Though Boo wasn’t my “real” grandfather I could not miss the realness of his final days. Despite the sticky doorknob, the smell of last week’s lunch, dead flowers, and the junk pile obstacle course, I made my way to his bedside. The clutter used to spark an uncomfortable itch throughout my body, but I’d accepted it. His 98-year-old body was tired, but his spirit was very much alive as he pondered the end.
Posts filed under Calendar Essays
From Doubt to Perseverance: A Local Practitioner’s Story
My journey to self-discovery began about 20 years ago when I was diagnosed with lupus. For many years the disease kicked my butt. I was severely depressed, constantly in and out of the hospital, having one issue after another. I often had a hard time taking care of myself, and my children, especially after filing for separation from their father. I moved back home from Virginia to Michigan and started over. I tried my best to make a good life for myself and my sons, but lupus wouldn’t let me be. I have had many near-death experiences, the last time being the worst. I then promised myself I wouldn’t let lupus kill me. I was determined to get better. I was going to find a way to cure myself.
The Role of Our Autobiography in Our Present and Future Life
Our past deeply impacts our present. Our childhood experiences have a huge impact on how we view the world today. We are deeply influenced, for better or worse, by the dynamics in our family, our religious upbringing, our cultural experiences, any bullying or trauma we endured, and the list goes on. All of these experiences are part of our autobiography and influence how we behave, think, and feel. In addition, how we experience life today, will impact how we experience life tomorrow.
Demystifying the Magic
When I was in early grade school, I lived in a modest ranch home in a downriver neighborhood. One evening while lying in bed in my room, I felt compelled to look out my window which faced our backyard. As I stood on my bed and looked out, the sky in the distance looked ominous. The dark clouds certainly meant a storm was coming. I loved storms (still do!), so I watched, fascinated by the swirling colors of the clouds.
A Gift of Clairvoyance and Psychometry
When a small Santa Claus ornament was handed to me by a friend, the vision hit me immediately: An adult male, only in his 30s, suffered a severe heart event that stopped him in his tracks. He was so discouraged that he could no longer live his life as he intended. As a young husband in the late 1940s, he loved his wife and daughter dearly but couldn’t provide for them as he longed to do. That is what I told the owner of the ornament, Lori, who confirmed my accuracy. She went on to say that her mother became the breadwinner and Lori, who was quite young at the time, had to grow up quickly to help the family. I then told Lori additional information that she wasn’t previously aware of but was useful to her.
Joyful Movement for Complex Healing
The Nia technique is a somatic movement practice that combines dance, martial arts, and healing arts to promote holistic fitness and well-being. Developed by Debbie Rosas and Carlos Aya Rosas in the 1980s, Nia is based on the belief that movement is medicine and that the body’s innate wisdom holds the key to healing and vitality.
The Art of Spirit Guide Messages and Tarot
Like many, my spiritual journey started at a young age, I felt, saw, and simply just knew. I knew there was more, especially when some of my dreams came to fruition. I simply didn’t understand how to interpret how that came to be. I would lose myself in my art, writing poetry and short stories.
The New Context of Essential Oils
Take a moment to imagine a beautiful rose garden. Notice your surroundings. Feel the sun warming the surface of your skin, as a gentle breeze dances by. Listen to the sounds of nature around you. The leaves on the trees sway in the breeze. Birds off in the distance. A sense of stillness within the activity of nature.
Talking While Walking
My name is Fran Adler, and I’ve been a licensed therapist in private practice for over two decades. Over the years there have been many aspects of this work that I’ve greatly enjoyed. But, there is one thing about being a therapist that I’ve never been crazy about—too much sitting!
Full Moon Ceremony: Creating Sacred Space With Others
What is sacred space and where do we find it? I would describe sacred space as any environment that evokes a serene, reverent feeling of safety and connection. It is a space that allows you to remember the feeling of being exactly who you are with a knowing that you, alone, are enough. It is like receiving a warm hug from a friend or stepping into a bubble that comforts and supports you in every energetic way. Sacred space can be a place—a corner of a room or a park bench, but it can also exist within us in the moment-to-moment connectedness to our own inner wisdom, to our spirituality, to our wholeness. Native American wisdom describes sacred space as the space between the in-breath and out-breath. It exists eternally, within each of us. It just takes slowing down and listening instead of doing to uncover it.
