Let go of yesterday

‘Close your eyes, clear your heart, let it go.’

– Anon –

Yesterday ended in a slightly wobbly way for me, and in waking this morning I asked the Universe ‘How I can let go and move forwards positively?’.

The answer came in the form of a beautiful meditation that showed up in my inbox by the very beautiful Luminita (aka The Purpose Fairy). It is one of the most wonderful guided meditations I have listened to in a long time, so I wanted to share it with you all.

 

If there is anything that happened yesterday that is even slightly unsatisfactory, this is the perfect meditation to help you let go of it, so you can enjoy today in a peaceful, calm and harmonious way.

Enjoy!

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

Visit The Purpose Fairy website

The 10 Rituals of Radiant Living

‘Act as if failure is impossible and your success will be assured. Wipe out every thought of not achieving your objectives, whether they are material or spiritual. Be brave, and set no limits on the workings of your imagination. Never be a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future.’

Robin S. Sharma – The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

I’ve just read a fantastic book called ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari‘ by a guy called Robin S. Sharma.

While I have been on my voyage of spiritual discovery this year I have read a tonne of books in this space. Everything from Louise Hay’s ‘You Can Heal Your Life’, to Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth.’

I’ve always loved books, I learned to read at the age of 2, was reading about 8 books a week by the time I was about 10 and still have the appetite and love for reading now. However, it’s a different type of book that I read these days. And the stuff in the metaphysical, esoteric and quantum space really interest me. I can’t get enough!

So, I wanted to share with you the 10 Rituals of Radiant Living that Sharma talks about in his book. I think they are great and they concur with how I try to live my life in general.

So, here they are . . .

10 Rituals of Radiant Living

1. Ritual of Solitude

Spend time by yourself every day. Try to practice this at the same time every day. Meditate or commune with nature (walk, water plants etc.). Aim to spend between 15-50 minutes doing this every day.

2. Ritual of Physicality

Invest at least 5 hours a week in physical activity. For me, this would tend to be yoga 3 times a week and a 2 hour bush walk or trek every weekend. Enjoy breathing in the fresh air.

3. Ritual of Live Nourishment
Eat a live diet of fresh fruit & vegetables & grains. Aim to eat live foods created through natural interaction of sun, air, soil & water. According to Sharma, meat is dead food. Red meat is hard to digest & since your digestive system is one of the most energy-consuming processes of your entire body, valuable energy reserves are needlessly depleted by this foodstuff.

4. Ritual of Abundant Knowledge

Read for at least 30 mins a day. A book is the best friend if the wise. This is a very easy one for me. According to Sharma, every answer to every problem you have ever faced is in print. Lifelong learning & expanding your knowledge base for the good of yourself & all those around you. Applied Knowledge is Power. Become a student of life. Don’t be bound by your schedule. Focus on things that your conscience and heart tell you to do

5. Ritual of Personal Reflection
Enjoy inner contemplation. Stop making excuses and just do it! Spend time each day to reflect on the things that you’re grateful for, the things you have achieved in the day and the things you would like to achieve tomorrow.

6. The Ritual of Early Awakening

Get up with the sun. The average person can get by on 6 hours sleep. Quality of sleep is more important than quantity. Never eat after 8pm. If you struggle with falling asleep, meditate before you go to bed and be conscious of what you are putting in your mind at the end of the day. And if you meditate at the beginning of the day, meditate on the thought of ‘what would I do if today was my last?’

7. The Ritual of Music

Listen to music every day if you can. It will energise you and lift your spirits.

8. The Ritual of the Spoken Word

It’s good to have mantra’s and affirmations that you say to yourself regularly. A mantra is a collection of words strung together to create a positive effect. A phrase designed to free the mind. In Sanskrit ‘man’ means mind and ‘tra’ means freeing. Your self-image is a self-fulfilling prophecy and what we think we become. So when you change your inner world, you change your external world.

