To all my extreme friends and family… Take a rest!

Here it is, time to come clean; I am an addict. That is correct; you heard it from me before you heard it through the grape vine.  To my friends and family who might be wondering how they did not know this about me until now; I would have told you but I just realized…

…I had been invited by an inspiring friend of mine, Sylvia Nibley, to participate in the filming of something… I wasn’t quite sure what. I said yes because every time I hang out with Sylvia and her community, I walk away the wiser.

It was Friday the 29^th at 1 pm. I showed up to some familiar faces. Shannon Simomelli (The class/lady I wrote Dancing into my body about), as well as other people that I am sure I will be soon writing about, were there.

As it got started Dan Howard was introduced. I had seen him speak before and I was inspired by his calmness and sincerity. I also thought he looked very familiar. Come to find out I have known both of his sons for years (see you guys in Kamas and at echo this year!).

Dan started by telling us that the message he wanted to share would only take minutes. This caught me as strange since I was told we were going to be here for 4 hours. Dan was right, it only took a few minutes for his message… and then 4 hours to start comprehending the depth of it.

He explained what he calls Intentional Resting. Sounds simple enough, to intentionally rest for ourselves, right? He went on to explain how, because of the chaos/distractions of the world, we never let our bodies reach homeostasis, we keep our attention (and intention) so distracted that we very rarely have time to heal.

I am sure you are no stranger to meditation and have probably paused to send your headache some light, received a massage, spent a day relaxing to recharge, etc. This is in the same vain that Dan spoke about but his was a little simpler and for me it was a piece I have been searching for.

Just a week before I listened to Dan speak about Intentional Resting I was speaking to a friend about stress. I was mentioning how I couldn’t figure out why I was getting ill all the time. Yes I live a very active and stressful life (or so I am told, I think my stress meter is broken), but I take time out to relax, meditate, go on vacations, etc.

The person laughed and pointed out that even when I meditate, I meditate in an extreme way. They were joking but I got the message. I realized that my idea of relaxing was working on the house, cleaning, etc. My idea of meditation was using SyncCreation to remove energetic blocks and manifest things into my life, or take the Zen approach and send energy through me by actively clearing my mind.  My idea of going on vacations was to see and do as much as I could.

I realized that I didn’t know what relaxing was. I spent that night and many sense thinking about it as I lay awake (yes I even sleep intensely)…

Back to the class, here was Dan, telling me about rest. I had heard this word but it wasn’t part of my vocabulary. He told me that we can rest for our wounds. We can rest for our aches, we can rest for our bodies, our immune system, etc. and after telling us this he showed us.

He had us say, I am resting for my _____ now. I did it for my lower back because it was a little uncomfortable. He had us say I am resting into my ______ now. After I said this not only did my lower back feel better, I felt more present, but most importantly I felt true rest… that simple.

The more he talked about rest; resting for ourselves and others, the more I realized, just like my friend said, there wasn’t one thing I did that was actually resting! I have been told I was addicted to extremes before. But I wrote it off because I also relaxed. But I wasn’t relaxing and in fact I was just juicing up doing a less active way of using, creating and burning up more energy.

In that moment I got it and now I am okay with telling you. I am addicted to the highs of everything! Yes I know the power of affirmation. But if I started the article out with I now rest it wouldn’t have captured the addictive irony of this article.

My new affirmation is that I am a well rested person. I have the thought that the more rested I am the more I can be awake (I know there is a quote or something like this).  All last week I caught myself jumping from extremes to extremes. But now I know! And now I pause and rest!

All ready I have felt it affect my health, I have noticed it in my ability to be in tune with my body, I have even shared this with others and felt it bring whole rooms together and rested in minutes.

To all the other addicts of the extreme; take a moment, pause and rest… we could all use some! And imagine a world of well rested beings, present and peaceful… now that is the stuff!

Here is a side story. I was in Vegas last weekend to see Preston and Kimball (A.K.A. Fyzyk and Litmus One) play a show (hip-hop with a soul and conscious lyrics). Before the show I was sitting with Preston (one of my best buddies in the whole universe) and I was having a hard time connecting with him.

I thought it might be due to the long (but awesome) car ride or that we were just on different pages. Then it clicked that he wasn’t really there with me. He was 4 hours a head thinking about the show with nervousness. Some how the conversation got turned into a discussion about meditation and energy (happens all the time with Preston and I. If you don’t believe me listen to Preston and Kimball’s lyrics and read my other blogs).

He asked me to walk him through a meditation. I had been thinking about Intentional Resting a lot so I explained it to him and asked him if he would like to give it a try. He said yes so I invited him to close his eyes and repeat “I am resting for my body now”.

When he said it the room went still and so did his jitters (twitching leg, etc). I then asked him to repeat “I am resting into my body now”. I felt all of his energy that was somewhere else come and settle in his body. I got goose bumps! I looked around the room and I could tell by the expression on everyone’s face that they felt Preston arrive.

He went on to rest for his brother Kimball and the crowd that would be at the show and then sat in the rest for a few minutes. The rest of the time before the show was beautiful, everyone there felt connected, present, and in the moment and it set a beautiful tone for the evening.

As for the show later that night; ask anyone there and they will tell you that Preston and Kimball were the 2 most present people that performed. The energy flowed through them like water. There crowed was connected and engaged. It was beautiful, powerful, inspiring and fun as heck!

What an awesome experience of resting!

Is My iPod Trying to Tell Me Something?

I am fortunate enough to be able to take 30 minutes at lunch each day and do an exercise from the SyncCreation Home Study Course. It’s very powerful for me to be able to take some time for myself each day, and do an exercise that moves me forward.

