YOUR LIFE A-Z:JOLLY

                                                 JOLLY

BE JOLLY AND ENJOY 

Happy, cheerful, light-hearted and playful are some of the words that describe JOLLY.   Santa Claus is described as JOLLY and Christmas songs tell us to have a JOLLY Christmas.  Now, that is not possible if you have spun yourself into the commercial web and built a fortress of “should” for the holiday.  Let go of the holiday stress and make JOLLY an honorable goal for you and your family this season.  What do you want to joyfully do for this holiday season?  Do that and you will find that not only are you joyful but there will be a sense of JOLLINESS inside of you. You may find yourself belting out Christmas songs from the bottom of your solar plexus and dancing around holiday lights just because there is JOLLY sense of fun and excitement in the air.  When a “should” pops up and says, “You should ________________________.”  Laugh at it and speak your mind back to that “should.” Tell it, “Hey, I am having fun.  If you need to be grumpy right now, then go ahead but I am doing what I want.”  Use Christmas bags so that you don’t have to waste time wrapping gifts that will be torn up in seconds.  Give yourself permission to order Christmas dinner if you don’t want to cook.  If you don’t have small kids get up when you want.  If you do have small kids learn to enjoy the chaos.  Have a JOLLY good time enjoying precious moments with those you love and like.  Minimize your time with those you don’t like! Express JOLLY and watch it grow.  

YOUR LIFE A-Z: DE-STRESS

ENJOY THE FLIGHT AND DE-STRESS

DE-STRESS

 I often ask my clients to tell me what they think his/her stress level is like on a scale of 1-10.  When he/she is asked to scale the question I most likely hear the answer 8-10.  If at first I ask the client to detail the stressors in his/her daily life, often I hear, “Well my life is not all that stressful.”  Asking someone to scale the amount of stress is a less invasive question, instead of what is stressing you?  We have talked about many DE-STRESSING tools already but I want to bring you back to the most important tool, which is deep breathing.  To DE-STRESS your body you must learn to relax your entire body.  This is best done with focused attention with your breath from the top of your head to the very tip of your toes.  I suggest you set the timer and begin with five minutes of focused attention breathing in and letting the belly rise and exhaling pulling the belly in against the backbone.  If you lose count just start over until the timer stops.  Learning to DE-STRESS and practicing DE-STRESSING techniques when stress levels are between 3-5 help you prepare to practice correctly when you really need to DE-STRESS.   A really good organic herbal green tea can help the cells feel massaged and restored.  Stress tears our body down at a cellular level and we must repair the body at a cellular level.  DE-STRESSING techniques need to be broad focusing on every angle of your life.  What will you need to do to bring the scale down to a 5-6?  Activate that plan. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z:EXQUISITE

EXQUISITE SUNSET

EXQUISITE

EXQUISITE is a word that defines something beautiful beyond the ordinary.  To have EXQUISITE taste speaks to your ability to discern what is quality and refined over ordinary and normal.  I dropped by a cancer treatment center recently and found the grounds, the water feature, the art and the ambiance to be EXQUISITE.  This setting took one out of the ordinary treatment center of all the same reception room chairs, terrible TV, ugly paint, and old magazines to a whole new level of EXQUISITE.   Everything about this place spoke to an ambiance of care, nurture, and hope.  Given this example, I invite you to take a walk through your home and choose a room or a space in a room and give yourself permission to make this space EXQUISITE.   Make this ordinary or perhaps even dingy space into one that transforms the energy into an EXQUISITE space of nurturance and hope.  Make it into a space that dazzles your senses, allows you to take a deep breath and smile when you walk into the space, by choosing paint, light, art, and design that makes this space into a space you want to be in.  If this is too much of a project for you, then take a trip through a wonderful recipe book and prepare an EXQUISITE dinner that is served with all of the ambiance of color, light, and EXQUISITE table settings.  You deserve to brighten your surroundings from the ordinary to the EXQUISITE.  Guaranteed to boost your mood. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z: ZAZEN

ZAZEN

“In our daily lives, ZAZEN provides us with a situation in which we can remove ourselves from external activities, turn our activity inward, and face ourselves. ZAZEN is not about achieving some particular state of consciousness. Rather, it is about discovering who you are and what your life is.” by T. Roshi & Sensei

ZAZEN is the actual practice of seated meditation Zen style.  The Twenty-Minute Coach is about assisting you with a daily bog that helps you actualize a lifestyle of meaning, positive choices, and emotional and spiritual practices that enrich your daily life.  ZAZEN is an emotional and spiritual practice that invites you to check out of the rat race and into yourself with a simple tool of breathing.  Breathing in and out is a mindful practice that allows you focus on following your breath out of your body and inhaling new breath back into your body.  By sitting in a relaxed lotus position your spine is erect giving your lungs and chest the space they need to breatheproperly.  Allow your thumb and fingers on each hand to connect to each other and rest gently in your lap.  Close your eyes and begin to count your breaths in and out and do this ten times.  When your mind wanders come back to breath number one and start over.  Once you master getting to ten breaths either start over naturally or continue to count forward.  This exercise will allow you to relax into the present.

