Gratitude in Simple Moments

If I look back on my childhood, my 20's and frankly, half of my 30's, I can see that I was missing the ability to appreciate life's small, everyday moments as blessings. My mother raised my brother and I with the concept that blessings and gifts came in big ways. Literally a huge doll or dollhouse, a significant recognition, or a financial whirlwind were things that meant you were blessed. My husband on the other hand was raised differently. Gratitude could be present in homemade gifts, the way the light streamed across someone's face or kind words. I did not understand or relate until a couple of years ago.  

You think you appreciate the mundane until one day you really know what it means for things to touch your heart, to feel joy, in the deepest parts of you. 

This evening, my husband made my daughter and I a beautiful dinner. I relished every moment. I set the table with white ceramic plates. No utensils were used as we ate our vegetarian Indian meal. The spices of fennel, cinnamon and curry that wafted the air, hit our mouths with hot flavors. The more I breathed, the hotter my mouth got until I turned the fire down with handfuls of rice and gulps of water. The naan sopped up the sauce preparing me for our trip to India in October. I realized our Monday evening dinners as a family were getting fewer and fewer. My daughter will soon be off to a university in California. 

After cleaning up, I looked at my cat, Maya, who shows signs of moving into the final stage of life. She stopped cleaning herself a few months ago. Today, her eyes started looking dull, like the light of her soul was leaving her. She snuggled into one of our dog beds not moving. I thought of all those moments I took for granted, even those naughty funny moments like using a ficus tree as a bathroom in front of my husband when we started dating. As I pet her, gave her water, and fed her food bedside, I realize how grateful I am to be able to share these last moments of her life with her. 

It may sound odd to say that one can find gratitude in the death process. To be a witness to her passing, her vulnerability, and for her to let me serve her in what little way I can-it humbles me more than I can say. 

With dying pets, I have changed diapers, cleaned up accident after accident, served food and water bedside, carried them out for bathroom breaks, chanted, prayed, given Reiki and did all of those mundane tasks I did for my daughter when she was an infant. 

I wonder how present I was in my daughter's childhood. I hope that she can continue to emulate my husband and find those simple joys now and not have to wait until she is in her 30's. 

Life is beautiful. We just need to be present to recognize it. 

"We can learn to rejoice in even the smallest blessings our life holds. It is easy to miss our own good fortune; often happiness comes in ways we don’t even notice." Pema Chodron

Feeding Your Soul

Tonight, standing in our kitchen, my daughter brewed a cup of coffee for herself while I sipped on hot cocoa. The temperature outside had dropped. Spring had quickly decided to go back into hibernation. I needed something warm to drink. She needed caffeine to finish a paper. We snacked on air-popped popcorn my husband just made for us.

My daughter relayed how she was having great dreams. So great that in the morning, she didn't want to wake up and deal with the reality of papers, exams and waiting to hear back from colleges she applied to for the fall. I suggested doing some self-introspection and recognize the blessing-that her mind protects herself in such a way that it manifests the opposite of how many of us deal with stress when we sleep. Most people, including myself, have stress-filled dreams or nightmares. As a psychology major, I thought she would be on board with this idea.

"But I've had this happen to me three times already," she said about going through this phase. She said it puts her into this tailspin of worrying more.

"Well then," I replied, "how about you think about what would make you happy if you were 100 years old and on your death bed." Not the average bedtime story moms tell their children.

"Yeah, but I worry that if I failed a test or paper and then failed a class, then I would have to report it to the colleges I applied to and then I might not get in and then I would be stuck in Pennsylvania..." she went on. She, like many, saw greener pastures in places other than home. For her, it was California.

"Yes, but that's not what you would be thinking about on your death bed. What do people think about? They don't think about what college they went to or what kind of job they had. They don't think about the car or house they had or how much money they accumulated. That's all consumption. Think about what Bhante Sujatha and other monks say. Suffering comes from attachment. All those attachments are from consumption. And you can't take your house, your job, your money with you when you die and they weren't with you when you were born. When people die, they think about how much they loved."

"And how many people they hurt," she continued.

"Yes, and the adventures they had or didn't have. They think about what filled their heart."

"So, I should think about what feeds my soul," she said connecting the dots with such ease. Which was then followed by how brilliant I was. I reminded her that she is the one that figured it out, not me. She was the one that realized that what feeds your soul is what you think of at the end of life. Those are the things that matter the most.

