Tag: inspired living

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Time Out

be limitless in your opportunities take a time out

Time Out this February.

Between the valentine cinnamon hearts, gold and red dragons of Chinese New Year and family weekend getaways, there is a little known and seldom celebrated personal getaway to indulge in this winter: Adult Time-Out.

This month, I invite you to discover this simple yet effective healing technique. Save yourself from undue stress, winter blahs and even work burnout. 

Take a time out today.

Embrace space, the final frontier. The word ‘final’ may seem so final. You are right. It is. As a healthy, mature adult, you surely recognize that certain times in your life you must take a step back, if you want to keep moving forward. You need a break. Hit pause on life. Embracing this moment of space in time is not about watching back to back episodes of Star Trek. Nor is it about day dreaming of flying through space on the Starship Enterprise, discovering galaxies. Embracing space is the act of embracing emptiness, quietude and solitude in your day.  It is you welcoming down time. It is an intentional lack of programming and complete disconnect from the world around you, at least for a short period of time. 

take an adult time out blog post on breath work with the healing muse

But what is space?

Madhya is a Sanskrit word that references the pause or the space between something, like the breath. Learn more about Madhya here.

Can you follow your breath to the end? No. There is no end. Yet, at some point, your inhalation stops and exhalation begins. How does that happen? There must be a pause.

But where is the pause?

There must be a proverbial end to the inhalation of breath. The pause, a moment of moving from inhaling to exhaling, is a moment of opportunity. It is where life is limitless. This moment can be a millisecond, several seconds, up to even three minutes in length. Very experienced divers can deep-dive for five minutes (or longer) underwater, before surfacing for their next breath. (explore deep-diving perspectives here) That is a long pause indeed. We don’t have to take is so far! Just a short increase of pausing 10-15 seconds between inhalation and exhalation and repeating this for five minutes will do. Put a timer on and give it a go. That’s about ten breaths total. It’s so simple, anyone can do it. 

This space between two actions, such as in-breath and out-breath, is your personal escape.

It is you choosing an opportunity for deep relaxation, solace, healing and direct stress reduction. Embracing a longer pause in any activity or between activities can shift you from serving to thriving. It can promote a sense of well-being and offers you control over your environment – your body. After all, you are in charge of your breath, the errands in your day and the number of activities on your calendar. 

Since it may seem daunting to reduce events on your social, work or family calendars this February, start with a short time-out instead.

Your time is YOUR TIME.

Your Adult time out can be as simple as ten minutes in a quiet room, focusing only on the sound of your breath and slowing down your breaths to five breaths per minute. In 2018, a systematic review in the journal of Frontiers of Human Science, was titled: How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life. This review of the included studies on breath work, concluded that voluntarily slowing down the breath “increased comfort, relaxation, pleasantness, vigor and alertness, and reduced symptoms of arousal, anxiety, depression, anger, and confusion.” 

In summary, Adult Time-Out is good for you.

Slowing down and allowing more space between your actions directly improves your quality of life. Just taking a handful of deep breaths, in a time-out (yes, you can even sit in the corner if you want to) can reduce your anxiety and help you get through a tough day. If you need more proof, read the latest article in Salk News, November 19, 2024: “Neuroscientists discover how the brain slows anxious breathing”. In between ski trips, Costco shopping hauls and running errands, find yourself a little nook hideaway and indulge in a self-imposed Adult Time-Out. It’s good for you. 

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.”

– Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries 1941-1943, 1983

Is your life in the fast lane? related blog-read next

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What’s your origin story?

beginning of your path

What’s your origin story…

What's your origin story. We all start with love.

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” — Joseph Campbell

Spring is the birth, the beginning of a new season. It is the beginning of a new story and life cycle. What is the beginning of you? Was it your birthday? What is your origin story?

For us, spring can be a beginning, a fresh start much the same way it is for our gardens, a blade of grass or baby chicks waiting to hatch.

But before we take on a new growth, it’s wise to revisit our origin. Take a moment to see the path that got you here.

Was your path difficult?
Or was it light and easy?

What is worth noting from your journeys?
Where the lessons valuable? 

As you explore your path, you honour your origin story.

In film and television the origin story is the backstory and summary of experiences that reveal how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist. You are the protagonist in the story of your life. As spring approaches, use this energy to initiate a new stage in your life and begin an new life cycle.

