There is a sweet and beautiful moment that happens every morning. As you lie in bed, heavy and warm, your heart and lungs gently snuggled against each other, each soft breath and loyal heart beat pressing you from the inside out, you begin to wake up. Your breath shifts so slightly. You become aware of being in bed, of the weight and heat of your body beneath the covers, of how the sheets feel against your skin. Continue reading “Love the body you wake up with.”
Category: meditation
Taste freedom.
We were supposed to meet for dinner, but then I received his text: I have to cancel. I have to wind down the company as our funding got pulled tonight. He is my friend and the company is an extension of his deep belief that there is a better way to do X. He sees this possibility and so for the last four years has poured himself into making it exist in the world.
And now this. A kind of freedom. Continue reading “Taste freedom.”
Your attention is valuable.
Your attention might be your most valuable resource. Everybody wants it. Companies pay so much money trying to get it. They create banner ads, commercials, and hand out free samples in the street. People with clip-boards talk to you on the sidewalk, wanting you to sign for a good cause. Flyers for the nearby restaurant are slipped under the gate.
Everybody wants your attention.
Your friends and family. Your lover. Continue reading “Your attention is valuable.”
Finding your way.
I teach a class called willPower & grace® and my yoga students say it’s like bootcamp, and my bootcamp students say it’s like yoga. My yoga students like the strength and cardio work. My athletes and cyclists like the flexibility and balance training. Everyone wants to be challenged right at their edge. Everyone wants to feel good, have fun, and feel more at home in their own skin. They come back because something about it Continue reading “Finding your way.”
Fieldnotes and clues.
Today I feel overwhelmed with desire, happiness, and a sense of yearning. I remember my yoga and meditation training, and I try to simply soften and open to it. I relax the muscles in my face and belly and feel my breath slow deepen. I try to feel everything: the sun on my neck, the weight and texture of my sweater, that spark and flutter and reach in my heart. Continue reading “Fieldnotes and clues.”
Practice saying the words.
I’ve started talking to myself. I go for a walk and pretend I’m on a call, bright white hands-free cord plugged into my iPhone. At first I felt tentative, but now I’m good at it.
I imagine I’m talking to a friend. Sometimes I imagine I am talking to you.
I allow all the words to come out. The tangled thoughts and circling questions, the major and minor emotional chords. Sometimes the words come out in a way that feels so unexpectedly right my breath catches with the discovery of some new insight. The pieces snap into focus. Continue reading “Practice saying the words.”
Stealth meditation experiment.
It’s January, and each day feels fresh and new. There’s a relief that comes with releasing the prior year, of shrugging off the accumulated weight of everything that happened (and didn’t happen), the people who came and left, the emotional residue that builds up one day at a time. Today I still have that clean-slate feeling. I have a renewed curiosity for Life and what I might do with it while I’m here. This is the time to open to possibility, and to try things in a new way: what I eat, how I move, when I wake up, and the like.
The great thing about starting something now is that you get to say, “I’ve been doing this all year,” and even though Continue reading “Stealth meditation experiment.”
Even here.
The other day, as I walked home from teaching my morning class, I noticed a man walking towards me. He looked agitated and unkempt, and was muttering to himself. And as we drew closer he looked up and saw me and began to move faster, and he leaned towards me as he passed and shouted, “You fucking bitch!” He was so close I could feel his breath against my cheek. Continue reading “Even here.”
Kim Nicol 