Past Life that Led to Compassion

I have these past life memories that I see as a string of events. I have no idea how they connect or what sequence they are in. That is until I had a glimpse today. 

In one of my lives, I was a Buddhist monk and tortured to death, dying in a prison cell. In my last life, I was not a great person. In fact, to be honest, I kind of sucked. I was unkind and schemed. I wondered how I could fall from being a monk (or in other lives where I might say I was enlightened) to a person motivated by causing other people pain. 

Today, I could see how my last memories effected my soul. Being a monk, my final experiences in that life were full of pain and I witnessed the dark side of humanity. Either that experience brought me so far into darkness that I became as low as my captures in a sense for my life as the unkind man, or I chose to experience the other side if the coin - to know what darkness was like and find the humanity in each person. 

In this life, I was born into a painful childhood where I once again was surrounded by the darkness of the human experience. Since I was a preteen, I always believed my life was meant to be as it was - to learn something from it. As I got older, I became hyper focused on compassion. I knew my present life is here to teach me (and remind me) to have compassion for all beings. 

Every moment of our life, each person, is here for us to learn and grow (even the ugly moments). Each lifetime is another opportunity to seek an understanding of a concept or feeling.  

I believe my last life was my bridge for this one. To learn fully and deeply the ability to have loving kindness and compassion. Without it, I could not be who I am today. I could not have been the 13 year old child who forgave her father. The 38 year old woman who tries to forgive each hurtful moment as quickly as possible. 

It Was Time To Say Thank You

When I was a Freshman in high school, I was eating lunch in the noisy cafeteria with one of my only friends at the time. Another girl with cropped short hair and thin braids, plopped down next to us and started talking. It had only been about a year into living in Maryland. My family had moved from Astoria, N.Y. I suffered from culture shock. My peers were not enamoured with me. Instead they called me "Stupid Susan" and enjoyed making fun of me in a multitude of ways. 

Like me, she didn't sport soccer shorts or have the perfect blond hair pulled into a ponytail. She didn't wear Keds. She looked like she feared gym class as much as I did. However, she did not look like a typical New Yorker, either. She looked like artsy crossbreed of a punk and a hippie. I was afraid her sitting next to me would rock my fragile world and bring on more teasing. 

In the conversation that ensued, she mentioned she was a vegetarian and talked about animal cruelty. I had little knowledge of this area as my family were meat eating Catholic Republicans. Now, there was always that esoteric side, but my mother had no idea that she was doing anything different than what a typical God-fearing woman was doing. I ate little meat because I didn't have the palate for it. But nothing crossed my mind about doing it. I absolutely loved animals, but the concept of animal cruelty was foreign to me. I brushed off this girl as strange. 

Little could I know that merely 2 years later, I would not just consider her thoughts on animals, but become a PETA-loving vegetarian. Twenty two years later, I still walk this path (just not as preachy as I was in my youth and not torturing myself with PETA videos). I thought about her several times a year since I made that life changing decision. I always wanted to tell her how she literally changed my life. 

We cannot always see these marvelous pieces of life's puzzles and how they lock together creating something bigger than we envisioned. Yet, they happen, little by little. How could I have known that at the age of 16, my choice to not eat meat would not only turn into a lifelong decision, but also reflect my soul?

I have always had a deep connection of my past lives since I was a child. In my twenties, memories flooded my mind. In my thirties, I remembered a moment living in India, sitting in lotus on a golden sand covered ground as an old man with long white hair, wearing only a loin cloth. I remembered being a Buddhist monk in a prison cell, tortured by my captures, made to sit in lotus,once again in meditation. With each of these memories, I knew that I was meant to be a vegetarian, having been one previously.

I raised my daughter to understand vegetarianism (her father and I had to compromise with what meat she ate as a young child since he was a meat eater). This one moment sitting at a lunch table reminded me of my soul's nature, influenced my child's life, and then, when the time came again for me to enter into Hindu beliefs, naturally folded into perfect synchronicity without struggle. 

The other day, two potential artistic and spiritual opportunities arose for me. I wanted to seize them both and asked friends to send me prayers, Reiki and well wishes. I said to chant "Yes" for me, using a collective power of attraction. What was funny was how the next day, something interesting happened.