Spring can beckon our spiritual rebirth, emotional and energetic upgrade and mind awakening. You are the lead in your story. As a result, you have the right to choose which way you grow this season. 

Birth of all things and your origin story.

East versus West.

In many cultures, your birth determines your life story. Your physical origin, where you were born and when you were born is essential to your identity. In Asia, your birth year and birth sign as well as your family ancestry are tethered to you for life. The stars’ configuration and your astral chart is a template of your strengths, weaknesses and your life journey. Thus, you are your ancestors and so much more.

Do you embrace these origins?

east meets west and the sky meets the earth in the I Ching. Heaven rises and Earth Falls. Our origin story

Your life story is closely tied to nature, heavens and the earth that your success is determined (at least in part) by these ties. According to Astrology, all origins depend on time. Asian or Chinese Astrology is Vedic based: defined by nature. Western Astrology is based on the 12 months of the year and follows the seasons.

Our Spring Equinox is heralded as the beginning of a new energy cycle.

The Chinese Zodiac signs are noted in records as early as 5th century BC (Zhan Guo Dynasty). But the Western Zodiac signs and astrological system was also incorporated into Asian disciplines and philosophies as early as 700 AD (Tang Dynasty).

Both systems use time and the cycle of nature to offer insight into what was and what will be. They have been in our modern world for a long time.

Is your destiny written in the stars? 

Beginnings and You

Societies around the world celebrate beginnings in a variety of ways. Often, you may hear of a caste celebrating a rite of passage that has no relation to the calendar. You may welcome a 100 beginnings in a lifetime.

In some tribes and cultures, accomplishing a task such as hunting a buffalo successfully, completing a walkabout or reaching a pinnacle point in your life, marks you worthy of a feast. You are honoured with a community celebration.

As part of some extreme mystical sects and monasteries steeped in ancient practices, you may be buried alive (to survive the darkness within and without for 24 hrs) and thus be initiated into a new birth, before you can take your vows. In the Western world, a candle on a birthday cake is often our most welcome annual ‘birth celebration’.

No matter the culture or practice of our origin, we have options on how and when we choose our next beginning. We continually add layers and revising our origin story. 

March to a new story.

Springtime is a wonderful time to explore this rebirth, renewal and a chosen new beginning.

Ready to use this season to create afresh?

Create a new story, where you are hero and leader empowered with wisdom, strength and vitality. Why not choose a tabula rasa? Start in a new direction. It’s time you brush off the remnants of yesterday.

Allow spring showers to bloom colourful flowers in your heart’s garden. As spring does naturally, rise up with the earlier morning sun and adopt a new mindfulness practice. 

Celebrations to start you off. 

Celebrating spring, from a traditional St. Patrick’s Day green pint of beer or painting your face with green Shamrocks, to dancing under the moon during spring equinox, the gardens of spring await you.

Nature is always waiting. Go see her. Walk barefoot in the forest (yes, safety first and look for a clear path or meadow!) Join the many people that celebrate a new cycle and spring in these ways.

Always on time. 

But we can choose to celebrate a beginning and ‘new origin of us’ each morning, each hour, every minute. Our cells are constantly dividing, and our body is continually producing new, genetic material and new cells to keep us ticking. This fast cycle allows for the quickest and easiest way to practice rewriting our origin story at any moment we choose.

In the words of Naomi Judd (and many others), “Your body hears everything your mind says.”

follow me on insta @healingmuse. live inspired and grow into your heart fully.

What you feel, think and say, your body hears and builds within. The most valuable lesson and invitation of spring may be that we choose to recognize we can grow at any level, at any time. After all, you are growing right now.

Since we are continually renewing, our spiritual birth and rebirth, our story of origin is constantly evolving. When we zoom far out over across ancestry of time and our generations, we see our story of origin is something deeply profound. It is interconnected with very many people in our lives and never fully defined.

What's your origin story and how does it change every day? Who you are and where you came from are not fixed attributes of you.

Breath Expands

Our story is responds to every breath, to every step, to every path we take. We are the lead character choosing our next adventure. Since there is nothing but our own path, we are always on time to our destiny. We have but this moment to begin again. Spring is simply a vibrant, growing, colourful reminder of our very nature. Inhale and welcome this profound truth.  As Jim Kwik writes in his book ‘Limitless’, you are limitless the moment you realize you are always growing and expanding. See the choices before you are unlimited.

