How the year started ….& on learning to

Live, Love, Serve  |  2023 | 5/3/2023

Greetings to you all,

The start of the year was amazing – As March nudges on , I made a note to myself to connect, the primary rationale being to serve through my writing and artwork.

On a personal note, my year felt more amazing and my heart was just more grateful as I got to spend a lot of time spend with one of my sons. I also got visits with 2 of my cherished friends and that was meaningful , precious and a lot of fun.

In today`s writing, the  intention is to check in with you all as to how you use the following in your day to day practice

• Mindfulness : What do you do everyday as mindful practice …. Do you walk , do you stop and smell the roses, do you listen more for the birds or for a note or a lyric that tugs at you…

These are ways that I include mindfulness -I walk on the beach, I take in the texture of the pebbles and stones and I take note on the different hues that nature has on offer- if you live with children , introduce them to mindfulness …nice and early …take in the colours, tastes, textures…..

• Emotional Regulation: What do you to strengthen your practice on inviting the calm- Do you engage in breathwork, have you considered exercise and what are the activities that give you a sense of rhythm and comfort

These are ways that I include emotional regulation in my day to day living – exercise, breathwork, practicing my music and indulging in any creative work –

Note – once again model ways of bringing in calm to your young ones too– swimming and excercise great form of emotinal regulation

• Distress Tolerance: What are ways that you learn to embrace acceptance of challenges , feel more brave , more calm and more in the now.  During the course of our lives, we are all likely to experience sone form of hardships ad the memories of the [painful experiences cause us to become reactive, cower low or feel incredibly uncomfortable and unsafe. The feeling of discomfort is a trigger and it can easily lead us to make a poor choice that is fear based.

We can teach ourselves to accept that we are a sum of all of the positive and the negative –

we can learn to rephase that the memory of the negative experiences can go on to teach and educate us and to make us more wise

This can be done when we take little steps every day to invite the calm, count the positives, begin to take count of the things that make you smile and do more of thus each day and every day

These are some of the ways I engage or recommend practicing Distress tolerance – write everyday, be grateful, be kind to yourself, be constructive creative smile more and work on connecting to people who lift you up– any creative pursuit can be a superb avenue for distress tolerance – Michelle Obama refers to the gift of absorption in her beautifully crafted Light we carry

• Interpersonal Effectiveness: The best lessons on wholesome living comes when we learning to connect to ourselves, know who we are and then find ways of making meaningful connections with family, friends and the extended community. This is about knowing who we are, the values that we hold close, what we aspire for and love, what we do not love and how we want to connect with our loved ones and what are ways we can connect and give back to the community

As I grow well into my fifth decade of living, I am more mindful of how I live, the values I cherish and put into practice, the words I speak, the company I keep-the more we do this the better we are able to serve and strengthen the core of who we are fabric of our individual selves and the communities we serve….

Working on doing more of the things we love with people who lift you up ….

“Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” – Leo Tolstoy

With love