Guided Meditation • Visualization • Mindfulness

Usually when people speak of oneness and unity what they are really talking about is sameness.

Look for the sameness and that’s where you will find the oneness. But is it true that that sameness leads to Oneness?

Sameness is safe. Sameness means that you are just like me, that you love just like me, digest just like me, that you are human just like me.

Looking for sameness means that I don’t really have to look beyond my own self concepts to find you.

People are afraid to disagree with each other especially when it comes to “important” matters like religion, politics, or raising children because they believe that have to agree in order to be friends. When we agree then we are the same.

But where there is agreement there is no growth. Where there is sameness there is no God in multiplicity.

As a culture we need to learn the art of allowing disagreement and difference.

As long as we listen to one another, disagreements are beautiful. In fact, one of the most powerful phrases in the human language is, “I hear you.” The other is, “I see you.”

I love to hold the energy of allowing people to be themselves, to have their own thoughts and opinions. I love not wanting to change anyone. I love it when I can love people just as they are. When I am doing that, oneness doesn’t matter.

Is freedom from judgement possible?

Is it possible to not feel pain when others criticize you, your ideas, or projects?

Is it possible to not to feel joy when others praise you?

Praise and criticism are two sides of the judgment coin. To let go of one, means you’ll have to get rid of the other.

I have a confession to make, I enjoy making others happy.

It feels good when my picky children say, “dinner was good mom,” and it feels bad when a project I’d spent hours on is rejected or criticized at a board meeting.

There was a time when my desire to please others kept me from saying what was really in my heart and mind. I would withhold the “truth” because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but really I was fearful of their reaction, fearful that I would be rejected.

My desire to please others became a trap.

My desire to please others started to change when my children became school age. I realized that no one would advocate better for my children than me, and so their needs became greater than my insecurities. I have had to confront other parents, teachers, coaches, and administrators on their behalf.

My meditation practice has been invaluable to me in dealing with judgments and confrontation.

Meditation has not only helped me to stay calm and centered, it has taught me to recognize the “me” beyond my fears, doubts, and emotions. That is, the practice of sitting, breathing, and being while letting my thoughts and feelings go, has carried over into all other aspects of my life!

Freedom from the judgement of others isn’t about not feeling happy or hurt, it’s about knowing who you are beyond the noisiness of your doubtful thoughts and your elated or hurt feelings. Freedom from judgement is about following your truth.

Meditation heals.
Just Breathe,
Krista

“Connecting with the Still Small Voice Within,” 8 Week Meditation Class starts January 25th and January 26th.

A relaxed body is a relaxed mind.

During meditation focus your attention on relaxing the face, shoulders, hands, legs. Conscious relaxation removes your attention from thinking mind.

Why? Because your attention can only be in one place at a time.

If you help with conscious relaxation the go toMeditation Storefor a free guided meditation.

Happy Holidays

Today, my mind served up wonderful thoughts about fun upcoming class material, interesting articles to be written, meaningful conversations with friends, and art projects I look forward to doing.

I watched my body’s reaction to these thoughts: there was tension, deepening of my breath, euphoria, and a release of adrenaline that I recognize as tightness in my solar plexus and tingling in my arms and legs.

As I watched, I realized that the tension in my body was not only uncomfortable, it was similar to how my body reacts to some of negative thoughts and images that float through my mental screen.

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This month I was the subject of an interview by Mark Wilkinson for the December Issue of The Whole Person Calendar

Mark interviewed me about my latest CD “Guided Meditation for Relaxation and Inner Peace.”

In the interview, I give tips and insights into how we can find inner peace and balance no matter how busy our lives are….and most of us are busier than ever.

You can find the interview on page 46.

The December2011 issue features three brave and amazing women who are doing wonderful things to create peace and stability in their communities.

In The Whole Person Calendar you will also find everything metaphysical that is happening in Southern California.

I feel really honored to be a part of this amazing publication.

Thank You WPC!

Check it out and like me and The Whole Person Calendar on Facebook

Two weeks ago I watched a documentary called “Nero’s Guests” about the astronomically high suicide rate among Hindu farmers in India.

I felt heartbroken for the family’s and overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem.  I felt compassion for the reporter who was documenting this horror and I understood his hopelessness and anger.

When it was over, I sat there, and I prayed, “How can You God, by means of me, create peace in this situation?”  I cannot do anything effective, meaningful, or lasting without God.  This situation is too big and to perverse to handle on ones own.  But I am (and you are) the agent that God works through to create change in this world.

There are many horrors in this world and within our own minds. I cannot fix it all but I cannot turn away from the suffering either.  I must turn to the God within me and around me, and ask, ”What can You do, by means of me,” then I listen.

Listening in this way is done with the entire body. I listen to the anguish in India, I listen to my own fear, and I listen for God’s peace to descend upon me.  Sometimes this listening can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few years, “How can You, by means of me, alleviate this suffering?”

