’s fine. Trying to get specific will show you where you’re fuzzy. Infuse your spirit with gratitude, and creativity will flow. You’ll figure it out.

2. Seal the deal

Blow out the candles; wave your wand: abracadabra; make an imaginary X in the air, saying, “It is done.”

3. Lift your spirits

Now, prime your pump with love. Imagine someone you love easily doing something lovable. Think: your kittens snuggled in together or your baby finding your nipple in the middle of the night. Let the feeling that comes up with that memory grow really large. That’s love. It’s the most powerful thing in the Universe. Send a shot of that power to wrap around your project. You don’t have to love what you’re trying to do, but you can wrap it in love, and it will work just as well.

Sarah Wagner Yost is a mind-body life coach. She runs the Shiny Object Project School. If you can’t get “your thing” done, she can help. Working with her is better than Valium.

Photo credit: Carolyn Sewell

I have had a good year. The fact of it keeps surprising me because I am so used to problems. And recently I have been experiencing longer and longer stretches without problems. Life just seems to be unfolding without them. In their place have been a lot of things to appreciate. Not only have things felt really fun and worthwhile, I have also not had the sense that sometime soon the other shoe will drop and life will get all crappy again.

This “fun goodness” is so noticeably different from much of my experience that it has forced me to consider its cause. As far as I can tell, there are two basic reasons my problems have been replaced with worthwhile opportunities.

I have stopped thinking in terms of problems. I wake up, there is stuff that I have to do, and that is pretty much that. It happens every day and shows no sign of stopping until my last breath. My mantra for the stuff that comes up each day is [...]]]>

I have had a good year. The fact of it keeps surprising me because I am so used to problems. And recently I have been experiencing longer and longer stretches without problems. Life just seems to be unfolding without them. In their place have been a lot of things to appreciate. Not only have things felt really fun and worthwhile, I have also not had the sense that sometime soon the other shoe will drop and life will get all crappy again.

This “fun goodness” is so noticeably different from much of my experience that it has forced me to consider its cause. As far as I can tell, there are two basic reasons my problems have been replaced with worthwhile opportunities.

I have stopped thinking in terms of problems. I wake up, there is stuff that I have to do, and that is pretty much that. It happens every day and shows no sign of stopping until my last breath. My mantra for the stuff that comes up each day is “What else did you have planned?” The long version would be “I thought you were here to have a human life. You know, one where you have stuff to do for 70 to 80 years, then you are done doing stuff. What else did you have planned?” When did having a life become a problem?

Since becoming a parent and a dedicated meditator, I have developed the habit of considering my motivations before taking an action. The most important questions seem to be ”Am I about to take an action based on faith?” and “Am I about to take an action based on love?” If I am, the action seems to contribute to “fun goodness.” If not, the action seems to create problems. It really matters why I am doing what I am doing in terms of how the results affect my life.

My teachers suggest that we not make a burden of our duties. Who needs problems, anyway? They just create a negative charge around something we have to do and might learn from and profit from, if we don’t expend all our energy making life a problem. The energy we don’t waste having problems can be poured into actions taken from a place of faith and love, and life can start feeling sacred and sweet.

For more information on how to optimize your health, visit RolfGates.com.

Photo credit: Alex Bartok

God, do I love to dance.

I love the way music feels in my body. It’s like the boom, boom ka of a drumbeat calls my cells to celebrate, which call to my bones, which call to my muscles, and before you know it, I am movin’ and groovin’ with pure abandonment.

I loved to dance so much that, in 4th grade, I decided that was it. Move over Jennifer Beals: There’s a new flash dancer on the way. The boom boom ka and I were going to be wed forever.

I spent countless hours in dance studios, pointing, stretching, turning, and jumping. However, at around 16 years old, the magical rhythm of the music that once soothed my soul turned into the ringing of Pavlov’s bell. It became the signal that I needed to work harder, turn faster, be thinner, jump higher, and plie my way to perfection.

I spent several years moving my body with one intention. Do better.

Even getting hired to tour with a renowned dance company didn’t quiet the, “This [...]]]>

God, do I love to dance.

I love the way music feels in my body. It’s like the boom, boom ka of a drumbeat calls my cells to celebrate, which call to my bones, which call to my muscles, and before you know it, I am movin’ and groovin’ with pure abandonment.

I loved to dance so much that, in 4th grade, I decided that was it. Move over Jennifer Beals: There’s a new flash dancer on the way. The boom boom ka and I were going to be wed forever.

I spent countless hours in dance studios, pointing, stretching, turning, and jumping. However, at around 16 years old, the magical rhythm of the music that once soothed my soul turned into the ringing of Pavlov’s bell. It became the signal that I needed to work harder, turn faster, be thinner, jump higher, and plie my way to perfection.

I spent several years moving my body with one intention. Do better.

Even getting hired to tour with a renowned dance company didn’t quiet the, “This isn’t good enough” voice that joined me every time I slipped into my dance shoes.

