Meditation has been scientifically proven to: 

Improve Your Health - better immune function, less pain & inflammation.

Increase Your Contentment - more positive thoughts & feelings, less stress & anxiety.

Boost Your Self-Confidence - easier to accel & do your best.

Boost Your Productivity - more focused & creative, easier to multi-task & problem-solve.

Then why don’t we take that time for ourselves to relax, let go, breathe more deeply and go within? Maybe the personality bit of us would rather lay on the couch and watch Netflix or HBO or anything.  If it's not a priority, if something hasn't happened in our lives that makes it imperative to make the change and find this quiet time for ourselves, we're likely to remain the same, even if we know it's 'good for us' or could lower our stress and cortisol levels. 

We need to ask ourselves:  Are we ready and willing to change? 

Sometimes, we know that something is bad for us, but we keep doing it anyway.  One example is smoking.  I had a friend, Evan.  He's a great guy, a vegetarian, a non-drinker.  Watches what kind of food he puts in his body.  And he hates pollution.  He talks on and on about pollution even though he's been polluting his own air and lungs for years. Evan, until quite recently was a smoker.  He smoked 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day. Knew it was bad for him. Knew it was going to kill him, but he didn't stop smoking.  He's been having respiratory conditions for years connected with cigarette smokers, and recently went to a Naturopath for some iridology.  The Naturopath told Evan that he had some spots on the lungs. Evan looked up spots on the lungs and decided to see a Western medical doctor.  He hadn't been to see one in 10 years.  The doctor found that Evan had the beginning stages of emphysema.  Evan quit smoking cold turkey and hasn't had a cigarette in over 6 months. 

What happened?  Evan not only knew in his head that cigarettes were going to kill him, he became aware that cigarettes were actually killing him, and he allowed change to move through him and become a non-smoker. 

What's the correlation? We may feel stressed, tired, overwhelmed, out of sorts and know that something needs to change in our lives, like having a meditation practice, and do nothing.  When it hits home that the stress, fatigue, and other physical ailments that we are experiencing with increasing frequency and intensity are not going away, are starting to control our lives, it's no longer a theory, and we allow change to move through us. We make changes in our lives to feel more calm, quiet, centered, balanced and peaceful. 

Why wait till our stress levels or physical symptom reach epic proportions?  Our society has some unrealistic ideas about meditation, like you must sit cross legged on the floor with your spine straight and eyes closed and chant or breathe deeply for hours to meditate. 

No, not true.  We can meditate in motion like chi gong or tai chi.  We can sit quietly and breathe and be for 5 minutes.  Some physical activities can be a meditative experience, like swimming, running, walking, hiking and skiing.  It's about being fully present in the moment and in our hearts, grounded in our bodies, experiencing calm assurance and serenity. 

There's not a one-size-fits-all for meditation, we can start small and build from there.  We can experience the benefits with our short, focused meditation time, our time to rest and rejuvenate, our time to relax and refuel.  It's important to be kind to ourselves and fill ourselves with the love of self-care; when we do so, we bring more of our best self to whatever else we do.

There’s a lot of urgency everywhere in the world today, lots of fears about getting it wrong, missing out, not getting what you want, losing what you’ve got and being left behind.  It's easy to get sucked into comparing ourselves to other people, regretting key moments in the past and worrying about the future.

Focusing on what you don’t want to experience is not a good idea.  It just brings you more of the same.  What you focus on is what you get more of in your life! 

What can you do not to get sucked into the fear, doubt and disbelief that’s everywhere around you, the feeling of being incredibly stressed?  It’s about unplugging from the way most people do it.  Unplugging from what magazines, the news, talk shows and lots of people say you should and should not be doing, which means giving up on your dreams and goals.

Even the people that love you and want to give you the best possible advice are operating out of their own biases, beliefs, and fears, and can easily sabotage your success if you ignore your own inner knowing, if you allow yourself to be swayed from your initial inspiration that really lit you up, that you knew was the way forward.

So if you have a new seedling of an idea, do not share it with anyone unless you are absolutely 110% sure that they will support you, cheer you on, have your back and keep your secret safe until your great idea is a sturdy tree.

Find ways to support listening to your own knowing, that still small voice inside that can be easily muffled by all the busyness in your life.  Find ways to get your head clear, to let go of daily stress and deeply breathe.  Meditation. Yoga. Hiking, Skiing. Swimming. Biking. Running.  Meandering through nature. Enjoying the full moon. Walking in the brisk night air. Lying on the beach.  Painting. Drawing. Writing. Journaling.  Building something. Clearing out the old – giving away, throwing out or selling everything that you no longer need or use.  Relaxing with a friend.  Being alone and enjoying it.