Here are some mantra’s or affirmations that you can use throughout your day:

– I am inspired, disciplined & energised
– I am strong, able & calm
– I am healthy, wealthy & wise

9. The Ritual of Congruent Character

You sow a thought, you reap an action. Reap an action, you sow a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap your destiny.

10. Ritual of Simplicity

Less is more. Simplify your life as much as you can. Only surround yourself with the possessions that you absolutely need and love. Only fill your wardrobe with the clothes that you actually wear. Only buy the food that you’re going to eat.

Ever since I left the UK to go travelling I have spent the last 2 and a half years simplifying my life and I have never felt better. Less is definitely more!

If you want to read more about these and be inspired, I can definitely recommend picking up a copy of the book.

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x

To learn more

Buy a copy of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

or download it from Apple iBooks or for your Kindle

Image gratitude – http://www.slideshare.net/Ani77789/ten-rituals-of-radiant-living

The future is all-inclusive consciousness

“An experience of absolute inclusiveness has to happen to humanity and it is possible.”

– Sadhguru –

I’ve just watched a fantastic TED talk by Sadhguru on all-inclusive consciousness and I wanted to share it with you, because not only do I concur with everything that he says, but it reminded me of an experience that I had recently.

I didn’t end up sitting on a rock meditating for several days, without realising the passing of time, but I did experience some pretty profound feelings that I had never felt before.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have been going through some pretty interesting spiritual realisations over the last 8 months, and one day a couple of months ago, I decided to take a rest from the work that I was doing and skip down to the waters edge.

I live about a 2 minute walk from the beach in Manly, and in particular we live very close to a coastal path walk where there are a lot of trees, grass, rocks etc. So I took a walk along the coast and as I was walking down a grassy hill towards the rocks and the water I felt an incredibly strong sense of love for all that was around me. I felt so connected with everything. I hugged trees, knowing that they were me. I stroke the grass, knowing that every blade of grass was me, and as I got down to the waters edge I crouched down on the rocks looking at every tiny barnacle underneath me, knowing that they were me. And as I put my hand into the water I felt the most profound and incredibly deep connection with the ocean, knowing that the ocean was I, and I was the ocean was I. And as I did this I started to cry.

The tears flowed and flowed. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of what I was feeling and knowing. And all I could do was keep apologising to the ocean, on behalf of every other person on the planet (who are also me) for not having treated it well enough. For not being loving enough to it. At the same time, knowing that as much as I was apologising to the ocean, I was also apologising to myself, because we were, and are, one and the same.

Sadhguru’s TED talk, spoke to me on so many levels, it is a confluence of everything that I know to be true about myself and the Universe and it is such a wonderful articulation of something that once every human being on the planet understands will transform our lives, our experiences and our realities in ways we could never have imagined possible.

And I also know, that as I continue to expand my consciousness and connect more deeply with my inner world, it will be reflected back to me in my external world in the most beautiful, loving, compassionate and empathetic ways possible.

And so, as Sadhguru asks in his TED talk I will leave you with one simple question to ask yourself. How inclusive is your experience of life?

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

Visit Sadhguru’s website

Love TED talks? View more of my blog posts that include them.

Image gratitude – http://www.flickr.com/photos/cybergabi/5136816815/

Create space

“Make the space in your body. The universe will fill it. It always does.”

– Leslie Kaminoff –

Following on from my blog post Let Go (Part 2), I wanted to write a post about the importance of creating space and how yoga and meditation can help you with this.

It’s amazing how much stuff we hold on to subconsciously. How many emotions, how many thoughts and feelings about things in the past that we can’t change and perhaps aren’t supportive to us in the present moment.

When we choose to let go and submit ourselves to what is, in the now, we create space for wonderful new things to come into our lives. The new may come in the form of a person, a place, a job, a hobby or an experience.