But in 1996, while I was battling it out with myself in dance class, my mom was presented with her own battle. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

She took on the challenge like a warrior goddess presented with the task of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Determined. While she did what her doctors told her, being a child of the 60’s, peace love and everything in between, my mom employed her family as part of her healing team.

We went to meditation and tai chi classes, changed our diet, and found a way to love each other on a deeper level.

My mom was certain that the way to heal her body was through a whole lotta love and tenderness.

So, strange that at the same time, I was certain that the only way to get my body to what I wanted it to do was to beat it into submission. If I didn’t crack the whip on myself, wouldn’t my lazy butt end up on the couch, eating ice cream and watching hours of television?

My mom’s approach was the opposite. She allowed herself to have days of “Well, this really sucks” that were always followed by days where she would paint on her eyebrows and proudly walk out the door. When asked how she was doing, she said, “Gettin’ better every day.” And she meant it.

My mom’s healthy vibrant cells won out over ovarian cancer.(They won out again over breast cancer six years later! A miracle indeed. ) I learned that she did not win because she beat, prodded, forced, or made herself do anything.

She was kind to herself, every step of the way.

When I finally took on this approach in my own life, not only did my body change, but my whole life changed. The extra pounds I hung onto melted away. The self-criticism that spilled into other areas of my life was transformed to a sweet, steady voice reminding that I am doing pretty damn good.

If you’re looking to make radical changes with your body, whether it’s to heal, lose weight or even train for a marathon, it starts with radical kindness and compassion.

Here are a few radical ways to move your body:

1. Get on the love train: We choose our thoughts. You can’t get to destination I love my body by riding the I can’t stand my ______ (insert body part) train. That train ride will only lead to one place: where it is dark and murky and the sun rarely shines.

It starts with love and absolute appreciation for what you are able to do today.

Do whatever it takes to make appreciation for what you can do your primary thoughts. You might have to slow down to access these thoughts, or you might need to ramp it up, but be determined to catch that love train.

2. Set your intention: Instead of jumping on the treadmill or into your favorite exercise class with the intention that you have to burn off the calories you ate the day before, try something different.

Try sweating with the intention that you are going access your power. Intend that you are going to open your heart. You are going to heal. You are going to shine. You are going to become more of who you are meant to be.

This philosophy can be applied to any kind of physical activity you’re doing.

The more you sweat with love, the easier it becomes to be loving even when you are not exercising. This new behavior changes your brain chemistry, which, without doubt, spills into all areas of your life.

3. Add affirmations: I created a playlist and recorded spoken affirmations over it so that when I go for a walk, a run, or even dance around my apartment, I am moving with specific intentions.

I started sharing the playlist with my clients and friends, who love to incorporate it into their workouts.

It’s one thing to think affirmations. It takes it to a whole other level when you are moving and saying them to the rhythm of music. The affirmations become a part of your muscle memory, and they get embedded into your cells. This is where the real change happens.

Bottom line: Decide today that you are moving to celebrate your life. Let the boom boom ka fill you with joy as you move to any rhythm, cherishing the body you’re in and all that it does to support you. It’s has taken you this far. What a blessing.

Money-back guarantee that your body will change, your life will change, and moving will feel more like the final scene in Flash Dance … What a feeling!

Erin Stutland is a life coach, personal trainer and fitness instructor. She is the creator of SHRINK SESSION: 30 Days To Tighten Your Body + Rewire Your Mind and Air In Sculpt. She is one of four Premiere Intensati Leaders in the world.

Petting dogs has been proven to be good for health.

It was one of those days in our house where an argument was hanging in the air like a gas leak — just waiting for a spark.

Like most houses, the combustion — when it inevitably came — was not the kind that lifts the roof off. More like a sustained rumble of muttered asides and one-word answers.

Then my daughter walked in and asked a question that changed everything: “Where’s Polly?”

Polly is one of the two yellow labs who share our home with us — the other is her brother, Stuart. Unlike Stuart, who knows a good thing when he sees it, Polly tends to heed the call of the wild. All it takes is an open door, and the wolf-voice says, “Go for it.”

After a quick and fruitless check under the table, we scrambled like fighter pilots to find Polly. Check the upstairs; check the yard; get the leash; call the neighbors; grab the dog treats. Move, move, move!

My last [...]]]>

Petting dogs has been proven to be good for health.

It was one of those days in our house where an argument was hanging in the air like a gas leak — just waiting for a spark.

Like most houses, the combustion — when it inevitably came — was not the kind that lifts the roof off. More like a sustained rumble of muttered asides and one-word answers.

Then my daughter walked in and asked a question that changed everything: “Where’s Polly?”

Polly is one of the two yellow labs who share our home with us — the other is her brother, Stuart. Unlike Stuart, who knows a good thing when he sees it, Polly tends to heed the call of the wild. All it takes is an open door, and the wolf-voice says, “Go for it.”

