Architect of Peace

Gratitude journals have been shown to increase your overall happiness.  Thinking about and writing down things you are grateful for fosters a mental habit of being on the lookout for positive things.  Your brain starts to be more aware of, focused on and connected with the happy-making bits in your life.

My regular yoga practice is similar for me.  I'm not talking about the studio class once a month or even once a week.  I mean the daily-ish kind at home in my living room.  Often (almost always!) this is a 10-20 minute online class first thing in the morning or right before bed.  I do enjoy the longer classes and community that come from a physical studio but the daily practice is what trains me to think, respond, BE more... yoga-ly.

"Twist Out Doubt & Negativity" is a morning class I go to again and again.  I have literally done this 20-minute practice 37 times in the last two years.  It is the same routine, same instruction, same moment after moment class on the screen.  Each day I breathe in and out and in and out and in and each day, each breath is different.  Things sink in after hearing them once and then different things sink in after hearing them ten times, still different things after two dozen times.  And then sometimes things start to sink in differently.  Possibly because of who and where I am with that particular day or breath but also maybe because it took hearing it 36 times and two years before really hearing the 37th time around.

The class closes with a meditation and excerpt of a poem.

School Prayer

Diane Ackerman

In the name of the daybreak

and the eyelids of morning

and the wayfaring moon

and the night when it appears,

I swear I will not dishonor 

my soul with hatred,

but offer myself humbly 

as a guardian of nature,

as a healer of misery,

as a messenger of wonder,

and as an architect of peace.

During this season of cleanses and resolutions I hope you are able to cultivate a habit that fosters for you happiness, peace, joy and wonder.

Chillin' with the redwoods trees and redhead doggie