For example, it’s no coincidence whatsoever that I recently decided to let go of a person called Robert in my life that was no longer playing a positive role, and out of the blue yesterday, I met the most beautiful person in my Yoga Practice in Venice Beach called, what for it . . . Robert. I am certain that we will both play an important role in one another’s lives, no matter how big or small.

Furthermore, it is absolutely no coincidence whatsoever that I met this beautiful person, at the end of a wonderfully peaceful and relaxing yoga practice, after having come out of the most amazing savasana that had brought me to tears of joy, because of the love that I felt in my heart for some of the most important people in my life.

It felt that my heart was full to bursting with love for my beautiful parents, my lovely little sister and her husband, and my darling boyfriend Darren.

I know for sure that in that one 90 minute yoga practice I created so much space for love in my life, and I’m certain that during that time I was letting go of and processing things that no longer served me.

So my question for you today is this, how can you create more space in your life? Is it through doing some yoga or meditation? Or perhaps it might be having a clean and tidy of your living space? Perhaps you need to decide to let go of someone in your life who is no longer serving a positive purpose. Or maybe you need to let go of a grudge or a bad feeling about something or someone? Perhaps through just writing an email or making a phone call to apologise might make life a little bit easier, and create some space for more positive things to happen. Whatever you choose, know that it is perfect, right now.

If you did want to dip your toes into the magical world of meditation you might like to take part in Oprah and Deepak’s 21 day meditation challenge.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

The Universe Wants to Fill You (Literally) – mindfulmo.com

8 ways to make space in your life – mindbodygreen,com

Make your space sacred – life.gaiam.com

Let Go (Part 2)

“There are probably things in our lives from which we could unburden ourselves.”

– Matthieu Ricard –

Back at the end of March I wrote a blog post called Let Go.

Today I had the feeling to write another blog post on the subject, so consider this a continuation of the same theme, just a different message.

I’ve recently been doing a lot of yoga and in particular Yin Yoga, which is a style of yoga that is very new to me (I’ve been practicing it for a couple of weeks now). I’m so into it, that as soon as I arrived in LA, I started looking for practices that taught it.

The thing that I particularly love about Yin is the pace. It’s much slower than pretty much any other style of yoga. For example you tend to hold the poses for anywhere up to 5 minutes or longer.

According to Wikipedia “Yin Yoga poses apply moderate stress to the connective tissues—the tendons, fascia, and ligaments—with the aim of increasing circulation in the joints and improving flexibility. Yin Yoga poses are also designed to improve the flow of qi, the subtle energy said in Chinese medicine to run through the meridian pathways of the body. Improved flow of qi is hypothesized to improve organ health, immunity, and emotional well-being.”

And in effect, Yin helps you to let go and really relax, rather than other practices of yoga that are more active (Yang). Of course we need a balance of Yin and Yang in life, which is why it is great to practice many different types of yoga, but I’m finding that Yin is particularly resonating with me at the moment.

So what is it that you need to perhaps need to let go of at the moment and are there things or people in your life that can help you with this? Perhaps it would be helpful to talk your thoughts through with someone or pop to a yoga class or start to meditate?

When we let go and submit ourselves to life, rather than trying to control it we create the space and the flexibility for things to flow more easily.

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

Visit yinyoga.com

Watch an Introduction to Yin Yoga video

Image reference – laurenschrammyoga.com

Show loving kindness to others

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

– Dalia Lama –

I have just come out of a deeply relaxing meditation and this is the first thing that came to mind, so I wanted to share it with you.

I have a very simple thought to share with you today. Be kind to others. Be loving to others. See everyone around you as a mother or father, an uncle or an aunt, a grandmother or grandfather, a sister or a brother, a cousin. Treat everyone as if they are a family member.

When we treat others with loving kindness, we treat ourselves with loving kindness, because, in essence, we are all one, we are all connected.

The Wake Up Project

I recently came across this fantastic project called the Wake Up Project when I went to see the Dalia Lama a couple of weeks ago and wanted to tell you a bit about them.

