treats

i've been fortunate to have tons of treats in my life recently. i feel as though the last month has been one giant treat.

here's a sneak peak at some of my most recent treats:

~ the indian summer we've been having

~ a birthday jubilee teavana present

~ teaching yoga to people who have never taken a yoga class before and seeing their faces light up with delight and hearing them say how much better they feel afterwords

~ cherishing solo time this weekend while ryan is in philadelphia

~ connecting with tons of fabulous readers - you all make my day - everyday!!

~ halloween - my favorite holiday

~ my first day of massaging clients tomorrow - i'm SO excited!!

check out what other treats by visiting jamie ridler's the next chapter.

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monday moment of zen

"A man's life is what his thoughts make of it. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." Marcus Aurelius

i couldn't agree with this more. the power of our thought can change everything. our thoughts are energy . try to incorporate this idea today. whenever you feel a negative thought coming on try to turn it around and think something positive and just observe the effect it can have on your entire day.

namaste

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risk

life is full of risks. whether we realize it or not, we take risks everyday.

martha beck said "what's safe about not being who you were meant to be?" that completely resonated with me.

i wish i would have read this book a year ago. reading it now makes me realize that when i took the risk of switching gears from accounting to massage therapy and yoga was exactly what i needed.

sometimes the risk we most need to take is pushing ourselves and i am so grateful that i did.

follow along with other risk takers by visiting jamie ridler's the next chapter.

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belated birthday gratitude

my birthday has come and gone but gratitude and joy still remains in my heart. i'm still in what i call my "birthday jubilee." what is a birthday jubilee you ask? well, that is the week or so after your birthday when you are still receiving birthday cards and presents in the mail.

i am so happy for:

~ all of the lovely birthday wishes on facebook, twitter & e-mail

~ all of the lovely birthday cards in the mail

~ all of the birthday presents

~ ryan paid for me to have a massage for my birthday

~ a gift certificate to tranquilit from a friend

~ money from the parents

~ the friendship over the blogosphere

~ each and every one of you my lovely readers

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monday moment of zen

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"peace comes from within. do not seek it without." ~buddha

creativity

when i first picked up "the joy diet," i randomly flipped to a few pages and one of the main things that grabbed my attention was on the chapter of creativity. it was "uncomfortable truth #1: you are always responsible for creating your life, whether you like it or not." (i couldn't agree more!!)

i also love how martha beck explained that "criticism is an alluring substitute for creation, because tearing things down, unlike building them up, really is as easy as falling off a stump." i think that in general, we humans criticize because we are upset that someone else has thought of our idea first. we should congratulate them on their achievements and try to work on another idea. martha said "before you make negative comments about other people's creations, require yourself to do a better job than they did, under similar conditions."

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." ~albert einstein

find out what other creative people are saying about the creativity chapter.

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monday moment of zen

"cultivate peace first in the garden of your heart by removing the weeds of lust, hatred, greed, selfishness and jealousy. then only you can manifest it externally. then only, those who come in contact with you, will be benefited by your vibration of peace and harmony." ~sivananda

i love this quote. really pay attention and read it again. we have to have peace within our own hearts before we can send peace out into the world. so many of us have a good heart and want to help others but we have to help ourselves first. only then can we make a true difference on the world around us.

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desire

in buddhism, samudaya is the second noble truth. samudaya is the origin of suffering is attachment.

"this is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination." - wikipedia

"craving" is also the same sense as desire. "desire is a sense of longing for a person or object or hoping for an outcome." "when a person desires something or someone, their sense of longing is excited by the enjoyment or the thought of the item or person, and they want to take action to obtain their goal." - wikipedia

according to early buddhist scriptures, the buddha stated "that monks should 'generate desire' for the sake of fostering skillful qualities and abandoning unskillful ones." - wikipedia

aha! so, we now have a loophole. this loophole isn't so we can desire our heart out for the newest, coolest flat panel tv, but to better ourselves.

i love it when martha beck says "the longing for one specific thing leads to another, then another, then another - and then one day, quite unexpectedly, you'll realize that you are coming out of the woods into a life you love. any little desire, so long as you truly feel it, will get you started on the path toward your destiny."

martha also states that if you make desire a habit "in other words, if you spend some time each day paying kind attention to your desires - you will sooner or later experience something almost magical; the moment when your mind, led by your sense of yearning, embraces the next stop toward the best life you are capable of living. this is the moment when desire stops being just a story about what might happen and becomes a template of what will happen; the moment when "i wish" becomes "i will."

this is so incredibly powerful and that is exactly how i feel about my life now. this whole summer i spent longing to find my path in life. while i am not quite out of the woods just yet, i am well on my way and loving every second of it.

like to see what others desire? click here to check out more of the joy diet.