After a quick and fruitless check under the table, we scrambled like fighter pilots to find Polly. Check the upstairs; check the yard; get the leash; call the neighbors; grab the dog treats. Move, move, move!

My last snappy comeback in the ebb and flow of our suspended argument was shelved. I made a note to save it. It was good.

As usual, Polly turned up an hour or so into our frantic search, not too far from the house. She bounded up to us with great surprise and joy — “It’s so cool that we would run into each other like this.”

It’s amazing how these limpid-eyed, flop-eared creatures change a family.

What is it about the light snoring at the foot of the chair, the chorus of alarm that a squirrel has breached the perimeter, or the clip, clip, clip of paws across a kitchen floor?

I have my own theory.

As a parent with a son on his own and a daughter tumbling into her teen years, dogs are like having eternal two-year-olds around the house — everything is love, everything is great, and every toy — even one with the squeaky long ago ripped from its innards — is a wondrous discovery.

Of course, there are more scientific thoughts on the matter.

Perhaps it’s simply biophilia — an oddly scary term for an interesting idea: We are genetically programmed to interact with nature. It’s an instinctive search for connection with other living things. It’s the reason we run back into a smoke-filled house to save the hamster.

It might explain the soothing effect of a dog in our lives: why petting them has been proven to lower blood pressure and elevate moods; why a major study showed that heart-attack patients with dogs were eight times as likely to be alive a year later than patients who are dog-deprived.

Maybe it also explains why dog slobber is not as disgusting as it should be and why we trail dutifully behind them, plastic grocery bag at the ready. It’s all part of the natural order of things.

With Polly safely back under the table, Stuart sprawled out on the floor, and things returned to normal, I was ready to stoke the argument with that snappy comeback I had saved for later.

The problem was, I couldn’t remember it.

For more by this author, visit PeggyDrexler.com

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com.

Photo credit: monggoy

It’s December 2010. My 74-year-old mother had just made it through her grueling battle with stage-2, aggressive HER2-positive breast cancer. She had her lumpectomies, her radiation, her chemo, and she had come up clean. She had tested negative for the gene that my sister and I could have potentially inherited, so I wasn’t particularly worried when the doctor found a lump in my cystic right breast that very week.

But as fate would have it, I was wrong. Woefully wrong, and I was diagnosed with my own, different, non-inherited breast cancer —stage-1, estrogen-positive.

As I embarked on my own year-long journey — the lumpectomies, radiation, ovary removal — how was it that I could get breast cancer the same week my mother was calling to tell me she was all clear? I chalked it up to incredibly bad luck. If my 74-year-old mother could make it through a far more aggressive cancer than I, a very healthy and fit 50-year–old, had, then I could, too. And I did. We worried [...]]]>

It’s December 2010. My 74-year-old mother had just made it through her grueling battle with stage-2, aggressive HER2-positive breast cancer. She had her lumpectomies, her radiation, her chemo, and she had come up clean. She had tested negative for the gene that my sister and I could have potentially inherited, so I wasn’t particularly worried when the doctor found a lump in my cystic right breast that very week.

But as fate would have it, I was wrong. Woefully wrong, and I was diagnosed with my own, different, non-inherited breast cancer —stage-1, estrogen-positive.

As I embarked on my own year-long journey — the lumpectomies, radiation, ovary removal — how was it that I could get breast cancer the same week my mother was calling to tell me she was all clear? I chalked it up to incredibly bad luck. If my 74-year-old mother could make it through a far more aggressive cancer than I, a very healthy and fit 50-year–old, had, then I could, too. And I did. We worried for my sister Kathy — she was three years older than I, but could she be next? I don’t remember a moment of my childhood, growing up in the ’60s and ‘70s, without my sister in it. She called me “sweetie,” and I called her “Dee-dee.” I worshipped her and believed her wholeheartedly.

She was the sunny, happy girl I looked up to but looked nothing like. She was blond, green-eyed, fair–skinned, pug-nosed, happy and quick-witted. I was dark, dorky, one-eye-browed, miserable, green-skinned, gawky and occasionally funny.

She could have been a total bitch, lauding her beauty over me, and yet she was brilliant to me. She loved and protected me. I was her baby sister, dammit, and she was my champion.

I’m sure people wondered if it was hard to be the ugly duckling little sister of such a beautiful, kind older sister, to live in her shadow, but I can honestly say she made it easy for me. Because she loved me so fiercely, it meant I was as worthy as her.

We grew up. We married and had our two daughters within weeks of each other. Although we lived on different coasts now — she still on Long Island and me in L.A. — our girls were close and spent their summers together at the same summer camp

She was as fierce a mother to her two girls as she was to me. So when I was diagnosed, she braved her fear of flying, found someone to watch her own troubled child, and raced to my side. When it was determined I had to be put into menopause so I could take Arimidex to battle my cancer, she threw me a “Very Merry UN-Ovary Party.” She talked me back down from the ledge many nights as I worried — Did the cancer spread? Will I live? If so, will I still be attractive? Newly divorced and in a new relationship, would my man stick with me? “Yes,” she assured me. “Yes, he will love you. Yes, you will live. Yes, you are still beautiful.”