Find ways to nod your head and smile in all the right places and then follow your heart. Sometimes, it’s not worth making a point or having a prolonged or heated discussion with someone who just doesn’t get you, who wants to push their views onto you.

Gather people around you who understand you and get your vision, who care about and support you without needing anything back in return; gather people who are your tribe, people who have your back as much as you have theirs; people you can count on when the waters are rough; people who will tell it like it is while always holding the ideal of all you can be, the clearest, brightest version of you.

Practice being a witness to the stress of others, to the wound up, there’s not enough time, it’s too hard, I’m not going to make it, playing out in the world.  Be in the world but not part of the urgency in the world. Don’t judge it. Accept people and situations and circumstances as they are and make a new path for yourself and for others to follow; a path that is calmer, more productive and supportive, more in alignment with who you are choosing to be.

Unplugging from the urgency, stress and fear that is all around is not a one-off thing; it’s a daily endeavor. You are swimming upstream. If you stop or forget for a day, you will be swept back into the old.

It’s not easy being different. It’s not easy being the eye, that calm quiet center in the midst of everything that is happening in your world.  Anything worth having, calm assurance, being able to handle what is in your in tray with grace, ease and flow, is worth fighting for.

If you’re ready to unplug, find support and systems to guide you step by step of the way into a new way of being, one that supports your heartfelt success, one that's in alignment with your vision and ideals and goals.

Protecting Purpose and Vision

Do you protect your new goals and projects, your inspirations, and ideas, from outside contamination?

As attorneys and professionals grow into leadership roles, they often discover that success depends not only on technical expertise, but also on the ability to communicate wisely and navigate important conversations and negotiations with clarity, steadiness, and sound judgment.

Their new goals, projects, inspirations, and ideas are seedlings.

Their new goals, projects, inspirations, and ideas are seedlings. They’ve just planted them in rich fertile soil and watered them.

They are barely sprouting up above the ground.  They are young and fragile, easy to trample and destroy.

Most people don’t have our best interests at heart.  They would sooner see us fail because our success makes them feel bad about themselves.  Even the people we love, the people who are closest to our heart can, consciously or unconsciously, have mixed motives.

If we want to succeed, we must not share our goals, projects, inspirations, and ideas -- especially before we’ve got them fully grounded and self-sustaining -- with anyone but those we absolutely and wholeheartedly trust. 

Again, sometimes we think we can trust our secrets with close family members and friends, when we can’t.  If our gut says ‘no’, listen.  It might not speak loudly, but we will feel a little nagging feeling or slightly uncomfortable.  Our inner knowing doesn’t shout, it whispers. Listen.

Sometimes it’s best to tell no one rather than risk a negative projection or reaction, which can be camouflaged as ‘just looking out for your best interests’ or ‘playing the devil’s advocate’ and can fill us with doubt.  And doubt is poison. It can easily destroy what we’ve started.

Once our seedling takes root and is a sturdy young tree, once our tree is able to weather challenging conditions and is able to not only survive but thrive, then sharing is a different story. We use our common sense and intuition to decide when the time is right.

“You don’t know my family or best friend", people tell me.  Maybe not. But people will try to sabotage our success for all kinds of reasons.  Maybe it makes them feel bad about themselves, shining a bright light on how unhappy or stuck they feel in their lives.  Maybe they are afraid that you will no longer need them, that you will move away or distance yourself once success lights up your life.

So, let's protect our seedlings from all negative thoughts, projections and influences, and err on the side of caution. Let's trust our intuition and be discerning. Ler's nurture and love our seedlings, knowing and visualizing that they are now magnificent, strong, and sturdy trees.

It feels like we are facing a technology disaster everywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for the ease and flow of communicating that cell phones and the internet have given us.  I am just wondering if it is numbing you and I to the beauty of life and what’s really going on in the world because we are addicted to getting and receiving messages.  Everywhere I go, people are looking down at their cell phones, not interacting with each other, even when walking down the street.

It can’t be good for business. People do business with people that they like and trust, and that means getting to know one other, face-to-face interaction. We need human contact; it helps us to feel connected and part of life; it helps us to feel belonging and give us a sense of purpose.

So, here’s my challenge.  Let me know your experience.

Give your friends, colleagues, and staff your undivided attention when you are with them. Listen to what they have to say. Put your cell phone away. Focus on them, learning, absorbing, and enjoying the conversation.

People like people who listen to them. People like people who understand them, who get them and what they’re about.  Listening is good for business, good for your personal and social life.

When your clients or customers feel seen, understood, and heard, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul.  When the people you love and care about know that they can count on you to listen and work things out together or just be fully present in the moment, having fun, that adds a new dimension to your life and theirs, and that’s priceless.