Join me starting February 6th for Foundations to Meditation and become grounded in your practice through exploring various techniques.
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Joy is in this moment, not the destination.
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It was at the end of 2010, when I heard a voice loud and clear in my head. It said, “It is time to sit consistently every day.” Ah, okay, I will start January 3rd, after the holidays have passed and I can focus on getting up early every morning. I will start with 40 days and go from there.
There were a few things I needed to figure out. Where will I sit? I chose to sit in my office in the basement. I had a beautiful pillar candle made of beeswax which I lit with every sitting. I purchased a meditation cushion. I decided which technique of meditation I would practice for my 40 days. What time of day would I practice? Since I had young children, the only time that would work for me was before the day started. So I chose 4:30 am.
Now, how on earth was I going to get out of bed at 4:30 EVERY morning? I decided to
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It was 2005. I chose to practice meditation in a more serious way. I started to sit in silence and stillness for ten minutes. This seemed unbearably long so I used a timer to keep track of time. It was incredible how long one minute really was.
The irritation increased and a sense of guilt would come over me. I would think, ‘Marise, how dare you do nothing when your house is a mess. You should be doing the dishes. When was the last time you vacuumed?‘. The first week, I could not make it to ten minutes without looking at the timer at least 20 times. The irritation was so unbearable that on two occasions I got up to do something.
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It was 1998 and all I heard at work was yoga, yoga, yoga. I asked, “Can you please explain what yoga is and what happens in a class?”. The answer I was getting was so unsatisfactory that I popped into one of the Town classes offered on Thursday nights. We put our bodies in different positions. It felt good and I totally enjoyed it, especially since I had always been flexible. At the end of the class she guided us to sit upright and close our eyes. We sat like that for ten minutes. Was it really ten minutes? It was the most annoying ten minutes and it felt like an hour of my life.
It was so loud in my head, with random thoughts running continuously without any pause. What was I supposed to be doing?
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It was 1997 and I had just met a man. I had a deep knowing inside of me that he was the man I was to marry. How could I know this since we had barely spoken to one another. One night that was not like any other, he came over and we talked until sunrise and we kissed for the first time. After this moment, he announced that he is moving two provinces away and his flight leaves in a few hours.
It was like I got picked up by a whirlwind of one synchronicity after another. It is like the universe picked me up and effortlessly moved me within three months - two provinces away to be with my future husband.
As all of it was happening, my rational mind wanted to know if this was right or not. Should I go along with this current or not?
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What does your digestion have to do with your inner state?
Have you ever had indigestion, food sensitivities, bloating and other digestive complaints? If yes, you may be interested in this article.
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Has anyone every tell you how magnificent you are and you did not believe them?
What is the best way to express this to someone and have them really get that they are magnificent and accept it as truth?
This past weekends Body-Soul Healing Retreat was a manifestation of having a group of women acknowledge themselves as being magnificent and truly getting it.
Well in order for me to be the clearing for others magnificence, I had to be the clearing for myself first.
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The One Mind
Many of the spiritual books I read say that our mind is one with God’s mind. That God’s will is my will and my will is really His will and so that makes us One.
If this is true, what I get inspired by and take action on to manifest in the world, is really an unfolding what is meant to be. I see God as this unified omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient of all potentiality and we are fragments of this omni Mind. We get to unfold pieces of potentiality through our self expression here in this world. The collection of all fragments of life in the universe make up the one mind Oneness
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