I believed her.

A year later, I am through the worst. I tested clean on every test and was vain enough to want to fix all the damage to my radiated right breast with a debilitating but necessary nine-hour operation that removes the old breast and replaces it with muscle and tissue from your shoulder. Not fun. Then a second operation to form a nipple and lift up the other breast to match.

That morning, as I groggily drive home from carpool, I notice a missed call on my cell phone. It’s from Kathy’s husband, Scott, who, in all the 20 years I’ve known him, has never called me. His voice sounds anxious and tired. He tells me to call him immediately. When he answers, he tells me to pull over the car. This is not going to be good.

As my heart beats out of my chest, and all time stops, he says the one thing I have never let myself imagine —Kathy has two brain tumors that are making her brain swell. She is in the emergency room. That persistent cough she had wasn’t just a cough. My sister, a non-smoker, had lung cancer that had spread to her brain, her liver and her bones.

“How could this be?” I thought. “What ancient family curse has befallen my father, my mother, my sister, and me?”

Not Kathy. Not my golden-haired idol. Anyone else but not her. She of the easy laugh and the kind heart and the fierce loyalty. Surely someone who is a mass-murdering rapist and not my beautiful sister deserves to have stage-4 lung cancer!

I am devastated. But I know what my job is now. Now I have to be the big sister. I have to be the one to lead, encourage, love, guard and teach. So I do. I take everything I’ve learned on my journey, and I pour it on my sister. Every book, every supplement, every website, every doctor, every resource.

It looks bad for my sister, but I know my sister. If there’s a glimmer of hope, she will find it. She regales me with hilarious stories from the emergency room. How the nurses couldn’t get over how her hair was done and she was clutching her Louis Vuitton purse while her brain almost exploded. How the steroids they gave her to control the brain swelling make her boobs look really good.

Cancer and all, we can still make each other laugh ‘til we get weak in the knees. She looks beautiful, and she is happy despite everything. She has the best attitude until someone forgets to read through an article they send her – one they’ve carelessly downloaded from the Internet. Then I can’t find her, and when I do, she is on her bathroom floor sobbing. It is me who picks her up, crumples up the article, comforts her and talks her back down from the ledge.

I fly back to L.A. and go through my own grueling nightmare mastectomy rebuild. We speak on the phone every day. We wish we were on the same coast, in the same bed like when we were little and we could cuddle together and ‘sleep’ with our eyes open. We talk through our doctors’ appointments, our kids, our affinity for pain meds and how maybe I could revive my ancient acting career by going on “Celebrity Rehab.” Although I know hers is a far worse struggle than mine — I am over the hump and doing reconstruction work and she is in the trenches fighting for her life — I make my struggles as bad as hers to somehow lessen her pain, to let her know I am literally going through this all with her. No longer the little shadow and her big sis, but two frightened but strong women who will get through this journey as we always have — together. With my sister’s hand in mine.

Hilary Shepard is in remission and living in Newport Beach, California. She co-invented three board games with Daryl Hannah called “LIEbrary”, “Famous Last Lines” and “Call it!” The games are available at Barnes and Noble, Nordstrom and Amazon.

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart and relate to the wound.

-Pema Chodron

Human nature is a curious and often paradoxical thing.  We often act with compassion toward others who are suffering but never consider doing the same for ourselves.  We have a compassion double standard.  If we saw someone bleeding, we would jump into action to tend to the person’s wound right away.  We would place all our heartfelt and focused attention on the wounded instead of yelling at the person who caused the wound.  We would stay right there with them and take care of the most important thing — the wound and the hurt.

In my early twenties I was driving home around two in the morning from a job I had as a line cook at a busy restaurant.  As I drove up the Post Road in Fairfield, Connecticut, I saw [...]]]>

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart and relate to the wound.

-Pema Chodron

Human nature is a curious and often paradoxical thing.  We often act with compassion toward others who are suffering but never consider doing the same for ourselves.  We have a compassion double standard.  If we saw someone bleeding, we would jump into action to tend to the person’s wound right away.  We would place all our heartfelt and focused attention on the wounded instead of yelling at the person who caused the wound.  We would stay right there with them and take care of the most important thing — the wound and the hurt.

In my early twenties I was driving home around two in the morning from a job I had as a line cook at a busy restaurant.  As I drove up the Post Road in Fairfield, Connecticut, I saw a police car pulled over behind another car and a man on top of the police officer beating him with, what turned out to be, the policeman’s own baton.

I turned my car around right after I passed the scene and got out and ran back toward them (I know, I know … crazy, but that’s another post!).