Their mission is to celebrate and inspire kindness and wisdom in modern life.

What does it mean to Wake Up?

According to their website, ‘It means to wake up your natural capacity for kindness and wisdom. It means savoring the beauty of each moment and expressing your unique gifts into the world. All this, while remembering to lighten up, laugh, dance and celebrate your precious human life.’

Join the Kindness Revolution

In an effort to inspire people to carry out random acts of kindness, you can order a pack of kindness cards that they will send to you for free, which you can leave, anonymously, whenever you do something nice for someone else.

How it works

What can you do?

You can order your kindness cards here. 

So, what random act of kindness are you going to carry out today?

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this post

The Dalia Lama

The Wake Up Project

Meditate every day

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

– T S Elliot –

Meditation is magical. It calms you. It centres you. It helps you find inner peace. It helps you quieten the noise in your head. It takes you out of your body and connects you with the space within. It helps you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time.

I set the intention of meditating every day, because I know the benefits it brings me.

It helps you to recharge and re-energize if you do it later in the day. If you do it at the start of the day it clears your mind and gives you a blank canvas from which to begin. It helps you connect with your heart, your intuition and your true self, rather than being identified with your mind.

I am writing this blog post from a place of complete and utter peace, calm and stillness. I have no agenda, no expectations, no real thoughts in fact. I am just letting the words skip out of my, through my fingers, on to the keyboard and out into space.

I am sharing these thoughts and feelings with you (in turn me) in the hope that I can inspire you to start to meditate (if you haven’t before), or meditate more often, if you have already tried it, but don’t do it every day.

So my thought for the day is, meditate every day for a week, and see how your life transforms.

Download a free guided meditation

There is a great 30 minute guided meditation that I have recently come across by a lovely guy called Amir Zoghi. This was recorded at a retreat that he held earlier this year in April. The meditation would normally cost $39 to download, but if you follow the directions below, you can have access to it for free. All you need to do is:

1. Click on this link

2. Scroll down the page

3. Click on the yellow ‘Download now’ button

4. Type the word RETREAT in the coupon code box and all of the billing fields will disappear.

5. Pop in your details

6. Click the green ‘Submit order’ button at the bottom of the page

7. And the lovely people at Be Free People will send you the meditation via email fo free.

I promise you, that if you are looking for more peace, calm, tranquility and connectedness in your life, meditation is the way to go. And it is the most fantastic way to start your day.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this post

Falling into Oneness – ONE Retreat Meditation

The importance of Trust

“Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.” 

– Benjamin Spock – 

A lack of trust in others, is just a lack of trust in yourself. 

I can’t remember the day that I realised this, or was taught it, but it was a pretty profound one and it has stayed with me for a while. 

For most of my life I was a bit of a control freak. I struggled to let others do things for me or help me out, always thinking that they would screw things up, make a mistake or that I could do a better job. 

This happened throughout the predominance of my 20s until I hit burnout at the age of 28. There were a number of things that contributed to this, but one of the reasons was my inability to reach out to others and trust that they could help me. 

I did a lot of personal development last year and am still on a wonderful, magical mystery tour of self discovery as I become more and more connected with my true self and less connected with my ego. And a large part of this development has been learning to trust myself, which in turn has allowed to me trust others, as we are all mirrors of one another. And a lack of trust in someone else and the need to control a person or situation is just a lack of trust in ourselves. 

So, what is the take away from today’s post. Trust yourself my darlings. You have everything you could possibly ever need right inside of you. Trust your instinct. Trust your heart. And connect with your body, rather than your mind when making a decision. 

How can you do this? Very easily. Meditation is key.

5 steps to a simple meditation

1. Simply find a quiet place
2. Sit down and close your eyes
3. Focus on your breathing to bring you into the present moment.
4. Breath in through your nose and out through your nose.
5. Count 1 on the in breath and 2, 3 on the out breath until you get to 10 and start again from 1. 

