1. Mindfulness: <\/strong> 2. Gratitude: <\/strong> 4.<\/strong> Empathy: <\/strong> Herzlichst Hello there, It\u2019s often easy to make New Year\u2019s resolutions but hard to realize them. A few people I know just recycle the ones from the previous year. Changing something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThere are a few things I really value that come out of deliberately practicing meditation and mindfulness. These are: a safe inner refuge to retreat to, a more intimate connection with body and being, a calm that transcends the ups and downs of daily life<\/span> and a heartfelt presence and participation with the world around me. What I appreciate most though is the clarity of mind that comes from regular meditation. It\u2019s so easy to get tangled up in things like confusion, conflict, worry or regret and when the mind is crowded with difficult thoughts, life<\/span>\u2019s joys vanish out of sight. When I think of the mind I imagine a clear blue lake high in the mountains. It\u2019s clear until storms arise that whip up waves and create turbulences stirring up the mud that usually lies undisturbed. The clear water becomes muddied and cloudy; it\u2019s hard to see. Meditation is like making space for the waves to calm and the mud to settle and the water to become translucent once again. Life<\/span> is so much less complicated when the mind is clear.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/_riVEcNvTkyQ8v6xm3IR5kEhva8AVBCSTXUwRkdMSXh4FWK3A_AFmh8WQ0iVQVtjC-vp_IWQNfEd-TRUlw8qrKbIgYAHOh3hHNNuiMmDql2vhmwmt7LivhDKRN7tTsydEPlcPEE28VBNxBaAVnr3BL6uKbbp6RkbM3g=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/bfe6fe3616459a2910d25a76d\/images\/17d49153-b5ba-4f1e-bbc9-25db8d491be6.jpg\")
<\/div>\n
\nEvolutionary science tells us that our brains are biased toward the negative; we are more prone to focus on and remember that which is unpleasant ( a simple self-test can reveal how true this is for you: if you look back over the last day or week, what do you remember most clearly?). This is greater sensitivity to the negative is an automatic response and one of the most important keys to survival. If we miss the stick, so to speak, we may not live to see another day. If we miss the carrot, it\u2019s no big deal in terms of survival. So, the question is how to transform this automatic reaction of remembering the negative? Easy. A deliberate practice of gratitude brings the good<\/span> back into focus and balances the scale. The impact on the quality of life<\/span> can be immediate. Personally, I start my day writing down three things that I am grateful for. The things I note can be as simple as having had a good<\/span> night\u2019s sleep or as meaningful as appreciating a particular aspect of a poem. It doesn\u2019t really matter; what matters is to train the brain to remember the good<\/span>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci5.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/WqPc2dE9t3KspYc_a0gIqNbvcP_WPchKTdQTiyVhRcSk59L8Xq0hyW8HkG4KeeRfXSSA5kKWMpPk95fLECGbhr_1AdC-i2Vsr6EbFyl7ED9kvnab-z4OCLRppgpUqPhfjK4i9AWSpJh1qvPDyfY6OChVOqlKnmusouE=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/bfe6fe3616459a2910d25a76d\/images\/dbafa95a-e815-4e36-93ff-57327f5fe05d.png\")
<\/div>\n
\nAlbert Einstein said: \u2018I am I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.\u2019 And as history has shown this curiosity took him far into remarkable discoveries. Curiosity takes us beyond the obvious, it stretches the mind and expands the horizon; it lets us experience the world around us with fresh eyes and makes life<\/span> eternally interesting. So how come we lose curiosity so easily? Perhaps one explanation is that curiosity requires us to suspend judgment and with it move away from certainty. Not feeling certain, hanging out with not knowing can be unsettling or even scary and threfore not so easy to bear. Perhaps it is comforting to remember that curiosity can be a wide-open state of mind but it can also be a specific question filled with genuine desire to understand. The poet Rilke offered these lines as guidance\u201d \u201cBe patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.\u201d<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci5.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/sAUdarltrLjlDxh46s9Vo92sW-iTqCTqOxv_OSZIrZSjcmE8zV203DShrJVkUn4WQIpvd2a_Gdx94BAvbclD4qEyQA8q0jtsPwyY8NFX0vhJmUP9Pol7q95Hcmykl9Pl2C5oT8qONYbNY-CkR_dTqQ-d-Mp08GWhj0A=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/bfe6fe3616459a2910d25a76d\/images\/f1253cb9-bd38-46f0-b24d-40df0a6aa238.jpg\")
<\/div>\n
\nI\u2019ve just spent 2 weeks with my little niece. She is nearly 4 but Down\u2019s Syndrome has made her learning a bit slower (nothing wrong with her intelligence or her communication, it\u2019s just the words that won\u2019t quite form clearly yet). Every morning, while combing her hair, in her own way she\u2019d tell me all kinds of stories about her dog or her sore finger or anything else that was of interest to her in that moment. If I didn\u2019t get it she would patiently repeat the same word over and over until finally, I understood. As soon as I said the right word she would clap and laugh that gorgeous toddler giggle and we both felt chuffed and connected. This is what it feels like to feel felt, to be \u2018gotten\u2019, to be understood. It\u2019s the good<\/span> oil for human connection but like it is with curiosity, it requires an open mind and a willingness to step out of one\u2019s known mental landscape and visit that of another. Try this simple thing once in a while: instead of responding with your opinion, thoughts or ideas to something someone has just said to you, start your sentence with: \u2018so what you are saying is\u2026.\u2019 (and then say back what you just heard in your own words with the intention to understand). Guaranteed to work.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/Zsev7hD6ehywGF_s6sdGEHyAhlIMUD_ub7Wao33XI4gCmXMe_UNpDv9wiQuGupnf7_bR911k50oEgxHFHkru3qEext2pm8CV1QNpdrHNsxvrRXrP55OALYmx7ncnB2Z7_sPt40PXrarSd61fGWZirTDaL_kgZ0QJ2so=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/bfe6fe3616459a2910d25a76d\/images\/8f4615b9-a240-4141-9a50-4e16319f2b5d.jpg\")
<\/div>\n
\nAhh, love. I don\u2019t mean the romantic but the fierce kind. The one that says this matters, you matter. It shapes how we are with ourselves, with another and with life<\/span> itself. It calls for commitment, for courage, for strength. It means a soft heart that is vulnerable to pain and loss and grief. High risk, high stakes. Big gain. The world needs more of it and luckily it\u2019s not a finite resource.<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci4.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/peejV2sqWuajkY7wMcW8FyFzSTN1VQisgPMq4u8hLnZ9H9gd4nCSCa1uzyzIsdxu9XnWoG56teRuSV32PkQswJpDsUKDmXkyzVhy5hnXvxyPdp42D01w1G90KmzAwj68-T5eOzPa7znfxzOjE4hSUnUK5_SN6rYRjQU=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/bfe6fe3616459a2910d25a76d\/images\/eeae974b-f1d4-47ee-9f50-0dac19d312ee.jpg\")
<\/div>\n
\nSabina<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"