The police officer’s head was badly bleeding, and someone else who had also pulled over had wrestled the guy (who was drunk), off of the cop and had him pinned down.  I was yelling for someone to call 911 while ripping my shirt over my head and putting it over the cop’s bleeding skull.  I didn’t think about the fact that I was in my bra on the side of the road in the dark with a bleeding cop and a crazy man and the danger of the situation.  I simply was attending to the cop’s wound. I wasn’t thinking about who did this at all.

It would be so wonderful that if the next time we felt hurt by the world, or by someone else, we focused on the arrow that landed in our heart.  Instead of spending time and energy telling that person about our boundaries and what’s acceptable and how they should communicate better, and all the things we think they should do so that we can feel right and better, we could turn our gaze back to our own wounded heart, lingering there with great kindness and gentleness for however long it took to feel better.

For example, you’re following your partner on a bike ride to the store in Brooklyn.  The streets are busy. You don’t know where you’re going.  Suddenly there are a million cars and last you saw her she was weaving in and out of traffic. You’ve lost sight of her.  You feel left behind.  She knows you don’t know where you’re going. You get very angry and pull over to the sidewalk and start texting her.  Where the F are you?!  When you find your way back to each other, the anger has set in, and you let loose verbally on her about being left, her inconsideration, her selfishness. And the rest of the day is ruined.

Or, you could tend to the arrow in your heart. When you lose sight of her and are aware of your upset, you stop and take a breath and realize that you are actually afraid. You feel shaky, vulnerable, embarrassed, and abandoned. You stay with these feelings right there on the sidewalk. You let yourself cry as a way to let the feelings come up and out in a genuine way. When your partner comes back and finds you, you describe how you were left behind as a child and how very painful that was.  You flood your own heart with care as if you are wrapping your arms around a lost child.

One of the things that keeps our attention on others when we are hurt is that we often don’t fully understand the role that the past plays in the present.

The past is rarely in the past.  The examination, healing and compassionate understanding of the past is, in my opinion, perhaps the single most powerful thing a human being can do with their life.

Understanding our past and healing our wounds brings us a freedom in the present that is unparalleled.  People who have done this work are some of the most available, deep and non-reactive people I have met.  They are fully available to be in the present because the past has no grip on them.

By looking at our past and doing our healing work, we not only free ourselves, but we free others from our entrapping projections onto them.  We no longer demand that they change in order for us to feel better.

Yes, we can try to surround ourselves with people who are genuine and can look at themselves and aren’t always passing the buck.  But it’s not always totally possible, and the point is not to sanitize our lives anyway.  The point is to keep tending to what hurts us until it’s healed.

We are naturally caring.  We rush to help others in catastrophic events. Yet when it comes to our own emotional wounds, we often get confused about what to do.

Here are three simple tips that have helped me when I find an arrow in my heart:

• Pause and take several breaths. Turn inside.
• Flood your heart with the warmth and care that you feel for a small puppy or of a loving mother for her child.
• Try to make a connection to your past and where you’ve been hurt before.

By tending to the arrow in our own hearts, we engage pain directly and can minimize further suffering.

Bindu Wiles has been a practicing Buddhist for 20 years.  She has her BFA in photography and her MFA in creative nonfiction. Bindu offers life coaching and online courses, and she is accepting registration for The Photo Essay Project.

The connection between compassion and human happiness is woven into all of the great spiritual traditions. The Buddha, the Yoga Sutras and Jesus Christ were all quite specific about it (to name a few). The cultivation of gentleness and compassion for others and ourselves has the capacity to set our minds and our hearts free. Wow. That’s big. Unfortunately, it also appears to have been buried in the fine print of human civilization. Or maybe I just did not get the memo.

In the world I grew up in, we became happy by being successful, usually at others’ expense. It was not that we wanted others to suffer, it was just that for every Lance Armstrong there has to be thousands of losers, and we were OK with that. Growing up with those odds, the point seemed to be to get really good at something and fight like hell to get your share. True, we were supposed to have compassion for those near and dear to us ? you know, like family, [...]]]>

The connection between compassion and human happiness is woven into all of the great spiritual traditions. The Buddha, the Yoga Sutras and Jesus Christ were all quite specific about it (to name a few). The cultivation of gentleness and compassion for others and ourselves has the capacity to set our minds and our hearts free. Wow. That’s big. Unfortunately, it also appears to have been buried in the fine print of human civilization. Or maybe I just did not get the memo.

In the world I grew up in, we became happy by being successful, usually at others’ expense. It was not that we wanted others to suffer, it was just that for every Lance Armstrong there has to be thousands of losers, and we were OK with that. Growing up with those odds, the point seemed to be to get really good at something and fight like hell to get your share. True, we were supposed to have compassion for those near and dear to us ? you know, like family, a friend or, at least temporarily, a teammate. But that was the extent of it, and, as a guy, compassion really was not much of a priority.