And when you come out of the meditation ask yourself the question, ‘What do I need to know?’ and see what comes up for you. Or ‘What would love do?’

The more I live in the present moment, the more I make decisions from my heart and from a place of love and the more I trust myself, the more I see an amazing transformation in the people around me and in my reality. 

Are you too distrusting in certain people or situations in your life? Does this happen a lot? Do you try to control situations that you feel out of control of? Next time you feel anxious and the need to take control try these 6 simple steps:

6 steps to trusting yourself and letting go

1. Stop what you’re doing and close your eyes.
2. Make sure that your feet are on the ground, ideally take your shoes off if you can.
3. Take a deep breath in and out.
4. Count to 10.
5. Say to yourself, ‘I trust myself and I trust that everything will be ok.’
6. Place all of your energy on your heart and ask it ‘What do I need to know?’

Then trust that the answer will come to you, and most importantly, be ready to let go of whatever you are trying to control. 

Inspiration for this post

The importance of trusting yourself and others

How to train your ego

“You are not your mind”

– Eckhart Tolle – 

Last night Darren and I watched How to Train Your Dragon and it got me thinking. . . . What a fantastic metaphor for our relationship with our egos.

Before we sat down to watch the film we went out for a little walk along the water in Manly and sat and enjoyed a bit of Cloud Meditation. And then we came back home to make the most delicious meal. Courtesy of a wonderful recipe from Mr Jamie Oliver for BBQ organic leg of lamb basted with olive oil, honey, lemon, rosemary and thyme. We coupled this with roast potatoes (in yummy duck fat), parsnips, pumpkin and freshly steamed broccoli and carrots. And to top the whole thing off, we drizzled home-made gravy and some mint sauce over the lot.

We then snuggled down to watch How To Train Your Dragon, which is a really fantastic Sunday night feel-good film. The most beautiful images to fill your head with before settling down for a nice sleep and waking up ready and raring to go on Monday.

So, how does the film link to your ego?

Well, at the beginning of the film, the Vikings are fighting the dragons, and the dragons are destroying their village. And this is very much how the ego can be.

If you imagine that the dragon represents our ego and the village represents our true self.

Our ego wants us to be safe, so it will protect us at all costs, even when we’re wanting to do something a little risky or out of the ordinary. If the ego feels threatened it will do whatever it takes to protect us. Again, if the dragons feel threatened they breathe fire over anything to protect themselves.

For example, this time last year when I was planning to set up my own business my ego was being pretty tricky. Every time I put energy into setting it up, working on it, furthering it, my ego would create a drama or make it all sound too difficult and too hard. Breathing fire over everything.

The conversations that I had with the voice in my head (my ego) went in constant circles. And I had to do a lot of work on my psychology to turn the volume down on that voice, because it isn’t real. My true self wanted to set up my business. But my ego kept destroying my ideas and breathing fire and flames over everything. The more I fought my ego, the more it fought back.

The good news is that I have learned to understand my ego and work with it, rather than against it. I set up my business, and it is still going strong today.

The question is, how did I win in that instance? How did I stop my ego from breathing fire over everything that mattered to me?

I have learnt to tame my ego, and to this day I am still training it.

First and foremost, we will never be able to completely eradicate our ego. Even though it is not our true self, the voice in our heads will always remain. What is important though, is our relationship with it, and our ability to observe it and be kind to it, rather than a) believing it to be the truth (because it isn’t) or b) fighting it (because we won’t win). The easier we find it to turn the volume down, the easier our lives become. The more you stroke the dragon, the less likely it is to breathe flames over you.

When we understand that the voice in our heads (the ego) is not who we truly are, we are able to start to observe it, and understand that the only reason it is fighting with us, doubting us, challenging us is because it wants us to be safe.

