August 26th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
My teens offer countless opportunities (sometimes seen as challenges) to enter doorways of wonder, education, magic and even enlightenment. One of their doorways is to the world of pets. Currently, we have 8 of them. The order goes like this: 2 dogs (Liam, a collie and Archie, a Bichon Frise), 2 black cats (Suzy and Frodo), 2 horses (Max and Chance) and a betta fish (Han Solo … he swims alone). Our most recent addition to the pet menagerie is a Chilean rose-haired tarantula named Petrucchio (after a character in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew). This latest acquisition occurred while I was out of town, of course.
Once you get past the initial visual creepiness, you find that tarantulas are pretty cool. Petrucchio has a beautiful red coat and is incredibly docile while held (yes, we’ve all held him). His maintenance has been minimal – just have to throw in crickets a few times a month and mist him once in a while. He lives in a little aquarium nestled in a corner of the laundry room on the counter where we fold the clothes. With all that said … the fact of the matter is, there’s a tarantula in the house!
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July 9th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
In January 2007, I took a potentially fatal fall on my daughter’s horse.
Two years leading up to that I had been creating a company and finding out about peak oil, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas levels, and facts like every major ecosystem on the planet being in decline. I alerted as many friends and business associates to this reality as I could. Between the subject matter (climate change) and the very real matter of being a woman in business, I literally hit the ground!
My journey as a woman blazing a trail in the world has been very revealing and enlightening. There’s a saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ve hesitated to ever write about my experience as a woman CEO. Every newsletter and blog has always had a positive spin and its message has been genderless. However, it’s an act of integrity on my part to illuminate the very real challenge of being a woman in her power in the world today.
In my last blog I said that I loved to go into taboo areas or at least areas that most people feel are controversial and don’t want to look at. So here it goes …
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June 24th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
On June 7, my son graduated from high school. Less than a month prior, his grandfather passed away on his 80th birthday.
I was struck with two poignant lessons. First, life is full of transitions, such as graduations, marriages/divorces, and births as well as deaths. Second, there’s never a convenient time for death. These lessons are accompanied by enormous feelings that can overwhelm and engulf.
As a yoga teacher, I chose the path of consciousness; therefore, ideally, I meet everything in my life’s path head on without denial, distraction or ignorance. Even with this approach, the reality of my child growing up and leaving home is hard. It’s not so much the letting go of my baby as it is the realization that he’s growing into an adult and I’m growing older, and … I particularly find more empowerment in the “growing” part than in the “older” part. As I saw clearly in the way of things, old people die.
So … what is this business of growing older? Studies show that people view themselves 15 years younger than their true age. This suggests to me that while our physical bodies may be showing signs of aging, our awareness within ourselves is not determined by our physical age. I think this awareness speaks to the opportunity inherent in the word growing in the term “growing older.”
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May 25th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
“Energy flows where attention goes.” When I teach yoga I say this all the time to my students. This profoundly simple phenomenon applies to what happens outside of class as well. Not only does energy flow where attention goes, you also “become what you focus your attention on.”
If you want to change yourself, watch what you focus (meditate) on. Oh … so you don’t think you’re a meditator? Or if you do meditate, it’s not often enough to count? Well, I’ve got some news for you. You are a meditator and you are creating yourself from that practice, whether you’re conscious of it or not.
Webster’s dictionary defines meditation as “to focus one’s thoughts on,” which suggests that this applies to even when your eyes are open! You are meditating all the time and probably don’t know it. Whatever you are primarily focusing your thoughts on becomes the object of your meditation. I invite you to take this one step further and consider that after a while you become like the object of your meditation. Simply put, you become what you meditate or focus on. For example, pet owners start to look like their dogs, TV watchers start thinking and speaking in terms of commercials and sitcoms, farmers take on the qualities of the land they tend, and new mothers have the softness of the babies they nurture, etc.
So, changing your life is as simple as shifting what you’re focusing on. Really. Advertisers know that their most valuable asset is the public’s attention. They want you to think about (meditate) on their product. For the most part, everyone is unconsciously meditating, allowing outside influences like the media to dictate their focus. It’s an entirely different matter to consciously meditate.
This means to intentionally choose the things you focus your thoughts and attention on.
Your focus has great power, probably more than you’ve ever known.
The question isn’t, “Do you meditate?” — of course you do.
The questions are:
- “What are you focusing on now that you were unaware of?”
- “Who do you want to be?”
Because it really is true…
You become what you focus (meditate) on.