I felt this urge to find this woman and thank her. I had felt it before, but never so strongly. It was as if I was lifted to my feet and made to walk into my living room, scoop up old yearbooks and search for her face. I did not remember what graduating year she was or that of her younger sister. I heard an inner voice say to me "Now is the time."

Two yearbooks later, I found her sister, and then, knowing the first name and now last name of the person I was looking for, found her in about five minutes. Next, I searched through Facebook and Google to find nothing. I found her sister's email on an alumni listing, only to find the email bounce back. I tried once more on Google, this time adding our high school name into the search. What came up to my surprise was a dear friend's website who had passed away. On there, she was interviewed. She had changed her name. One more search and I had found her. 

Twenty years will change people. She looked nothing like I remembered her. However, she still had that spark of originality and was still simply beautiful. I sent an email. I wanted to thank her for changing my life. Sometimes people who influence you in amazing ways just never know. I didn't want that to happen. I could not go a lifetime without this woman knowing that because of her words, I became a vegetarian, fell deeper into who my soul was, and subsequently raised a pescetarian (one who doesn't eat red meat or poultry, only fish).

Each of us, every moment we speak, we take action, we think, we are tossing a rock into a body of water creating ripples. We cannot see how that can remotely make a difference. It does. I love the phrase "hindsight is 20/20." How could we see what has only begun to unfold? How could we know how we influenced a situation or living being until the dust has settled?

When I woke up the morning after I sent my email, I found such clarity in part my life that I was blindly living in. It prompted me to have a difficult conversation with a person to share that I could not support the consumption of meat. This conversation had the potential to change my future. But my eyes were wide open with a realization that had not occurred to me previously. I believed that all of those prayers, incense burning, shouts of "Yes!" of my friends all accumulated in perfect synchronicity for what I needed at that moment. It was not what I expected, but what I needed. 

About a day after my email, the girl from high school, replied. She said that my message was also timely for her. She saw it as a sign influencing a choice in her life. We both, in the span of a couple of days, received what we each needed without knowing the gift we were giving one another. 

I have found that there are no coincidences in life. Simply, properly timed moments, stirred by some invisible force. And that force leads us to connecting to and supporting the higher good for ourselves and others. 

Inspirational Mobile Wall

I often see these graphics on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest with inspirational quotes. The ones I see that I love I save to my phone and share on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Some, I keep on my phone only for me. And then every now and then I clean up my phone and keep my super favorites. 

My phone becomes an inspirational wall with photos of my family and photos of outdoors I capture. 
I'm sharing this one with you. It's also going to be a keeper on my phone. 


As my daughter grows and plans her adult life, I tell her you can plan for your life, but sometimes it takes you places that were never in your plan. And that can be marvelous.

In no way shape or form is my adult life what I planned for it to be. I wouldn't trade it in for my childhood dreams. I never could have imagined creating such a magnificent one as I have now.

Do you have an inspirational wall on your phone or home?

Understanding New Year's Resolutions

Last night, before my daughter headed out to enjoy New Year's with her other half, I ran into our family room with baby blue paper and pens from my purse. Everyone looked at me with a big "uh oh" face.

Before I handed out the pens and paper, I asked everyone to recount their top five (more or less) happy moments from 2014. My daughter started tentatively. Soon, she was on a roll, beaming with delight at the accomplishments, travels and memories from the year. We continued around the room, each of us sharing what we were proud of and what made the year special for us.

For me, it was a big year. I'm not even going to beat around the bush. The year of the Chinese Horse was good to me. After an extremely challenging year of the Snake, I can honestly say I deserved this kind of year. After a good whipping, you kind of need to be picked up again.

In 2014, I completed my 200 hour yoga teacher training. I received my certification in Thai Folk Medicine. I loved our trips to Disney World and Montreal. And of course, my biggie, my book was published. What I also shared was that I had such a great year with my husband and daughter and my marriage was amazing this year.

After we patted ourselves on our backs, I thrust the blue paper and pens into everyone's hands.

"Is this what you were going to tell me," my daughter asked in regards to New Year's resolutions.

"No. But, I would like for all of us to write goals or accomplishments we would like to have this year."

Anyone that knows me knows I abhor resolutions. I frankly am not the biggest fan of New Year's either. For me, it was always another day in the cycle of life. January 1st meant I survived several cold months and very soon, by end of February, I can jump up and down with glee as the crocus' make their way out of the ground.

