Pause, Breathe and Create

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” —Zig Ziglar Are you basically a thankful person for both small and big things in your life? Are you constantly hustling and bustling to navigate your daily moments? When you stop and pause, there is so much to be thankful for from nature's abundant colorful gifts, the air we breathe and our close relationships. When you choose to be here now using your eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste senses, it is amazing how uplifted you will feel. When you embrace the attitude of including your total being in each of your available moments, you can fully savor each unique uplifting experience. Throughout the moments in your day, pause and express with gratitude all that you savor from your encounters wherever they are.

You have an abundance of 1,440 moments each day. Do you feel the prosperity in the morning. Who is driving your moments today? If you have left the driving to Auto - your end of day feeling will likely not be the same as when you started your day. Can you recall where you were each moment and how you spent the abundance of the 1,440 moments? When you are in a mind-set of lack of something such as time or money, it has a way of being contagious within yourself and shared with others around you. But, when you have a mind-set of abundance and can see things with a higher perspective, it can be a curiosity for others wanting to know what is going on as they will want some of what you have. Hire Pause for a day. You can bring more focus and clarity when you pilot your day with Pause. You will discover spaces available in your schedule to include ways that make your day flow better. This also encourages you to be more present as you access creativity, joy, gratitude and compassion. Teach Auto to Pause. Explore the benefits of having Auto Pilot your daily space of Being Back in a Moment.

“If I were a flower… I would be a sunflower. To always follow the sun, turn my back to darkness, stand proud, tall and straight even with my head full of seeds.” – Pam Stewart Use the sunflower as a big bright inspiring model for your life to grow and bloom. The sunflower is resilient and represents joyfulness. Stay focused on positive things you are facing and share your spirit as a warm heart with hope. There is a time, there is a plan there is abundant prosperity! Be inspired to keep your face turned towards the sun as it will uplift your moods. In designing your choice of demeanor, be inspired by the brightness of the yellow petals of the sunflower. As with the sunflower, stand tall, show all the world your unique special confident self. Embrace the energy of the light and abundance of sharing your love with simple spirit seeds of thought, vibes and abundance that planting good things can bring. When we drop seeds into the ground, we don't know how they will grow or what the outcome is for each seed. Nature provides light and nutrition for each seedling as a foundation to be. Look closely at the seeds around you and be in awe. They already know how to grow and bloom as they turn into a source of life feeding pollinators, song birds and other beings in their natural habitat. Sit for a moment in pure wonder. Colorful patterns of joyful expression burst in celebration from the bright face of the simple sunflower full of seeds of anticipation. Choose to be helping in the flow with the harmonic rhythms as you embrace each thought seed as it blooms and grows.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain… Vivian Greene Many great locations around the world have physical reflecting pools built by humans included within their physical environments. They come in many shapes and sizes. The ultimate importance of reflecting pools is to provide a space to embrace quiet contemplation that is separate but open to interact with the world. Do you find yourself being the chaotic disturbance that challenges any possibility of quiet contemplation either within yourself or from your outside influences? To be effective, your pool must be as still as possible. As you dance in the rain, stop and look deep into the pools of water gathering on the ground. These are Nature's abundant rain puddles or reflecting pools immediately available. When you look deep into the pools, you can experience Nature's Art from the sky above you as it reflects in the pool below. You can create your own reflecting pool so you can be practicing presence and fully embracing the benefits as often as you desire. Ideally, your pool should be reflecting what you want to look at and in a space that is not crowded. Today, we are exploring the basic concepts of reflecting pools and how to design your own useful reflecting pool.

When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps. – John Lennon How often do you find yourself answering to the open invitation of nature to step outside and give your full attention to observe, listen, open all of your senses and be filled with awe? Expansive nonverbal language is born between ourselves and our immediate world when we connect with this simple invitation constantly being offered. The tendency is to be distracted and over react with impatient gestures, facial expressions, vocal tones, eye contact, body language and talking loudly with our hands. By being present, you can discover deep observation, deep inspiration and deep experience using nonverbal language. It is an experience you will hold close in your memories and you can recall it whenever you need a sense of awe and calm. There is no need to read between the lines of what you are picking up. It is an instant action and reaction and a full impression of the scene as it is truly being presented wherever you are. Open your arms and take a deep breath. It is already here and available.

It sounds very simple when we make a comment to choose to 'Just Be'. The request we are making in reality is a complex request. When we choose to become present 'here now', we are choosing to not be on autopilot. We begin our life adventure expanding ourselves beyond where we currently are. We start observing we are not where we think we should be. We can become overwhelmed with our constant mental gymnastics and beliefs about what we think we could be, should be or definitions of who we think we are. We are a collection of the stories we tell ourselves until we reach a point where our story has a new title and we have a new beautiful cover. We want to make a change. We realize we are no longer happy with what we are, who we are and what we are doing with our lives. We realize we are part of everything and yet we are nothing. When we make a statement to ourselves saying ;'I can, we allow ourselves to expand and embrace all of the possibilities of truly just being. This brief statement to ourselves of 'I can', opens our thought patterns to unlimited potential and removes the limiting boundaries that we have been experiencing. We are now a conscious creator stepping into the energetic flow, expanding and growing with intention and inspiration 'Just Being'. Lets Go!