Collaborative Therapeutic Massage
I view what I do as a collaboration between myself and my client—and sometimes, indirectly, between my client, other practitioners, and me. I expect my clients to work alongside me to ease their muscles, take further steps in their own healing, and work at shifting their posture.
Creating Tea Rituals to Nurture the Divine Feminine
Have you ever had a day where nothing was really going as planned? Or one you knew was going to be busy and full of stressors? We’ve probably all had a day where we felt ill, and energetically on empty with no desire to power through. Did you make yourself a nice cup of tea and instead of drinking it from a travel mug on the go, you sat and enjoyed your tea for a few moments? Did it make you feel better and more equipped to deal with the moment? My best guess is yes! If so, then you’ve experienced firsthand the ability a simple cup of tea has to transport, nourish, and fortify. You indulged in a simple time-tested act of healing and self-care. An activity that could easily be ritualized. Using tea to commune with the sacred has a long history starting in ancient China. It’s the intention that makes it a ritual.
Visual Journaling: Image and Word, a Journey to Self-expression
This quote is sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, who said, "A good sketch is better than a long speech." Creating a journal with images and words is a place to honor your experiences through exercises that expand your own process of describing your world and your distinct expression of it. It is a journey into the heart of self-expression, free from competition and comparison.
Live Love--Share the Hearts
By Michael Oliver
As I embarked on my journey into 2020, I found my fellow human beings becoming increasingly angry, fearful, and distrustful of each other. I asked myself this question, “Is this who we really are?” It felt like the negative and dark energy hiding in the shadows finally found a doorway. So many triggers appeared, and they would consistently attempt to flip the switches of light, to darkness. At times it felt terribly dark and other times, it felt like light was returning. It is a battle that continues today, but is not a new battle; it is a different battle.
What is different about this battle, you may ask? Awareness! Yes, we are more aware of what was lurking in the darkness than we were in the past. Humans are waking up! And it is in that process of waking up that we are learning to acknowledge the ways of the past that have been damaging to our species and limiting our growth toward living a life of love and joy. For me, 2020 triggered a deep and self-reflective time. I kept pondering over what I could do to make life for humanity better, and I came up with the Share the Hearts Campaign.
The Share the Hearts Campaign was inspired by Dr. Kenneth McCulley who founded a human potential development program which included a poem titled I Live Love Every Moment of My Life. In that poem, Dr. McCulley’s primary message was to wake people up to the reality that we all come from the same source and as such, we are all brothers and sisters, one and the same. It was Dr. McCulley’s dream that all humans demonstrate, unconditionally, Living Love—performing acts of kindness for their fellow human beings. Motivated by the energy and effort of Dr. McCulley, our team wanted to build a campaign that would operationalize that message to the world.
Sharing a simple wooden heart can make a difference! Every act of kindness, thoughtfulness, caring, and copassion, is an act of living a life of love—as the Beatles once sang, “All We Need is Love.” True! What a difference love can make.
Mindtation, a small start-up company, is on a mission to help people find their paths of joy, because when people are living their joy, they live a life that is aligned with who they truly are, living in and experiencing positive synchronicities. We decided that we wanted to do something fun, yet meaningful, to engage people back into love consciousness and help them along with aligning with their true selves.
Read related article: Living From the Awakened Heart
Along with teaching the power of meditation, the breath, mindfulness, intuition and sound, we are initiating the Share the Hearts campaign to help spread loving kindness. Wondering how it works? Small packets of wooden hearts are purchased from our website and then you can give them to people you “catch” doing acts of loving kindness. In the packet, there is a heart and a card explaining the purpose of this event. Each one of us will be the eyes of the change we want to see. This act, this awareness, plants the seed of love and kindness into one’s consciousness—making it grow each time it is acknowledged within someone else. Each time a wooden heart is given for an act of kindness, it reinforces love and kindness within yourself (the giver) as well as expanding the consciousness of love in others (the receivers).
