Today I am sharing a yoga practice with a chair. You don’t have to be a yogi to do this!
Please join me for centering, letting go, and getting a good stretch. You can even do it at your desk.
Let’s find our middle ground together!
Chair Yoga with Val from Val Boyko on Vimeo.
May you find peace today and everyday.
~
Kripalu sunshine
Warm glow and pranayama
Found my Mother Ship
~
I am taking ten days for learning, chilling and Middle Ground nourishment.
May you too find space to expand and quiet to drop into this week.
Namaste
~
Find your Middle Ground
Tend to your inner garden
Clearing takes some time
~
Every day I seem to wait for it to a little cooler and drier so I can spend time clearing away the weeds that seem to have sprouted overnight in my garden.
The forecast calls for cooler temperatures and lower humidity over the next few days. I will celebrate by setting aside plenty of time to clear in a purposeful mindful way.
Tending to our outer garden and inner one are very similar. Are you putting off time to find the right moment for meditating, reading inspiring words or attending a yoga class?Are you being sidetracked with the weeds of drama and social media?
The busyness of life and the weather can get in the way.
Remember we have control over one of them.
Tend to your inner garden and set aside time to Find Your Middle Ground.
Photo by luizclas on Pexels.com
Our life experience and level of consciousness creates different planes of existence. This can be seen in how we perceive love and how it shows in our lives.
Conditional love relies on others to make us feel happy. This conditioning comes from our childhood, when we were small, helpless and dependent on others to take care of us. We loved them for making us feel safe and loved. When we love conditionally we expect others to fulfill our needs and support us in what we want.
When we seek approval from an other by trying to please them, this is conditional love. We may think “If I do this for you, then you will love me more. I will be rewarded with attention. If I buy you the best ring, the world will see how much I love you” This kind of conditional love remains for many of us as we go through life.
We need other people to make us feel special, important and loved. We expect our wives, husbands or children to make us happy by behaving the way our ego desires.
And so begins married life with expectations and demands from each other, based on individual desires and needs.
This kind of love keeps us separate and apart. It makes us feel better as long as we feel we are receiving it. However, as soon as we feel neglected or ignored, or when the love is withdrawn, we feel bereft and unloved, or worse, unlovable.
Conditional love prevents us from growing spiritually. It has nothing to do with real or unconditional love.
Unconditional love comes from a deeper sense of awareness and being. It is essential for us to grow as spiritual beings and awaken to our fullest potential.
When you truly love someone, you love the Light within them.
With true love you are happy for others and want them to express themselves in the world…. not follow a certain path that you believe is right.
You love yourself, warts and all, and have let go of inner criticism. You appreciate and have love for humankind…. without condition.
The sense of separateness and isolation diminishes, as you see the Love in others. The ego’s desires lose their power over your choices and decisions in life. The fullness of Love grows and you feel connection to your inner Self, as well as others.
The process of enlightenment is the path to appreciate the Light within yourself and recognizing it in those you love, then allowing it to expand and express itself to others and into the world.
Find the Light and Love within yourself in your Middle Ground.
Namaste
“Yoga is not a work-out, it is a work-in. It guides me into the present, opens my heart and brings me home.”
While I was away in Scotland with friends, family and wedding celebrations, it felt like home.
The rocks and earth, air and breeze, salt and sea, trees and flowers, lochs and rivers…. all fill me with deep joy and contentment. I didn’t do my regular yoga practice, but spent time being present to what was unfolding around me and within me.
Enjoy these moments with me.
The old bridge and falls at Invermoriston
Downward facing rock
Balancing cairns at Portavadie
Balancing reverse warrior
Smell the roses
Hug a tree
Scottish Tree Pose
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Find your Middle Ground is about stepping away from stressful days and anxious minds, and taking time to pause.
When we are mindful of the present moment and simply allow it to be, we open a door to our natural state of being – accepting, loving, peaceful, kind and content. Most of us are so distracted and moving so fast that we get caught up in the world of “doing” or worrying about what we should be doing next.
Too much doing and thinking disconnects us from our sense of “being”and who we really are.
I write about finding this place of connection, contentment and peace in the highs and lows of life. I call it our Middle Ground.
Namaste
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Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
~ Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching (Perennial Classics) . Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
“Do your work, then step back”. So simple, yet not easy to do when we are caught up in demanding jobs and the chaotic busyness of our techno driven lives.
We all need time to pause, reflect and replenish.Only then will we find true balance and the serenity in life.
Namaste
Photo by Serkan Göktay on Pexels.com
Find your Middle Ground is about stepping away from the busyness of our lives and our screens. More than ever we need to take time to pause and come to our senses.
When we are mindful of the present moment and simply allow it to be, we open a door to our natural state of being – accepting, loving, peaceful, kind and content. Most of us are so distracted and moving so fast that we get caught up in the world of “doing” or worrying about what we should be doing next.
Too much doing and thinking disconnects us from our sense of “being”and who we really are.
We discovered last weekend that the second of our three bee colonies had died out. When the queen bee either leaves the hive or dies, the colony will collapse, unless there is a new queen ready to be hatched. Alas, with winter approaching there is no new bee making, and so the colony runs its natural course and dies.
I feel quite sad about it, and also realize it is nature’s way. The average worker bee only lives 35 days, while the queen can live for years. During the winter, their metabolism slows down as the workers surround the queen to keep her warm. That’s what’s happening in the other two hives right now.
In Spring we will take a queen cell from an other hive, and start a new colony.
What a valuable lesson to be present in the highs and lows of life. It brought to mind an earlier post:
Being a bee keeper is a mindfulness practice.
Be patient.
Respect this space.
Be open to the unknown.
Respect those around me.
(Even when they are busy busy busy and I have no clue what they are doing)
There is an intelligence here that I cannot fathom.
Be curious.
I may not understand but I trust in nature.
Go slowly.
Breathe easily into each moment as it unfolds.
Notice what comes up.
Give it space.
Let it bee.
We can bring mindfulness into all sorts of routine behaviors and actions in our daily lives. There’s no need to sit meditating or roll out a yoga mat to find your Middle Ground.
Take a moment to consider the mindful moments of your day. When you feel connected with yourself and the world around you. When you are truly present to all that is happening around you and within you.
It’s natures way of beeing.
Letting go of the past year, doesn’t happen at the stroke on midnight on December 31st! As we reflect back on the year before, and move forward into 2019, take time to pause and be mindful of the moment you are in.
When we can pause in the present moment, we allow a clearing away of the past, and the space to create for the future.
Remember, the present is where the juice happens!
The remarkable and highly talented Esme from Esme’s Cloud wrote a hilarious post recently called The Anatomy of a Blogger
She wrote a perfect rendition of what this blog is about in the Scots dialect. Here is a wee taste of her naughty genius:
“Yer meddle groond is all aboot steppin’ awa’ from stressful days an’ anxious wee minds, an’ tekin’ time tae pause an’ smell tha porridge oota space an’ feckin’ time, chillin’ ya crabbit bahoochie, ya scunners — yer a long time deid see? Mi sen ah wraights wudz aboot findin’ this place o’ connection, this Hogmanay o’ contentment an’ peace in the haighlands an’ loolands o’ life. I calls it oor Meddle Groond — like the feckin’ wee spot yer stood on that’s nay awa’ tae the left or raight, d’ya ken?”
Thank you for the mention and sharing your remarkable insight and wisdom from your cloud Esme. Lang may your lum reek 💕
For readers out there – Come back to that feckin wee spot yer stood in and find contentment!
Enjoy the bonny loons in their kilts.
Be not small timorous beasties but stand in yer ground … and enjoy every mouthful of yer porridge.