YOUR LIFE A-Z:WANDER

WANDERING ALLOWS YOU TO SEE MYSTERY

WANDER

WANDER is another action verb.  You can WANDER leisurely through the mall and begin an early Christmas shopping excursion by just WANDERING from store to store.  Or you can WANDER in your mind as you imagine yourself traveling to faraway places of adventure and gastronomical delight.  To WANDER is a relaxing action that allows you to stretch beyond your to-do list.  Take a WANDER today in some near by park, mall, or the town next door and you may have the experience of seeing it “for the first time,” because you are not on a mission.  You are giving yourself permission to amble about in any store looking for nothing in particular and looking at everything mindfully.  This trip of WANDERING may lead you to enjoy something that you never thought possible or you might find yourself WANDERING toward a treasure that will fill your heart.  Give yourself permission to WANDER and if that free-flow makes you too anxious, then go WANDER for three hours and if you start fretting about wasting time, use your breath to bring you back to the here and now.  Tell yourself you will journal about your experience to help make this exercise of WANDERING a mindful exercise for you.  It is important to take yourself on an adventure that allows you to relax into doing only what is front of you.  WANDER in your mind or WANDER with your body, but whatever you do WANDER around and notice the world of wonder as you WANDER.

YOUR LIFE A-Z:VACATION

A MENTAL VACATION IS ONLY A PICTURE AWAY

VACATION

Sometimes a vacation is the most uplifting thing you can do for yourself. However, it is important to be very wise about it or a VACATION can dump you into the bottom of the depression barrel more so than anything else. A VACATION is a change of pace, a change of scenery, and/or a change from the daily grind of monotony.  Thus, let’s explore wise VACATIONS.  First the budget… not can you afford a VACATION, but what type of VACATION, can you afford?   A VACATION is not an all or nothing venture.  Think of it as a “ both-and” adventure.  You will enjoy your VACATION to the max if you come home with no CC debt.  In order to do that you must learn to save and plan for a VACATION.  If you come back to a budget disaster you will most likely lose any benefit you gained from you VACATION.  Go ahead and dream about your ultimate VACATION and create a dream container for it by placing pictures, ideas, maps and create a $fund to go with it.  Add something each week or each pay -check to that account for this trip.  In the meantime actually do some break the monotony VACATIONS.   Choose something fun and relaxing (your kind of relaxing) and go for 3-5 days and fully enjoy yourself on the budget you can live with it.  A luxury hotel is nice but it is not really where you spend your time, unless you are on a spa vacation.  So play with the “both-and” VACATION and do something fun for yourself before summer is over!  Coaches orders. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z REST

ENJOY BEING

REST

Wow, for a few days now we have been doing tons of work.  Today is a day to rest and do nothing.  Isn't that interesting that we call resting doing nothing?  That simply is not true. Resting is work.  Resting requires that one stop.  Stopping for the Western Mind is painful work.  Somewhere our Columbus DNA genetics of wanting more, discovering more, seeing and knowing more, keep us in perpetual motion.  If there were no Americas between Europe and India for Columbus to rest, he and his crew would have died at sea.  

It is so important to rest.  Look at your calendar right now.  Look at the month.  Choose one day and mark it completely off.  Do not allow anyone or anything to get in our way of REST.  Make no lunch or hiking dates.  Do not schedule laundry, dusting or grocery shopping.  The night before that day turn off the alarm clock and put your watch in the draw.  But all technology devices away and turn them off. Pretend Ipads, Iphones, and x-boxes do not exist.  In the morning get up when you are ready.  Stretch your body.  Reach for the stars in sky and press down into the earth below your feet.  Do whatever it is that comes next on this day of rest.  Enjoy noticing what it is that you enjoy.  Do you really like the coffee you are drinking or is it a habit?  Do you want to walk outside or curl up with a book? At the end of the day write about how hard this day was to do nothing scheduled and listen to what you learn.

Your Life A-Z HUMOR

HUMOR

Humor is something that produces laughter, thus it is paradoxical.  What you find laughable, I may find offensive.  What sorts of events, words, pictures do you find humorous?   We know now scientifically what we have known for years - that it is important to focus on things that make us laugh.   If we can discover the humor in any event that is happening, then it is like good medicine; something that makes us laugh in such a way to forget what has been hurting us, even if it is for only a moment.  

Today, find some humor in your life.  Think about what it is that makes you laugh and invite it into your life today.  Go rent a movie that you find humorous.  Check out the comedy clubs in your geographical locations.  Comedy clubs exist for a reason, a very good reason:  to make us stop taking ourselves so seriously and enjoy a cognitive interruption that relaxes our synapses.