That began to change for me when I became the grateful recipient of some world-class compassion from some people in not so world-class circumstances. In order for me to get sober from my addiction to alcohol, a number of people had to go out of their way to help an unsavory stranger. This not only had the effect of saving my life; it touched my heart. I have spent the last 21 years attempting to emulate the kindness of the strangers who worked together to save my life.

Despite their example and my own sincerity, it has taken the entirety of those 21 years to understand the role compassion plays in our experience of the world. Consider the experience of judgment, the mental and physical experience we endure as we hold another in contempt. No one considers this to be a good time. It might create a temporary relief from negative feelings we hold toward ourselves, but it is no day at the beach. Now consider the experience of compassion: the moment you went out of your way to perform a kind action; something as simple as giving someone on the side of the road a jump, cheering for the victory of someone you’ve never met or a kindness you extended when no one was looking. Feel what just the memory of kindness does to your whole body.

A wise man from Sri Lanka was asked what would spell the doom of humanity, and his answer was “the separation between you and me.” Compassion heals that separation. The cultivation of compassion is the cultivation of the mental and physical underpinnings of health and well-being. The effect it has on our bodies is no different than the effect it has on our relationships and our communities.

Compassion is an appropriate response to life’s complexity. It works and it’s infectious. If we offer it to those around us, we increase the likelihood that they will do the same.

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Photo credit: hurleygurley

Do you ever feel that you deserve more love? Or that the people close to you should do a better job of showing you love? We expect everyone – our teachers, our partners, our parents, even our kids – to give us love, to help open our hearts. For me this expectation of love was debilitating, and I was making myself into a victim. To tap into real love – from my family, my beloved, my child, my friends – I needed (and still need) to take the drama out. Once I read this sentence it was clear.

“If you want to know about love, forget all about love, and look for direction.” – G.I. Gurdjieff

Direction, in this phrasing, refers to your attention, your direction in your work, your behavior, your mind, your heart. Where there is direction, there is consistency, clarity and consciousness. And where there is consistency, clarity and consciousness, all forms of love (respect, caring, listening) emanate naturally. Direction can be the simplest boundary: a bedtime for yourself so [...]]]>

Do you ever feel that you deserve more love? Or that the people close to you should do a better job of showing you love? We expect everyone – our teachers, our partners, our parents, even our kids – to give us love, to help open our hearts. For me this expectation of love was debilitating, and I was making myself into a victim. To tap into real love – from my family, my beloved, my child, my friends – I needed (and still need) to take the drama out. Once I read this sentence it was clear.

“If you want to know about love, forget all about love, and look for direction.” – G.I. Gurdjieff

Direction, in this phrasing, refers to your attention, your direction in your work, your behavior, your mind, your heart. Where there is direction, there is consistency, clarity and consciousness. And where there is consistency, clarity and consciousness, all forms of love (respect, caring, listening) emanate naturally. Direction can be the simplest boundary: a bedtime for yourself so you can stick to your plan of action the following day, a rule for yourself around being on time. Start small. All we need is a way to be proud of ourselves and all sorts of positivity follows.

We interesting humans mostly see ourselves as having clear direction, yet in most of our biggest choices in life there is an egregious element of happenstance, and a concurrent lack of that feeling of love. So I have two seemingly opposing proposals for all humans: read poetry, and get a life coach. Here’s why.

As a public school student in high school, landing freshman year at Cornell University in a roundtable-style poetry section limited to 10 students was a major privilege. I was one of 10 instead of one of 30, and each voice was instrumental to the conversation. Ever since, poetry holds me tight and will never let me go.

When e.e. cummings asks “since feeling is first/ who pays any attention to the syntax of things,” my mind and heart open, every time. When A.R. Ammons says that “… everything is magnificent with glory/ nothing is diminished/ nothing is diminished for me,” I’m reminded of that level of magnificence in everything I’m doing. Pia Tafdrup reminds me to “… open my eyes/ and consider the world: Mysteriously near, and crystal sharp.” Agi Mishol speaks for our silence, “You won’t be able to escape me/ I am the quiet in the disquiet of your bodies … I am the attentiveness found everywhere/ I rise out of you/ now.” And so I begin listening and locating my silence – again.

Reading poetry that’s tuned to that universal resonance is magical. Regardless of time or space, those sentiments plow directly into your heart and are etched as pivotal sensations. So when I began teaching yoga around 1998 (and since I had little understanding or trust in my teaching voice), I incorporated poetry into my teaching. For a long time I could only offer the heart, the history and the height of the yoga via the poetry. Immersed in Anusara yoga since 2000, poetry initially helped me create sacred space and articulate the heart via the postures, in ways that were relevant off the mat.

Recently when I was asked to teach a yoga class wherein I’d invite renowned poets to read to us at pivotal points during class, this circle was completed for me. I remembered how I’d needed to forget about trying to spread love and expect love as a teacher and instead look for direction to give my students through the alignment and the poetry. For a long time, that seemed enough.