At the deepest level, we are all one and the same. As Peter Yarrow said, “There is only one river. There is only one sea. And it flows through you, and it flows through me. There is only one people. We are one and the same.” The kick-off for Mindtation’s Sharing the Hearts Campaign took place on April 9th, 2021. To kick-off the event, Mindtation presented a video providing an overview of what it means to live in joy and love—especially during stressful times and the many benefits that it can bring. The purpose of this campaign is to bring us back to loving kindness and mindfulness...bring us back to awareness of our own humanity.
Let’s re-learn how to respond to all situations with love. The goal is to put the intention of Living Love, our Truth, back into the world.
If you are interested in this campaign and would like to learn more, please visit Sharethehearts.com. A percentage of all heart package purchases will be donated to select charities.
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Featured
Stepping Into Freedom: A Funny Thing Happened On My Way Out the Door
I was wearing a walking cast on my broken right foot toward the end of my tenure as an administrative assistant at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. At work one day, when I knew I was tendering my resignation but had not yet announced it, I was clunking into our “hub” from my office down the hall. The hub was a room that had multiple functions: mail room, kitchen, copy room, and a place where people touched base, shared a greeting, or had a chat. On this day one of my co-workers walked in at the same time as I and greeted me with, “How long do you have?”
Connecting Through Story
Joyous connection is the very stuff of story. The rise of social media, the popularity of The Moth, TED Talks, and StoryCorps, all point to the importance of story in our daily lives. Story connects us to our shared history. Personal stories of life today are cathartic for the teller, and studies show that the brain relaxes when it makes a coherent narrative out of something chaotic. They can be healing for the teller and audience alike, but story has a much broader historical significance as well. It not only helps us to understand earlier events, but also to understand the hopes, beliefs, and dreams of those who lived through those events. Story is a gift of joyous connection sent to us from times past.
A 24-Hour Yoga Practice
Today I practiced yoga for a full 24 hours. Whoa, right? Sounds like an intense, almost insane practice. Why would anyone do yoga for 24 hours straight? Well, it was a crazy practice, but not in the way you would think. What if I told you that I didn’t practice one Asana (yoga posture) or movement? What would you think? Where would your mind go? Would you ask, how can you practice yoga for 24 hours without any movement? This is where we may have some ground to make up as a yoga community. Asana is only one of the many practices of yoga. I practiced the other foundational concepts. I practiced yoga with my mind, my actions, and my thoughts.
A Journey Through the Stages of Personal Power
Where do you derive your sense of “personal power”? How is it influenced by your environment, whether it’s a professional organization or a college campus? In her book Real Power: Stages of Personal Power in Organizations, Janet Hagberg explores six stages through which our ego travels in search of personal power, demonstrating that real power transcends achievements and external successes.
Book Review: Dodging Energy Vampires
This is Halloween season, and many of us love a good vampire costume, movie, or book. We might think that vampires are only the stuff of fantasy, but Dr. Christiane Northrup’s latest book, Dodging Energy Vampires, discusses just how real energy vampires are. According to Northrup, these characters do exist among us, draining another’s energy, and their primary relationships are with those who exhibit empathic personality traits.
The Deeper Benefits of a Day of Silent Meditation
At the end of a silent meditation retreat at Triple Crane Monastery, we often hear that people experienced many kinds of benefits such as: increased flexibility, increased energy, a reduction in stress and anxiety, a feeling of being more connected to their own senses, more happiness, a discovery of their innate abilities, more insight, and an increase in wisdom. However, some may say these are only the superficial benefits of meditation. Are there greater benefits from a truly deep meditation?
Kindness, Clarity, and Insight is a collection of talks that the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama gave in the USA and Canada more than forty years ago. With this and later books, the Dalai Lama brought Tibetan Buddhism and the situation in Tibet into prominent international awareness; he went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.