Hitting bumps along the road

Life is always going to be a rollercoaster. Sometimes the rollercoaster is a little more extreme, and sometimes the rollercoaster is a little less extreme. And how do we respond to the natural movements of life? In what ways can we learn to stable ourselves? The key here is developing habits that can empower us. That create health within the body, that create a safe positive environment for those around us, and that can also inspire others.

There's nothing wrong in speaking to a friend or a family member, or enjoying life in some other way. The problem is when we become dependent on those around us to lift us up, and we begin to expect that others behave in certain ways so that we can feel happy and supported. Ultimately it is our job. It is our job to be in charge of our bodies and to know what we need in order to support the times that we feel low. And maybe we don't know what helps us feel better. This is where we need to experiment! We need to find out for ourselves. And we may be surprised to find out what actually does calm us down.

A few years ago after graduating from college, and traveling and volunteering and even becoming engaged. I found myself living back at my parents house, trying to find a job. I was depressed. I had this whirlwind adventure of the most beautiful experiences, and I had been living on my own for several years and now I was back in my home town, disconnected from my past and even my present, and I didn't know how to connect with my current life.

After several months of not being able to connect the dots, I started to experiment.

I started cooking for my family every day, I started trying to do yoga and meditation and something creative - which for me was drawing. I found personally that yoga was too hard, I didn't have the mind for that yet, same with meditation, I would sit and just start to cry. What helped me was being active, in service. Cooking food for my family, started a process of me seeing how flavors could be combined. It started to show me how it felt to serve others and to see how I could brighten their days by making something fun and new. It became a process for me, I would begin planning the meal at 3pm, cook at 4pm and we would eat at 6pm. It was the time of the day that I wasn't absorbed in myself and the 'sadness' that had started to weigh me down. It's not the situations of our life that are wrong or bad, it's our inability to be in the present moment, making the best use of it. There are no bad moments, only bad thoughts.

So for me, meditation and yoga were not good medicine at this time. I was too vulnerable for that, and maybe if I had known ways to integrate it, at a more beginner level, if I had known that sitting for 1 minute at a time, is actually just as good when starting out, perhaps it would have been easier. But at this time I wasn't aware.

The other thing that helped was drawing. It took me also out of my head, into a different world. I'm not saying you should always find the things that take you somewhere else. But in what ways can you enjoy the present. Make use of your talents, and not allow your thoughts to have front and center stage.

If you are new to meditation and or yoga and are interested in trying, since you are reading this, hence won't be making the same mistake as me as thinking that it has to be all in or nothing. I will say now. There is no amount that is too small to start with. One stretch, one short meditation, for 30 seconds. Start somewhere, slowly build, build by 30 seconds a day or even less. The worst we can do is sit back and declare that we don't have time, or it's too hard, or too intimidating or we don't have the bodies or the minds.. or whatever excuses we give. Of course we don't, because we haven't allowed ourselves the chance to open ourselves to a new possibility. And in the beginning we have to start small.

And when we hit those bumps, it's in remembering that they are just bumps. I often have this tendency to project whatever my current experience is onto forever. Oh it's been like this.. which means it will be like this forever. And again, these are lies that the mind tells. But as we recognize the patterns of the mind, we can slowly start to challenge them, and prove that we are not constant beings in a constant world, no matter how much we would like to think that is the case. We are in fact ever evolving and we are in fact always growing to new beautiful possibilities within and without. And us projecting darkness onto our future, is a misuse of our creative energy. Reality is we have no idea what our future is. Reality is, that we create it with our thoughts, through our perceptions. Reality may be fixed, yet our minds are not, Hence where all the magic and the keys lie.

Believe in you, believe in your road, believe you are exactly where you are meant to be, and if not what are the most valuable lessons you have acquired from these moments? What will pull you forward and allow you to think or judge differently the next time around?

The more meaning we can extract from the bumps and the crisis' the less they haunt us, the more we will infuse every part of our lives with gratitude and blessings. The less we will have any enemies and or people we cannot stand, and the more we will come to love every ounce of that around us.

With love and light,

Esther Shanti