Everything in life is vibration. Albert Einstein When you observe images of nature or read stories about people helping others, do you pick up on a higher vibe and uplifting feelings? Even if you do not totally understand the language of vibrations, you can feel them in your environment and directly from people around you. Everything vibrates at a different speed including trees, nature, and humans with our thoughts and emotions. When we choose to vibrate at a higher level, we feel lighter, have more hope, joy and happiness and are more at ease. When we are operating at this higher level, we can feel like we do not fit in or will not be getting the feelings of support of others who operate at a lower vibration. It takes a firm commitment to keep ourselves in the light and seeking ways to keep our light shining bright. Join us as we explore ways to ensure we are creating a vibration as the best we can for ourselves and to keep ourselves connected resonating this higher vibration.

“The most adventurous journey to embark on; is the journey to yourself, the most exciting thing to discover; is who you really are, the most treasured pieces that you can find; are all the pieces of you, the most special portrait you can recognize; is the portrait of your soul.” ~ C.JoyBell C. How do you introduce yourself or greet someone you meet for the first time? Your response can be an energy downer and mixed if you are constantly bombarded with negative messages and images. Or your response can be a delightful energy uplift if it is shared from a solid positive foundation space you have designed within yourself. As you consider your various choices each day, start with self-care, self-respect and the ability to value yourself as a special being. You are on a self-treasure hunt. You can choose to have a loving relationship with yourself as a valuable whole being made up of lots of treasured pieces of yourself. As you put together your treasured pieces, it is like putting together a beautiful visual puzzle and solid foundation that will affect all of your relationships including with yourself. .

It's not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities. ~ Kristin Armstrong Do you find yourself asking But why? before you do anything. Do you take time to pause to listen to your internal response? Do you know what you really want and what you need to modify to get you there? It is easy to spend precious time and resources keeping busy planning and building systems around ourselves rather than taking action. Being more intentional and focused with things that matter in our day-to-day living activities allows us to bring about a shift in how we approach our daily moments. This might feel difficult as it does require a different attitude concerning short-term sacrifices and having to explain to others what you are doing. Pause and discover why we want to live more intentionally.

Take a moment to pause. Slowly take a breath in and hold. Then slowly breathe out and let it go. Activate your awareness and pay attention to what your internal senses are sharing. Balance your precious daily time being and doing without a list. This effort will help ignite your inner sparkle throughout your whole day. d Lee Do you find you are spending all of your time in focused pursuit of your endless listed to-do things? How do you feel when you have accomplished them? Do you also have an active listed to-be list made of things to pursue that make you feel connected, appreciative, happy and joy filled? There are many things we just pass by because we are disconnected and take things for granted as we focus on the multiple to do lists we keep. As you create your to-be list, it can help remind you to pause with a sense of gratitude for the small things that might have previously seemed unimportant. As you add things to your to-be list, you will find yourself more balanced and connected to your inner being. When you are more grounded, you can make better decisions and choose a better way be all day.

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary can speak.” ~ Hans Hofmann Nature is a true creative master and teacher of design abundantly sharing examples of identified principals and elements of art. As humans, we have a lot to learn from Nature. Each of us is a unique piece of art. As we step along with our personal design assignment project, we are invited to actively participate with an open appreciation for all that we have available. Our human challenge though, is to practice deep observation, deep inspiration and deep experience being present with all of our senses. This process takes courage, embracing a clear vision, research and perseverance as we evolve and adapt to changes necessary to our habits that do not beg for our time but are more natural in our everyday life. Our starting design point is already available within as we practice loving ourselves just as we are. Join us as we begin designing the steps of our journey.

Keep knocking and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who is there. ~ Rumi When you pause for a moment in your day, how do you remind yourself to shift and make this an expected valuable part of your time focus? Do you put post-it notes for yourself in your living and working environments with key words or phrases to remind yourself to act? Do you use images to invite you to pause and take a break? Or, do you completely ignore both open reminder invitations and just keep on doing whatever you are focused on? Aristotle made a discovery over 2000 years ago that thinking always includes imagery. What this message implies is we need to embrace visualization as the empowering strategy in our practicing efforts to be more present.The intentional visual cues we use can help us integrate imagery into our present experiences. Join us as we explore how to use this process with visual cues to retrieve experiences and immediately use in our daily practice. .

How do you feel when required to wait unexpectedly for something or someone and you did not allow yourself time to have to do this? Sometimes different expressive emotional words erupt from deep inside ourselves like a volcano of hot lava. And like hot lava, this uncontrolled flow of impatience can have a negative effect in all areas of our lives. PAUSE IMMEDIATELY – Pause Always Uses Simple Energy. When you take a moment to patiently pause in the moment of anger at the unplanned wait, that decision will save you many moments of regret. You will discover benefits as you apply this to your daily experiences. You will make better decisions, you will keep trying to work on focused goals, it helps preserve your important relationships, it can give you a sense of inner peace, and it can be an act of kindness to yourself and others. It can seem like a simple concept. But, in actuality, patience can be difficult to put into practice if you are not present in each of your moments. Join us.