I never looked at New Year's as a mark where life resets itself. It's just another day. I struggled why people put such emphasis on one day a year that seemingly wiped the slate clean. We can never wipe our slates clean. It's what makes us who we are. We don't need one day a year where we suddenly can make change. We can always make changes any day of our lives.

I do, however, believe in goals. Goals to me are the closest my chaotic mind can get to organization. Goals lead to results. Perhaps, the results aren't what my mind had imagined, but they push me towards creating or removing things in my life. So, I make goals each year, throughout the year.

Recently, I had done research for a blog I was writing for work. This is what I shared with my daughter. I found that while most people don't succeed in their resolutions, those who don't make resolutions don't reach their goals as easily. I suppose it might stem from having that vision in your mind that you clearly want to manifest. I buy into the whole power of attraction thing. You know when people say "I have to see it to believe it" thing? I believe that you have to visualize it, feel it in your bones, to help make it come to fruition. So, thus, goals for me are one way of doing so.

Usually, I make a mental catalogue of things I would love to do. I think about them, meditate upon them, and use my intuition to see whether or not they are part of my path at the moment. This year, however, we were writing them down. And then? We fed them to the fire.

Fire is a tool I have used for manifesting things. It is amazing to watch your idea, your desire, your intention burn up, and leaving it up to fate to create the opportunity. There's something magical about just letting it go. It's like the Buddha Board I have at my studio. You paint with water and a paint brush and soon thereafter, your painting is gone. You learn to let go.

My husband had a fire going for us in our chimney. After we all carefully wrote down around five goals, we took turns adding them to the fire. I waited until the end, popped my folded paper in and watched it sit there on the right hand side, not catching fire. Everyone had tossed theirs in the center left. I, of course, do everything my own way and in my own time. Burning up my intentions was apparently no different.

My husband kindly blew into the chimney trying to get the paper to ignite. I, however, moved in and using the poker nudged my paper over. It finally burned bright, releasing my goals into the spirit of fire.

Maybe, New Year's is more than just a day where I get to hang out in my PJ's. Perhaps, it's like the fire. You can burn up what you don't need anymore, offer up what you do, and cross your fingers for something new to begin.

Maybe it's Not the Destination

Yesterday, I experienced my third talk and meditation with Buddhist monk, Bhante Sujatha. I was delighted he was able to allow time in his schedule to make a trip not only to South Central PA, but to my yoga studio. 

While Bhante's talk focused on the stress of the holidays, he naturally weaved in mindfulness and appreciation. 

Last night, instead of dreaming blissful dreams, my mind sorted through the stress of my day job. In the dream I was not at my day job, but at my yoga studio. I had gotten in early before my class and was enjoying a hot beverage on our balcony. Everything was peaceful. Bundled up in a coat, hat and gloves , I savored the moment. But, only for a moment. 

Soon, I was interrupted. This continued as I went from one person or problem to the next. I counted down the minutes left to make it to my class. Each step towards the classroom was another distraction from my purpose for being there. My mind was solely focused on how I would be late for my destination. 

Today, as I reflected on my dream, after another busy day at work, I realized something. We are all trying to get from point A to point B. Life always seems to get in the way though. Whether it is a goal or literally moving from one place or project to another, our daily to-do list is slowly replaced by other things. This leads to frustration and anxiety. So what if we look at things differently?

What if instead of viewing each of those interuptions as distractions from where we needed to get to, we instead think of them as little blessings? Each moment has it's purpose. Perhaps we are receiving a gift. Perhaps we are learning something we need to know along our journey. Maybe the person in our "way" really needs to be around our energy and we need to make time to appreciate, validate or give of ourselves. 

Bhante Sujatha spoke of how no matter what we have in life, we are always disappointed because of expectations. If we are able to let go of our expectations of how our life, goals, and daily schedule should look, we might just be able to appreciate what is coming into our lives at that very moment. It takes a little mindfulness and a lot of patience. But its like everything in life, like learning to ride a bicycle. 

We may fall. We may have to try multiple times before we are able to navigate on two wheels. However, one day, after many days of practice, it happens. We know how to ride that bike. We know how to appreciate each moment as a blessing enhancing our journey.