Poetry held me aloft in times of certain self-sabotage; it gave voice to my states of being and pointed me toward my heart again and again. Poetry granted me a sense of universally connective direction early in my teaching, and still lives in my heart and my voice. The words led me toward a friendship with myself that is only now coming truly to fruition, 10 years later. But what I needed to fully manifest that friendship, and find my voice as it is now, was an actual map. Poetry opened the door to my heart, but just behind that door was another one, the one that had me keeping all sorts of secrets that I thought were protecting myself and others, and I had no way in.

Finding the work of the Handel Group gave me the keys to that door, by holding up a mirror on the fears that led to the secrets. Those past secrets (from little ones like smoking to big ones like cheating and lying), once unraveled in the process of coaching, have taught me how to tell the truth directly through my most intense and impeding fears. Confessing what I’ve hidden has led to healing, magical conversations with family and friends that I’d never dreamed of having, and revealed a sensation of love that I’ve never known.

To have the privilege of truly designing my life, by writing out my dreams and then bravely living into them, detail by detail, requires a quality of heightened but practical momentum. We have to practice having the craziest conversations and tell on ourselves all the time to have our most loving life, to be simultaneously receptive and proactive with elegance.

“To gain anything real, long practice is necessary. Try to accomplish very small things first.” – G.I. Gurdjieff

Photo credit: kiwikeith

For all the incredible work hospices and their teams of professionals do, they often have bad reputations largely due to [...]]]>
I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked, “How can you work in a hospice and be sick yourself? Isn’t it awful?” For those of you who don’t know, I have been living with and trying to heal from a chronic illness, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (RSD/CRPS), for the last six years. I took a second year clinical internship for my master’s degree in a hospice for that precise reason – I wanted to grow personally, spiritually and professionally so that I could continue to uncover my authentic self and the secrets to a miraculous healing. And, no, it isn’t awful. It is personally, professionally and spiritually challenging, rewarding, fulfilling and soul feeding to have the opportunity to provide end-of-life care in the forms of support and counseling to individuals and their families in one of the most, if not the most, challenging times in their lives.

For all the incredible work hospices and their teams of professionals do, they often have bad reputations largely due to misinformation and misunderstandings of what hospices actually are. Hospice is specifically for comfort and palliative care and it does not hasten death. Patients and their families elect to have hospice care when curative treatments are no longer available or desirable and aggressive treatments have been ceased. To be admitted into the program, the patient has to be given a prognosis of less than six months to live and stopped all aggressive treatments. Most desirable, the patient is treated in the home-care setting unless there is a symptom or cluster of symptoms that cannot be managed in the home. In this case, the patient is treated in the inpatient unit where his/her acute symptoms can be better managed.

With an emphasis on personal choice, dignity, respect and quality of life, the services are designed to support each patient’s and family’s unique set of needs. The care is provided by an experienced and licensed interdisciplinary team, including physicians, registered nurses, social workers, clergy, certified nurses’ aides and trained volunteers. In particular, clinical social workers (me!) provide support to and counsel the terminally ill and their families and address a full range of psychosocial services from diagnosis through bereavement.

So, what have I learned from working in a hospice? Here are five lessons hospice and the dying have taught me about living:

1. Practice Gratitude. If you woke up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning, a trip to the hospice will set your day straight – and fast! Working in a hospice provides you with the daily opportunity to remember and acknowledge all of the blessings in your life. When you are assisting an individual at the end of life, suddenly your small (and sometimes big) struggles don’t seem so daunting anymore. It simply allows you to gain an often much-needed perspective. Take time each day to practice gratitude, big and small, and you will find your happiness and sense of fulfillment will increase dramatically.

2. Love Deeply. When you are at the end of life, all of your material possessions, diplomas, professional achievements and awards, etc. will mean nothing to you. What will matter is love: those who you love and those who love you. Take the time to focus on those you love now while you still can. Please, don’t wait until you are at the end of life to appreciate the healing and transforming properties of pure, unconditional, selfless love.

3. Be Understanding. While the mental health field often holds theory and treatment planning as two very important pieces to the therapeutic puzzle, providing a non-judgmental, compassionate, empathetic sounding board for your client/patient to feel understood is often just as or more powerful than putting into action a well thought-out treatment plan. In hospice care, you may only see a client and his/her loved ones once, which does not allow for elaborate treatment planning and execution. As human beings, we all have many things in common, and I firmly believe a desire to feel understood is a common thread that holds us all together. Take the time to sit with your loved ones and validate their feelings. Allowing them to feel understood lessens isolation and increases feelings of happiness, peace and contentment.

4. Be Supportive. Social work and mental health care, specifically talk therapy, are all about speaking and connecting with individuals, but sometimes, especially at the end of life when patients are unresponsive, your supportive presence is enough to make a large impact on the patient and his/her loved ones. Being a supportive presence includes all of those non-verbal communications and cues that communicate caring and compassion to someone in need of support, including gentle touch, eye contact, posture, facial expressions, and active, empathetic listening. You can be a supportive presence to those you love now by focusing less on problem-solving and more on practicing your non-verbal communication skills.