T.S. Eliot said “For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice…” When you come to the end of something, do you take time to acknowledge where you have just come from and where you are currently at? When a chapter comes to an end, what matters is leaving the past where it belongs and letting it go Take a deep breath and release. Endings are valuable. At the end of a year, it is one of the best times to pause in gratitude, gather thoughts together and reflect. Then without much ado, pay attention as you turn the page of the calendar to a new beginning and step boldly forward. Fully embrace with strength, conviction and mindful presence the new opportunities to build, grow and fully experience each new moment. You are the architect of how you design and express your voice for implementing the actions needed for building your new beginnings. Join us as we discover the true benefits of being fully present with endings and beginnings.

And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky. Rumi We are so used to the sun shining on the earth that we take its light for granted. Focusing light can create a laser for healing, a spotlight on stage, or soft light for a reading nook. Put through a prism, light creates an explosion of rainbow color. Each day dawns with light filling the world. Shadows ebb as the light becomes brighter and brighter. There are no decisions made in this daily event; it is just how it happens. You can make a choice to smile and watch as it spreads to others you meet. Without electricity, you just turned on their light. Join us and light up your inner being and the space around you.

Pause and Breathe We all have twenty-four hour days. You have many items on your to be and to do lists. It can seem that the minutes available in the day are not enough to get everything done. You want to be balanced in your daily schedule. but it can seem like an impossible dream. Is it realistic to think that you can accomplish everything on your list within the limits of the clock? Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. One way to get things done is the same way that you would eat a chocolate elephant, one bite at a time. Start by prioritizing your list, or decide what part of the elephant you want to eat first. Pause in whatever you are doing and join us as Leona Rehm provides powerful insights into effective chocolate elephant nibbling, that is, using your time, to find balance. You will be able to work without feeling constantly overwhelmed and will have a usable plan.

As with a flower and a tree, choose to be a full awesome colorful spectrum of YOU. Within the seasons of time, embrace and then release with blessings the time to pause, the time to listen, the time to see, and the time to just be. d Lee As you start your day, do you find yourself automatically dragging the past with you into your new day? This could be whatever experiences you had just yesterday or it could be all of the baggage you carry with you wherever you go and how you consistently identify yourself. Start your day instead with a deliberate PAUSE - Practice Always Using a Stillness Experience. Deliberately switch your focus into a more positive self-awareness. Your inner voice might be on Auto Pilot and might be loaded with negativity but YOU are at the controls. The more you practice being here now with awesome present experiences, and choosing how you want them to feel, the easier it becomes to be your own Pilot as you design your flight path for your new awesome day.

What is your 'Thing'? Do you find yourself always planning something but not really getting it done because you constantly run out of time to do it? Do you feel time abundance or time deprived? Historically, a lot of devices have been created that provide an illusion of having more time. An example is examining how you choose to start your day. If you use an alarm clock to wake up, do you immediately get up when the alarm sounds or do you repeatedly hit the snooze button? How does this repeated morning practice habit really feel? Do you have a sense of expanded time because you have hit the snooze button several times? What could you do with this 'snooze time' to feel more abundance? When you become present with each of your moments, small changes can help switch how you approach the rest of your moments. Time is our most valuable resource and we all have exactly the same amount of time but choose to use it differently. Join us as we explore ways to switch to feeling time abundance.

Your environment is your external body. How you honor it reminds you of your own self-worth, ability to live your life fully and is your physical connection to the greater Universe. Lynn Scheurell You are connected to what is around you. Like many people, you may be unaware of how your environment reflects you and how it affects you. Feng Shui is the art of becoming aware of the connection between ourselves and our environment, and then adjusting our environment to bring success. Your environment is the result of your choices. Using Feng Shui, you are able to take a nonjudgmental look at yourself and your life through your physical surroundings. You can assess where you would like to make changes in order to create an environment that supports you. Join us as we learn the Feng Shui principles and key tips for getting started in this potentially life-changing process.

Act as if what you intend to manifest in life is already a reality. Eliminate thoughts of conditions, limitations, or the possibility of it not manifesting. If left undisturbed in your mind and in the mind of intention simultaneously, it will germinate in the physical world. Wayne Dyer Is there a gap between where you find yourself now and where you really want to be? A lot of us think the gap is there because we are lacking the knowledge of HOW to build the bridge to get where we want to go. Typically we go looking for new knowledge to fill in the HOW and we get excited with the information we are learning. It is possible to fall into the gap and get lost rather than actually completing the bridge we started building. The time spent in the learning mode can be a waste of time if you do not deliberately apply your additional knowledge. Having good intentions are great but moving forward with the new information requires practicing deliberate Action with your new skills. .