The key is to actually learn to love and embrace our ego, give it a good stroke and then let it go, knowing and understanding that it means well, but that it is not real. Just the same as dragons.

For example, I am just about to launch a new website for my business. It has been 12 months coming and will hopefully be launched in time to celebrate Thought Cloud’s first birthday in the middle of June.

However, I have been having a battle with my ego for about the last 6 months. My true self has been saying, I need a website, I would like to launch a website, it’s important to have one so that people can find me online, to show people what I do. And my ego has been petrified of this, saying things like ‘what if your website is rubbish?, what if no one wants to work with you? what if you change what you do and confuse people?’ The list is endless. . . so rather than biting the bullet and putting my website out there, I have been having a little internal battle for the last 6 months.

And this happens to us all, a lot. It could be whether you should start online dating, or whether you should go to the gym today, or eat that chocolate bar or apply for that new job? There is the part of you that really wants to do something and then there is the voice in your head that argues with you until you actually end up doing nothing.

So, my advice would be, decide that you wish to start to train the little voice in your head (your ego). Decide that rather than letting it breathe fire over everything you’re trying to do or create, start to feed it a healthy diet of love and strokes and it will start to be kinder to you.

And finally I wanted to share with you a fantastic strategy for helping to keep your ego under control that I learnt from the fantastic Mr Kerwin Rae from a course of his that I attended last week. Start to follow these steps the next time you’re wanting to do something and your ego steps in and starts to make things more difficult than they need to be.

How to train your ego

1. I can hear you (we want to acknowledge that this voice is something separate from ourselves)

2. I know what you’re trying to do (the voice is trying to keep us comfortable, but in order to achieve something we truly desire and would love, we need to step outside of our comfort zone)

3. You are not me (As Eckhart Tolle states at the beginning of ‘The Power of Now’ – You are not your mind)

4. I’m not going to play this game anymore (It’s important to make clear to the little voice that we’re in control)

5. Thank You (by thanking the voice, it is then much easier to let is go and disappear)

And the less you take yourself seriously, the easier this will become.

Sending you lots of love, light and hugs,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this post

How to Train Your Dragon

Kerwin Rae

Eckhart Tolle’s – The Power of Now

You Tube video – Eckhart Tolle – How to escape the prison of your mind

What would love do?

“Love is old, love is new, love is all, love is you.”

– The Beatles –

I had an awesome meditation this morning. And when I came out of my meditation, this is the first thing that came to my mind, so I wanted to share it with you all.

First and foremost I wanted to share how much I love the Guided Meditation of Mr Michael Adamedes. I went to a weekend course that he did last year in Sydney called Love and Power and bought his CD which has a 15 and 30 minute guided meditation on it and I am happy to say that I have used it so much ever since.

My mind has a habit of wandering sometimes during meditations, so I find that following a guided meditation is super helpful. Plus, his Yoga Nidra meditations have you focus your attention on certain parts of your body, hence drawing life energy and the conscious awareness of the deep sleep state or Prajna (pronounced prah-nah) into each area, which I really love. It is a really quick, simple and peaceful way of completely and utterly revitalising your body. Almost like supercharging your battery if you were a mobile phone.

So, the purpose of the post?

When I came out of the meditation I was thinking about my day ahead, and I was asking what I should do today, and the answer that came back to me was another question, what would love do? And this is a question that I find I am asking myself on a regular basis these days. And it is the most perfect thing to ask yourself in any situation.

We are infinite beings, we are everything and nothing, we are the Universe and space, we are beautiful spirits in a human body, we are the truth and more importantly we are love. So whenever you are wanting to know the answer to a question, or have certainty in what you should do, in that moment, just ask yourself, ‘what would love do?’ Because we are love. And if we act, speak and be from a place of love, life is going to be easy, effortless, graceful, joyful peaceful and loving right back to us.

Enjoy doing things from a place of love today my darlings.

Love, light and hugs,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this post

Michael Adamedes – Yoga Nidra