Tag: O Magazine

• Listen…

  The 20 most important questions we should be asking ourselves is the theme of Martha Beck’s column in The O Magazine for February.

  There are many great questions, but I love this one.

  “Is this what I want to be doing?” This very moment is, always, the only moment in which you can make changes. Knowing which changes are best for you comes, always, from assessing what you feel. Ask yourself many times every day if you like what you are doing. If the answer is no, start noticing what you’d prefer. Thus begins the revolution.” Martha

  Most often I hear what people don’t want to be doing while they are doing it.

  We call it complaining or whining.

  Yet what we fail to Hear is the actual words.

  Maybe it isn’t so much in asking the question, but listening to your voice or complaints, whether they are spoken out loud or silent behind, as begrudgingly does that which you don’t want to do.

  And I love her first question.

  What questions should I be asking myself? At first I thought asking yourself what you should be asking yourself was redundant. It isn’t. Without this question, you wouldn’t ask any others, so it gets top billing. It creates an alert, thoughtful mind state, ideal for ferreting out the information you most need in every situation. Ask it frequently. Martha

  Both of these questions can be life changing if you ask the questions with integrity and listen to your body and how you feel and then be courageous enough to actually follow through.

  Ask a bunch of questions today and listen…

  January 15, 2011

  answers, body, feelings, listening, Martha Beck, O Magazine, questions

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• Universe Plan

  In this month’s O Magazine, “Catherine Price took off for Tokyo with no guidebook and a wacky idea: Let strangers decide every detail of her trip. Four days, 29 brief encounters, one collapsible bicycle, eight octopus balls, 600 flesh-eating fish, one goma fire ceremony, and too much fried food later, she’d discovered the joy in letting go.”

   

  I wonder how many would dare to do this, to just arrive?

   

  To arrive and not know where you are going to eat, sleep and what you are going to do.

   

  It seems that we plan and plan to orchestrate ourselves lives right out of any surprises and wall off any unusual experiences, by needing to know and thus eliminating all unknown avenues.

   

  I wonder if the only surprises we get in life are bad ones, that we don’t even allow ourselves the luxury of delightful surprises by just ambling through life unplanned and stumbling upon an experience we never even heard about, an unplanned Special.

   

  When my husband and I take a road trip, we just head in a certain direction, we have no idea where we will go, what we will do, where we will sleep, what we will eat, we just let what we see decide.

   

  We have happened upon Folk Festivals, Art Fairs, deserted beaches, old fashioned Drive In Theaters, to name a few.

   

  You are more aware, more curious and more inclined to be daring and spontaneous, when you have no map to follow and no guideline to adhere to.

   

  Arrive in each day the same way.  Sure we need to work, but what if we look for differences in our day instead of the same ole same ole? 

   

  When there are spaces, do something different in that space. 

   

  I didn’t know that today I would do yoga in the late afternoon, do lunch with my husband, it seemed my day was flipped around, and I am still fine.

   

  I am fine because I didn’t begin with a guideline.

   

  A guideline is like a string that won’t allow you to venture off the beaten trail; it is like a harness to routine, a rope to hold you back from an exciting life.

   

  I say cut the line and float!

   

  Float along in reality’s river not knowing what is coming around the bend, being comfortable in the unknown and let the Universe plan!

   

  May 14, 2010

  Catherine Price, guidelines, joy of surrender, letting go, life, O Magazine, surprises, unknown

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