To receive from God I had to put away my judgments and ideas about what God wants through me.  Receiving then,  becomes a kind of refined listening, like being at the starting line waiting for the gun to go off.  Receiving is a call to action.

“Bang!” The gun’s gone off.  It’s time to give the gift that we, I, received from God, “How can You, by means of me, make this better?”

This is what I ”heard.” It has been my habit to turn too quickly away from the suffering of others.  My work is to see it, take it in, give it to God.  My work is to see God as the soul and being of everyone, to erase from my mind the idea of victims and perpetrators and to see only God. My work is not to be passive but active and to assist where I can and to give what I have.  For the farmers in India, I re-joined “The Organic Consumers Association,” because part of the problem there has a lot to do with how we live here. It’s a small gesture, I know, but I have to ask myself, “What can 100,000 small gestures create?”  God only knows. God only knows.

Namaste

p.s.

Join me tomorrow, November 9th at 11:00 am, for a peace meditation service at the Redondo Beach Center for Spiritual Living.

 Marriage as a vehicle for deeper self awareness, pleasure, enchantment, and perhaps enlightenment?  Why not?

You’re married, committed, at least for now, but you are craving something more from your relationship. You look at your partner and think that the moreness that you are craving should come from him or her.  You think,”If only he’d talk with me more, share more of his feelings with me, then I would feel more fulfilled.” Or,  “If she would take better care of herself, laugh at my jokes like she used to when we were dating, or just lighten-up, then I would feel fulfilled.” Really?

What if your marriage really is the key to a more fulfilling life, but you’ve just been approaching it in the wrong way?   What if what you most need from your partner is what you have been unable or unwilling to give to yourself? What if what you are really craving is already within you and is spiritual in nature?

Being married for spiritual practice means that you are willing to be your absolute best self, alongside your partner, for the purpose of mutual joy, love, and spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical fulfillment.  This is an intuitive practice of living and problem solving; it means looking inward first rather than looking to your partner as your source of pleasure or pain.  Marriage as spiritual practice isn’t a flight from reality rather it is a complete and total engagement with reality.

There are four keys to this practice and subsequently to a terrific marriage:

1. Getting in touch with your intuition.  Intuition is your partner and your guide through the windy road of marriage.  It is through the gate of your intuition that you’ll be able to see yourself and your marriage in a new revolutionary way.

2. Practicing Self Awareness through seeing yourself in your partner.  This is the most vital and challenging aspect of this practice and I’ll be talking about it more at a later date.  Of course meditation, contemplation, spiritual study, therapy, prayer… whatever you need to have a better understanding of who you really are, is also necessary.

3. Clear truthful communication. That is,  speaking and listening from deep within the body.  What is it you really need to communicate to your partner?  To find out, you will need to feel your way to the truth through the body and the breath.  Truth is not in your head, but in your heart. Listening too requires that you are grounded in your body.  This way you are completely present to yourself and your partner.

4. Having a clear and mutual vision for your marriage or having a big picture regarding your marriage.  What do you both want your marriage to look, feel, and be like? Has it changed?  Are you on the same page regarding your vision?

Your marriage is organic, unique, and alive. While you are in it, be in it consciously.  Use the challenges in your marriage and with your partner to deepen in empathy, patience, and love.  When you are not being challenged, take pleasure in one another’s company, don’t take the gift of a pleasant evening together for granted.
Be present, be mindful, breathe…

Meditation is art and your tools are the breath and your intention to create yourself in the image of Soul.

Meditation is adventurous! It takes you on a heroic exploration where you will confront the Light and Shadow within your own mind.

Meditation is power. It is through the practice of meditation where you learn mastery over the mind and emotions.

Meditation is stillness, and when you master stillness, you become the eye of the storm.

Join me this quarter for the journey of a lifetime.
Classes Start Wed. Sept. 14th

The new school year starts in two weeks. My oldest daughter is starting middle school and my youngest daughter has suddenly become more independent.  I realize that I haven’t had a “job” in thirteen years.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t been working.  I have been writing, cooking, teaching, cleaning, fundraising, doing homework, attending tournaments and recitals, refereeing etc…  No, what I mean is that while my children are transitioning happily and seamlessly into the next phase of their young lives,  I’ve been feeling a little lost.  They are young and there is still a lot of parenting to be done yet, but I can see the college years looming, the empty nest emerging like the inevitable dawn, and I think, “What am I going to do?”  “Maybe I should start thinking about going back to school?” “I should publish something, quick!”

The thoughts about what to do are really thoughts about who to be,  that is  “Who am I going to become now that my identity as parent of small children has changed?”  The anxiety I experienced around the question of “job” tells me that my self worth and my identity have been wrapped up in being the primary care-giver of children.  I know this because parenting (and marriage) is my spiritual practice.

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New Meditation Series begins Wed. Sept. 14th and Thurs. Sept. 15th. I’ve also added an optional journaling class for the Wednesday evening students. Check it all out on my calendar section.
Whoo hoo!!