Meditate Right Now

Posted on December 31, 2012May 25, 2014 by Sandi Amorim 41 Conversations

Amida Buddha, the largest Buddha outside of China, at the Lahaina Jodo Mission.

We know that meditation is good for us.

On a physical level, meditation can reduce your blood pressure, boost your immune system, diminish chronic pain, and that’s just for starts.
Emotionally, meditation brings greater calm, a feeling of spaciousness and a sense of humor about the vagaries of life.
Spiritually, meditation is the path to become truly human: loving, patient, understanding, forgiving, clear yet relaxed and playful.

Yet, we resist. We moan and groan, “There’s not enough time.”

We keep putting meditation off until tomorrow, next week, next month. Until illness or death arrives and we’re twisted by fear, wracked with regret.

How can we die peacefully if we haven’t tasted peace of mind in life?

There’s one simple and immediate solution to the problem of no time: Meditate Right Now.

You Can Meditate Right Now

You don’t need elaborate preparations, the right space, incense, or even a meditation cushion.

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How To Stay On Task

Posted on September 27, 2012April 16, 2014 by Sandi Amorim 24 Conversations

Imagine this scene: You want to get fit and you have joined your local gym with a view to setting up a fitness regime toot suite.

You have all the best intentions and just know that this time you really will follow through with the promises you have made to yourself!

Just to make especially sure though, you have even entered all your intended gym visits for the following month into your planner so as to remove your usual excuse of not having time.

And there’s no messing around because the first time you have scheduled is tomorrow immediately after work.

The only problem is you have no way of knowing how you will feel tomorrow after a long days work. You may feel great and pumped at the thought of pumping iron. Or indeed you may not.

Then tomorrow comes and it’s an insanely hectic day with work. You have no time to even take lunch and your expected leaving time of 4:00pm becomes 5:30pm.

Not that that is a problem or reason to not go because you know your partner will happily start dinner in your absence. You have nothing to rush home for that can’t wait until you have had some much deserved ‘you time’.

What do you do?

If you’re like most people, here is the answer to that question.

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An Affair of Self-Care

Posted on October 26, 2011April 16, 2014 by Sandi Amorim 13 Conversations

The Homage to Self-Care welcomes Jackie Walker’s perspective on self-care, relationships and self-love.

When Sandi asked me if I’d like to do a guest post on self-care, I jumped at the chance as this is exactly what I’ve been putting in place for 8 years now. In the process of learning, I’ve had hurdles, I’ve had setbacks, I’ve had jubilant moments of gloriousness.

It’s been a roller coaster of self-care. And that’s ok because if you even know that you’re on the roller coaster, you’re mastering the art of self-care!

Building a relationship with yourself is one of the hardest things to do. It seems counter intuitive at times, until you learn that it’s the whole point of your life. Everyone else and everything else is simply there to give you a chance to notice where you aren’t caring for and loving yourself.

There are so many tough lessons for us all to learn, until we realise how to make it easy on ourselves. A lot of that is down to resistance and perspective. Without resistance things flow. To stop resistance, change your perspective.

If only it were that simple!

I got into the world of personal development after my marriage broke down. Or, I’d be more correct in saying after I broke down in my marriage.

The people who show up in a relationship are often not themselves.

I wasn’t, and I’m sure you’ll have been in a relationship – business or personal – when you haven’t been yourself.

So if the person who isn’t showing up, then chooses to show up, it’s almost like an affair, there’s a third-party. Given that all day, everyday, you are relating to others, it would be extreme self-care to relate as you, the real you, the one you sometimes don’t like and would rather you’d left at home!

One of the things that used to stump me was knowing who I really was in order to be that person. When I started paying attention to my thoughts, my feelings and my body, I soon found what felt good and what didn’t.

I spent ages just getting to know when I was feeling naturally good, and when I was feeling unnaturally charged or drained. Unnaturally charged or drained seemed to come about through the wrong food, the wrong situations, the wrong company, the wrong words, the wrong answers etc. Following the advice in the rest of this glorious series, will give you starting points to help you find the natural you.

If you knew how to turn up as yourself in your relationship, what would that mean you had to start doing, or stop being?

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