Archive for the ‘Transformational Thoughts’ Category

Sowing the Seeds of Intentionality

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

“Over time, even the tiniest meaningful actions add up, each one bringing you closer to a life that is truer to your dreams and free of regret.” (1)What are your wishes, hopes and dreams for this new year? Whatever we want to invite into our lives, we set the stage by becoming mindful about our thoughts, words and deeds and living intentionally.   

Being intentional is really about purposefully putting one foot in front of the other as we walk on our path. Instead of allowing the winds of change and the drama of life to sweep us up and move us forward, being reactive, we become present, purposeful and proactive in all aspects of our lives.  We live life on purpose and in alignment.  

This takes setting aside some personal time for contemplative reflection to discern what’s working well in your life, what’s not working so well and what is the one thing that you need to change. I like to invite my coaching and spiritual direction clients to jot their insights down in a journal. Just like tending the soil in a garden, journaling allows us to tend our inner garden.  Their ideas and thoughts about what needs to be focused on to create a more aligned lifestyle is sowing the seeds of intentionality in our internal garden space.   

Just as your outdoor garden requires tender loving care, water and sunshine to produce flowers and vegetables, our inner gardens require nurturing as well. By regularly examining if we are aligning what we believe with what we say and what we do, (Buddhists call this Right Action) we can discover:  

  • Which areas of our lives gently need to be corrected  
  • Which areas of our internal garden need to be staked up 
  • Which areas need to be weeded 
  • Which areas need to be replanted to bear better fruit  
  • What we need to do differently moment by moment by moment to live our lives in a present and purposeful way   

Take up your internal garden trowel, grab your journal and contemplatively dig around a little bit at your interior spaces. Take a good look at what gets stirred up and what you want to do differently as a result. What do you want more of? What are the things you need to pluck out? What is getting in your way of being your best version of your best self, being happy, healthy and abundant? What do you need to purposefully and proactively change? The rewards and benefits of living a life of intentionality and fulfilling your potentiality are immense.     

© Rita Perea, 2018.  All rights reserved.  

Life Changes? Release During the New Moon.

Sunday, October 18th, 2015

Writer, Hugh Prather, famously said, “Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes!”

In our modern, fast-paced times, pieces of our lives seem to change almost daily. Sometimes, within 10 minutes of waking up in the morning, we know we are in for a “white-knuckle ride” that day. We fasten our seat belts as we hold on for dear life.

When we experience a change in our life, whether it is happy and anticipated or sudden and unexpected, we all go through a pre-programed set of psychological stages as we learn to grieve the loss and embrace change. A strategy for releasing I suggest to my coaching and spiritual direction clients is identifying the loss the change brought about and then to develop a ritual to say goodbye to that loss.

Did you know our brains love patterns? Rituals are patterns we create and use for our well being and healing. Saying goodbye through ritual is a way of psychologically clearing and releasing old thought patterns and behaviors. It makes room to embrace the new way of life that is beginning to take shape.

Symbolically, the new moon on the calendar is the ideal time of the month to say goodbye, to release, clear out the old and invite the new into our lives. This can happen physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You know how good it feels to clean out a closet or organize your desk drawers? Saying goodbye in a methodical way, making the decision to move forward and embracing the new provides the same kind of feeling.

As a writer, I like the ritual of writing down, on a small piece of paper, the thought, feeling, person or item I am saying goodbye to as a result of the change in my life. I also set my intentions to welcome the new that is replacing the old. During the week of the new moon I close my eyes, verbally whisper my goodbye to the thing I have written on the paper. I’m able to release the loss and grief to the ethers by burning the slip of paper in my fire place (during winter) or in a large metal bucket in my backyard (during the summer months). I then turn my attention to and whisper a welcome to the new intention- that thought, feeling, person, situation or item I am grateful to invite into my life.

As we celebrate the new moon during harvest time this week, I invite you to give this a try. What have you got to lose? Except old emotional baggage.

© Rita Perea, 2015. All rights reserved.

Tap into your passions and unleash unlimited potential

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015

“I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we’re all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose… When you connect with that love and that compassion, that’s when everything unfolds.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

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