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psychoneuroimmunology

"psychoneuroimmunology (or simply pni) is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body." - quoted from wikipedia

what does that mean exactly?

it's the controversial "mind-body connection."

i personally believe in "mind over matter." we make choices everyday that takes us in the direction or path in life. if we keep telling ourselves that we are sick then we will get sick.

have you ever known of someone who has gotten bad news from the doctor but has miraculously healed beyond any one's imagination? for example someone who was diagnosed with cancer and told that they had 3 months to live but is now 10 years in remission? that is exactly what i am talking about! those people have made up their minds that this disease (or dis-ease) will not get the best of them. the perfect example of this is the courageous and fabulous kris carr.

you've probably noticed the quote by buddha that i have on the left sidebar "what we think, we become." i truly believe that. energy follows our thoughts so why not think good ones?!

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monday moment of zen

"meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom." ~siddhartha

welcome to my new series of "monday moment of zen". mondays can be a struggle for all of us. for a lot of us it's the start of a new work week when we are still longing to be in our warm beds or just lounging around with our family and pets. but we must face the world and the day ahead and why not do it with a moment of zen.

namaste!

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shira sela

i am telling you, life just keeps getting better and better everyday! i keep receiving little thank you notes and tea bags from my tea traders. i am like a little kid running to check the mail everyday. i love getting snail mail. yesterday i went to the post office to pick up a package. i wondered what it could be. this is what i opened...

which on the back side of the girl holding the balloon was this lovely note...

and on the inside was the print...

isn't it magnificent?!

i entered a giveaway on sofia's fabulous blog and i won!! this 'blossom print' is by shira sela. be sure to check out shira's website and her etsy store for more fabulous prints.

and the truth shall set you free

do you want the truth? i'll be happy to give it to you, but don't blame me if it's not what you want to hear. :)

sometimes the truth is hard to swallow. sometimes we aren't true to our friends, our family but when we aren't true to ourselves - that is when something is really wrong.

the most important thing i took away from the joy diet's chapter on truth was when martha beck simply said this "as far as i can tell, this process is always hard, always painful, always so, so worth it."

she is so, SO right!! for many years i was unhappy with certain aspects of my life and then i decided to get real with myself and really look truth in the face. and yes, it was an extremely difficult and painful experience, but, i am so much happier and freer now that i have. i should have befriended truth along time ago but i digress. now that truth and i are in cahoots, we are going to stay that way. it's the only way to live.

remember, it's never to late to discover your truth or check out others. click here for other inspiring truth seekers.
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hello october

my my my, september slipped away from us. i can hardly believe it's october already. october is one of my favorite months mainly because of my birthday and halloween. i don't doubt for a second that this october will be less than impressive.

if you will recall, i had one gargantuan goal for september - nothing!! needless to say i did a whole lot of it and treasured every single second!

in addition to a whole lot of nothing, i...

• visited my parents and best friend
• had my first ever thai yoga massage
• celebrated mine & ryan's 4 year anniversary
• went to moop and bought an organic market bag & clutch
• walked a labyrinth for the first time
• reconnected with friends i hadn't seen in a while
• organized the tea trade
• attended the bliss soul retreat
• kicked back at the local wine & jazz festival
• saw the wheeling symphony orchestra
  
• did my first ever guest blog post
• did a full corn moon visionboard
• started the joy diet
• started my yoga certification classes
• and started massage therapy school

now that september has come and gone, it's time to focus on a few october goals.

• my first and foremost is to stay focused on massage therapy school (i can't even begin to tell you how much i love it!)
  
• keep focused on my yoga certification training as well
• take advantage of the local festivals and workshops
• eating lots of pumpkin everything
  
• enjoy each day and live it like it was my last

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