Last Thursday I had a unique experience while on the couch at the office with my iPod. I did my usually preparations. I put out a sign asking people not to enter the room. Told my co-workers that I was “taking-off” and would be back in 30. And selected the exercise for the day. Thursday it was to be “Free Flow 12”.

Next was to create an intention for the meditation. I wanted to create some registered attendees for our next workshop. I wanted to attract some like-minded, super powerful people to be part of our January workshop.

Now I was ready to go, I pressed play, and went to focus 12 (takes about 10 minutes). But something happened once I got there. It wasn’t playing the Free Flow 12 exercise I had selected.

Abundance Tree was playing. Of course this pulled me out of the meditation for moment. I looked down at my iPod and it still read “Free Flow 12”. What was going on? Free Flow 12 I can create patterns I want. Abundance tree is all about eliminated blocks of lack and guilt. Hmm… was my iPod trying to tell me something?

I decided to continue on with the meditation rather than restart with my intended selection. Partly because I was taking it as a message and partly because I didn’t want to take an extra 10 minutes it would take to get back to focus 12.

So I went on, releasing blocks of feeling like I was to blame for the results of the workshop. Like there was never enough that I could do. Like I should work more, longer, harder. I kept running these thoughts through the chipper and over and over I heard “Gratitude” after releasing the blocks. This message kept ringing in my ears.

After coming out of the meditation, I felt great. I was lighter, more free, and full of energy. But this was nothing new. This how I always feel after this meditation. Wondering what had happened I looked at my iPod to see if it read the abundance tree exercise instead of the intended free flow focus 12. And it didn’t. It still read that I was listening to Free Flow 12.

I exited out to the menu screen. Paused the recording. And pressed play again. It was still reading Free Flow 12 and yet playing Abundance Tree. How odd. But who knows, could be a technical glitch, could be the universe trying to send me a message.

Not being one to dismiss a possible message from the universe, I immediately went to work on being more grateful. I listed all the wonderful people I have in my life. I thought of the people I had met through SyncCreation and how powerful they are. I thought of family, friends, work, pets, and everything else I have to be grateful for.

I felt great and it was a wonderful experience. And I’ll never know if I should tell Apple they have a glitch, or if there was something larger going on. What I do know is that over the next few days the exact blocks I was trying to clear up by doing free flow 12 seemed to have melted away. I was looking for some specific results and they came rushing in the door.

The company was able to communicate with some people who were interested in the workshop and in our home study course. These people are amazing, and truly powerful.

What do you think? Was this merely a glitch in my iPod’s software? Or was there a message to be found in this?

Abundance Tree Exercise

This exercise is designed to soften lack and guilt, two main blocks which, if present, will impede your energy. Feeling lack increases the odds that you will manifest lack. Feeling guilt constricts energy. This is a guided imagery exercise designed to help you release both.

Take two pieces of paper and label one A and the other B. Relax; ask for help from highest Source, from your body, and from your own unconscious. After you feel relaxed and connected, spend about 10 minutes listing on paper A, any sense of lack you feel, or have felt in the past, even as a kid. Do this even if it seems trivial, or if it seems that you are wrong or selfish to feel that way. Don’t exercise judgment, just observe with compassion. If it comes to you, trust it surfaced for a reason and jot it down.

List material and non-material things, such as:

* Any areas of lack in physical beauty, strength, coordination, and health
* Any areas of mental ability (trouble with math or spelling)
* Any emotional areas such as lack of happiness, ecstatic loving, or peace
* Any relationship areas such as lack of parental love, or caring and understanding from friends, mates, ministers, teachers
* Any material areas such as not getting a certain toy as a kid, money, etc.

Next, list on paper B, any ways — past or present — that you have felt any sort of guilt for acts and thoughts of omission or commission. Again, do this with a sense of non-judgmental, observant compassion. List minor things like not going to church on Sunday or forgetting someone’s birthday, as well as major things like hurting or failing yourself or another.

Now, take the lists and a pencil or marker with you and enter a relaxed or meditative state (perhaps playing soft music in the background). After you are relaxed and expanded, imagine yourself in a beautiful field of soft grass with the sun warming your body as a nice breeze keeps you fully comfortable. Close by is a grand abundance tree, strong in structure but in need of food. Nearby lie two piles of dead branches. In the first pile, see each entry on your list A as an individual branch, large or small. The branches represent the pattern that is both created by, and holds the dead, frozen energy that any sense of lack or guilt create.

Now, imagine a large, gas-powered wood chipper like those that tree-cutting crews use. You know, those noisy machines with sharp rotating blades and a big chute out of which spew wood chips that are used as a fertilizing mulch. Turn on the wood chipper. Hear its powerful, smooth whine, and feed into it, one branch at a time, the pile of branches at your feet, crossing each off your list as you go. Hear the tone of the machine change and then return to its strong whine after each branch goes through. It works even better to make the sound of the wood chipper, letting your voice change as the branches go through. Smell the woody freshness of the released energy. When you have finished with the entire pile, turn off the chipper. Rest a moment, and then repeat the same process with your B list.

Then, in the vibrant silence, take the resulting pile of fresh, nutrient laden, wood chips and spread them around the base of your abundance tree. See the tree greening and growing fully healthy, with strong roots that reach deep into the earth and a crown that reaches to the heavens.

Give great thanks for the experiences that created the piles of branches, to the abundance tree, and then to yourself, for being willing to experience all those things. Bring yourself back to an awake and alert state and then throw away or burn your lists, letting go, once and for all, the constriction and pain represented by the lists.