Exercise the Senses

 

The artist of life
         opens shutters
  listens for the shadow bounce
       to taste
           a flight of letters.          

We absorb life in three ways: visually, auditorially and kinesthetically.  The intuition gains access through all that passes near and through the senses. Everyone has a natural focus on one area that stimulates before the others. 

I tend to hear and smell first. My eyes take over in response to those messages. Photography stores my visual cues for later. I search for musicality and discover the silences. 

This shift of awareness into the other areas adds texture to writing.  It assists receptivity and exercises the ability to nudge intuition.

It's a thrill to mix and match and taste the air.

Expand the potential of your authentic voice by spending time exercising the areas you do not normally access first.  For a week write one day from sight, one from sound, another from body sensations.  Incorporate all at the end of the week.

Chase Happiness

What does it mean to chase happiness?  For a year, author Gretchen Rubin searched for the wisdom of the ages from culture, science and philosophy to discover the elements of happiness. 

She's not the first to study "the year of" approach to life.  Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond in 1845 for a two year discovery project.  Before him Plato, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, Leo Tolstoy, and Blaise Pascal formed views on what it meant to live with happiness.

Stimulation in mind, body and spirit requires more than a search for happiness. It's vital to overall health to travel through emotions from the downs to the ups and muddle through the middles. Way too many individuals evade their frustrations and annoyances when they need to use them as springboards to gain self-knowledge. 

Times of feeling down or "stuck in the middle" provide as many opportunities as a focus on a search for happiness. Take time to delve into your down time demons.  Ask questions of them.  They will reveal secrets to enrich your future action with insights.

Make a list of five down times you experienced last year.  Return to them with all your emotions.  Write your gains from the struggles.

Recharge

"Give up yourself to others. Give up yourself to life. 

Give up struggling to make sense of it all." - Tao Shan

Imagine lowering a bucket into the sea of turquoise water. Fill yourself with wonder.

Turn on mellow music. Rather than identifying with thoughts, pull back and just observe them.

Look up at the sky. Consider the possible rather than trying to capture permanent.

Accept the day's moment-to-moment occurrences. Know your preferences and remain relaxed and accepting when they are not met.

Seek compassion with an open heart. 

Experience each day's offerings with wisdom, strength, courage, and freedom.





Permit your life to unfurl to a story of understanding. Let go of fear, anger, and negativity. 

"Follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is." -Zhuangzi

Rise and Recharge.