5. Suffering Can Be a Catalyst. What threatens to destroy you can actually save you. In suffering and complete ruin, we often find the power to transform ourselves and those around us. Suffering isn’t all bad, although it may seem that way at times. With suffering can come many lessons. Learn from your own suffering, but also learn from the suffering of others. My patients have taught me more in 10 months than I have learned in my 26 years of life.

While I didn’t experience a miraculous healing of my symptoms, and in fact, went through some of the most trying times physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, in working with the sick and dying, I have discovered how to truly live. By facing my own fears, I have learned how to ask some of life’s most daunting questions and experience levels of self-awareness, introspection and closeness to God/Source/Spirit/Creator that I never imagined possible. I have also experienced a profound clarity concerning my own life’s purpose (to help others and alleviate suffering), and that is a gift I could never put a price tag on.

Maria Mooney, MSW, LSW, is a raw vegan licensed social worker living with a progressive neurological disease, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (RSD/CRPS). Follow along as Maria reflects on lessons learned through her health challenges, shares her experiences with alternative and traditional treatments, enjoys life to its fullest and heals herself at her blog!

Photo credit: _Libby_

When I was 12 years old, I had a bone marrow disease in my left arm. The night before a possible amputation, my father sat by my side and took me through a guided visualization of an army of little soldiers marching into the infection. With picks and shovels, they cleaned it out, and one by one, we watched as they marched the infection out of my body. Except for my left arm being a few inches shorter, it is now in perfect health.

I didn’t remember this story until many years later. I was in a yoga class with my teacher John Friend. One of his assistants kept coming over to me while I was in downward dog and kept trying to adjust my shoulder. In frustration, I plopped on my mat, asking myself “What is it? Why can’t I pull my shoulder back?” I didn’t really expect an answer, but it came to my mind loud and clear: “Your left arm is shorter.” The whole story came back to me [...]]]>

When I was 12 years old, I had a bone marrow disease in my left arm. The night before a possible amputation, my father sat by my side and took me through a guided visualization of an army of little soldiers marching into the infection. With picks and shovels, they cleaned it out, and one by one, we watched as they marched the infection out of my body. Except for my left arm being a few inches shorter, it is now in perfect health.

I didn’t remember this story until many years later. I was in a yoga class with my teacher John Friend. One of his assistants kept coming over to me while I was in downward dog and kept trying to adjust my shoulder. In frustration, I plopped on my mat, asking myself “What is it? Why can’t I pull my shoulder back?” I didn’t really expect an answer, but it came to my mind loud and clear: “Your left arm is shorter.” The whole story came back to me and I jumped up with excitement, rushing to John to tell him my left arm was shorter and that was why I couldn’t do the position the way he had been trying to get me to do it. He looked at me and said, “It isn’t likely unless you had some trauma to your arm.” Excitedly, I said, “I did, I did! When I was 12 I had a bone infection.” He said, “OK, use a block under your hand.”

In that moment, it was like so many pieces of my past made sense. I remembered being 12 years old and so much of what my father had taught me about the power of our thinking. I realized that one of the most challenging times had been not only my greatest teacher, but the foundation of the creation of intenSati, the workout I developed that combines positive affirmations and movement so we can exercise our power to choose what we think, say and do. It also reminded me to remember that the guidance from within me is always there, and asking my higher Self for the answer is a practice I could develop.

We have the power to choose what we think, say, and do and the perspective we choose is what will determine our actions and our experience. Training ourselves to choose to look for what is right about our past and our present, and to intend a future that is getting better in every way is our right. Few people develop this ability and, therefore, many walk around in a state of fear, worry and doubt instead of gratitude and appreciation for what was, what is and what will be. The choice is ours every single day and in this way we are always co-creating our reality. As above so is below, this is what I now know.

Affirmative prayer is praying believing it is already done. IntenSati is practice of affirmative prayer. When we add motion to the affirmations, we add emotion, and emotion creates change. We become it, we breathe life into it and we call it forth. Every thought is a prayer and worrying is praying for what we don’t want. It’s our faith that determines the outcome – worrying is preparing for failure; positively affirming is preparing for success. We are blessed with the power to choose. What will you choose today?

Every day in every way
I co-create my reality

As above so is below
This is what I know

Today I choose to see
What is right about me

When I ask it is given
What I believe I receive

I am preparing for success
I am available for guidance
I have the power to choose
What I think, eat and do

Where fear has blocked me
Love now surrounds me
Everything is right about me.
And so it is!

Join me in choosing to believe that we are always right where we need to be. No mistakes have been made, none can be made and none will be made. It’s all happening for our benefit.

Life is good! Go in peace to love and serve the world, and eat your veggies! Owning your power is sexy!