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Morning Mindfulness - A Few Positive Minutes to Start Your Day With

This podcast is about mindfulness. No, no, no, not about just sitting and doing nothing and emptying your mind. That is not mindfulness, that would be mindlessness. But we are talking about mindfulness. It is about being in the moment. It is about paying attention. It is about nonjudgmental attitude. It is about awareness. It is about making wiser decisions.
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Morning Mindfulness - A Few Positive Minutes to Start Your Day With
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Now displaying: July, 2015
Jul 31, 2015

What I found out, in most of cases we are given a freedom of choice. If I like to see the World a better place, I better become the change I want to see. If I want something better in my life, in most of the cases I have a choice to make it happen. If I like a better job, it is up to me to get it. How? I will talk about it in my episodes about personal growth.

Jul 30, 2015
I’ve learned many years ago a simple mantra: for all things say thanks. Not just for things that are pleasant. Not just for something we like. And the reason I am grateful for everything, is that I doubt I will ever know the alternatives. 
 

 

I’ve learned not to complain about things I don’t have, but be grateful for the things I do have. I may not have something I like, but somebody somewhere is happy with much less than what I have.
Jul 29, 2015
The teacher said, “Always do the best you can, take what’s available of what you want, don’t say YES or NO, study what can be studied and know the balance in everything. This should be enough to understand the rest."
 

 

This is a foundation of the Middle Path the way I am trying to follow it. How do we know when enough is enough? I know, my border line has been changing for the past 30 years. And it keeps changing.
Jul 28, 2015
Perfectionism often gives up easily on things that cannot be achieved with a straight line approach. As a kid, I did not do many kid’s activities, maybe because I was not perfect at them, and I was so afraid being criticized by other kids. So I’d rather do something that I was sure I was perfect at. And I rejected everything else.
 

 

Perfectionism is an Ego trip. It sets unrealistic expectations and blinds people not letting them see other opportunities. 
Jul 27, 2015
Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing that it is stupid."
 

 

Remember, whatever you learn to do, there will be always somebody who will do it better than you. Except one thing: nobody will ever be better than you in being you.
Jul 24, 2015
My friends, we are going through a life-long learning experience. Everybody and everything in our life can become a teacher. We will never have a deficit of training material and examples. Just look around and pay attention. 
 

 

The main question is what are we learning?
Jul 23, 2015
I like comparing our mind with a child. When we tell kids not to do something, they will either do it when we’re not watching, or it may create a conflict.
 

 

The same happens to our mind. Sometimes we may get a thought. Especially a negative thought. And it just stays in our mind, we cannot get rid of it. The more we try not to think of it, the more we think. Like, don’t think about pink elephant.
Jul 22, 2015

I see so many people following traditions not even knowing why they do what they do. It does not necessarily mean bad. Many schools have very structured approach. They have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. I’ve been learning several very structured traditions myself. But I'm always trying to figure out how each element of tradition came about and why. Is it still relevant today?

Jul 21, 2015

If you are on the Path of mindfulness, if you are developing your mind, body & spirit, there’s one the most significant, in my opinion, question you have to answer: are you just fooling yourself unintentionally?

Jul 20, 2015

One of the main issues I see today is that we live in a fast pace “microwave” society. We want everything yesterday. Many people look at meditation as a headache pill: take it now and it starts working five minutes ago. 

Jul 17, 2015

Water. Look at it: it is soft and flexible enough to run around even tiny obstacles, but it is powerful and persistent to create a Grand Canyon. 

Jul 16, 2015
We do things mechanically, we trust our previous experience, and subconsciously we expect a certain outcome. But what if we miss something? 

 

- BANG! - we throw ourselves out of balance by using our own intent. This may cost us a lot, and not just money.
Jul 15, 2015

There’s a concept of lateral thinking. It suggests that we explore all possible solutions. Even sometimes they may sound like total bizarre. You don’t have to go in depth, just think so you exercise your creativity. Or at least you may be able to identify and prevent possible problems if only you ask yourself one question: "what if…?” 

Jul 14, 2015

In my classes I am teaching about being the Water. What am I trying to get out of it? To me, being like water means don’t over-react, don’t resist, be flexible, take any shape you need, but still be who you are. 

Jul 13, 2015

I've seen large boulders the water pushed out of the way. So, what may happen to the rock? I would answer, it depends on the shape and size of the rock. Also, are we talking about still water, slow river or fast stream? What is the shape and inclination of the river bed? There's a big chance that the powerful stream will push the rock out of the way. For how long? For as long as the force of the resistance is less than the strength of the water.

Jul 10, 2015

I used to think that I need a specific place and specific time to meditate. I used to get up as early as 4:30 in the morning for Yoga and meditation practice. I love practicing at the sunrise. There’s nothing like sitting in Lotus posture on the top of the hill at 5 AM, breathing fresh air and watching the sun going up. I still love it! I must admit those memories are still inside my head like a standard of training for me. I also love the ocean. All this is great! Gardens, mountains, waterfall, sunrise, sunset are amazing for practice, if you have them handy. What if you don’t?

Jul 9, 2015

The word meditation is used in the West to describe variety of techniques from different traditions and religions. And if we are not careful we may fall into stereotyping without any knowledge to support out conclusion.

Jul 8, 2015

Do you practice meditation? I am sure you do even if you don’t know that. Even if you are against meditation, you still do practice it under a different name.

Jul 7, 2015

My humble advice for today is, don’t jump into assumption. If you want to make an educated decision about anything, study it before you decide. Partial idea may be worse than total ignorance.

Jul 6, 2015
I’ve seen so many people who learned about martial arts, yoga, meditation and even secret agent stuff from movies. They think it is real. And they refuse to accept that TV is showing nicely choreographed moves designed to capture viewers’ attention.
 

 

I used to try to rebuttal before, but I stopped doing that over 20 years ago. Believe whatever you believe. Trying to change somebody’s believe is not a part of my philosophy. All I am trying to say today is that intelligent people make educated decisions. 
Jul 3, 2015
What people often miss here, is that in order for us to feel strong and burly, we do fight with ourselves. We clench our fists and teeth, we get tense. And just like with arm flexing, we put our own force against ourselves. 
 

 

I understand, this is a natural reflex. It was built in us as a part of survival mechanism. We do need physical readiness when we feel danger. However, this mechanism was not designed to be used all day every day, like many people do. 
Jul 2, 2015

My short lesson for today is, be mindful of what you are doing to your body. Golden rule I try to follow, is any artificial restrictions to what is natural to our body, will eventually lead to breakdown. Period. I’ve learned it from other people and, unfortunately, from my own mistakes. 

Good systems have no restrictions against what is natural, they are tailored to individual needs, and they don’t push people too far outside the comfort zone right away. Everything has to be done in small steps.

Jul 1, 2015
Pendulum will appear to be in balance if we hold it off-centered, but it will stay that way for as long as we hold it. And if we let it go, it will swing. 
 

 

The key to the pendulum effect is that it will not just swing to come to the center again. It will swing to the other side, way past the middle point. As I call it, pendulum will over-correct. And it will swing back and forth for a while until it finally returns to the balance.
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