With spring in your step, start on your next journey and let me know where it takes you.

Monika Meulman – Your Intuitive Living Guide
Online Intuitive Healing Sessions Available email to book: store@healingmuse.com

Join our Monthly Inspired Living Chat to expand this Spring with The @healingmuse 

Where to next? Read this post ‘Taking a Leap of Faith – this year’

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Take a Leap of Faith

taking time to see the next steps ahead looks like this, taking a leap of faith

Your New Year Resolution: TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH

A leap of faith is the best New Year resolution for you.
This year honour yourself with a resolution that is sensible, ambitious and achievable.

Taking a leap of faith requires no actual time or money. It is literally a resolution of belief in something: FAITH. It is elemental in pursuing excellence, success or goals on any level.

Take a Leap of Faith and Step into 2024 with a New Resolution to thrive

Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.

– Rabindranath Tagore

What is a leap of faith if not a beginning into the unknown.

As January unfolds so does a brand new year. We learn to celebrate the last day of each year since ‘we made it through’, some of us with flying colours (What does that even mean? The idiom comes from nautical terminology and refers to times when ships would return home to safety with their flags flying in the wind). By that token, January 1st presents us the great uncharted territory of this new year. Undeniably, we all set sail on the seas of a new year together.

Time is the great equalizer. None of us can set sail on a new day before anyone else. 

Want a New Year Resolution that really makes sense? (but does not lean on facts) : Take a leap of faith. I’ll tell you why. Hundreds of programs teach you how to improve your life and this month they are marketing to you, with glitz, glamour, discounts, value ads and all kinds of promises.

“Come get this, buy this, enjoy this, get better with this”.

And on and on it goes. Then, how do you choose which program, latest diet or nutritional supplement will help you get healthy or sleep better?
What podcast teaches you the fastest, where do you need to focus your energy?

taking a leap of faith means following what's in your heart

pausing to breathe in life on top of Bear Wallow Mountain.
Toulie and The Healing Muse, lead by example.

Who knows the way?

  • you must allow time for the view to clear
  • you must make space for new paths on your life journey
  • you must invite the way to come to you

When our New Year resolution revolves around a healthy new habit, most of us fail. We fail to follow through on new actions, well because they are new. Often, we fail to reach our goal. Let’s be honest, that’s not a good way to start this year.

Faith is here to save the day (err, year).

When we have faith, we choose to believe we can do something. Action is the key to success. With faith, we also have the strength to believe we can be someone different today than we were yesterday. That is a crucial step in achieving our goal, any goal. In a 2009 JSTOR journal article on Faith and Goodness (by J.E.R. Staddon, Duke University) “Science…cannot tell us what to value[JS & MH may not agree], just how to get it”. In other words, our faith and belief system dictates what we value and the facts around us, the programs, the workshops, the myriad of ‘get better’ options just show us how.

If you don’t believe you can do it…’just do it’ doesn’t usually work. 

Without faith in your life, you may feel lost at sea when help isn’t close at hand. To step confidently into this new year, practice faith daily.

How to practice building your faith?

Follow these three steps, action steps.

  1. Clearly write out your belief. ‘I believe I can walk more than 10000 steps a day. I have faith in me’
  2. Set aside 2x a day, everyday when you sit and remind yourself of your faith. Draw on your belief in spiritual origins, your religion, your culture or nature. This is usually in the form of a journal, prayer and/or meditation. 
  3. Allow your connection to your spiritual community, religious group or tribe to support you daily, weekly, monthly in meetings and events. Growing your community grows your faith.
taking time to journal your thoughts and vision for 2024, new year resolutions supports your faith, your belief and supports you

taking time to sit with your steps and journalling is worth a thousand and one words.

Need a helping hand with your leap of faith – Connect with me for in an online Life Guidance session

Note that faith AND action are needed to pursue a target or a goal.

Set your resolution to be: I believe in faith religiously. FAITH and RELIGIOUSLY I pair together to get your attention. Faith is not religion and religion is not faith. They complement each other. To adopt an action religiously means ‘in a regular manner’, choosing this new habit regularly, regardless of feeling, inspiration or motivation. We choose it because we believe we must. That is the fundamental pillar of any goal oriented program. 

Whether we have Faith in a particular religion or in nature, or even in science does not matter. What matters is that we cultivate Faith. Just like cultivating compassion helps it grow, nourishing and choosing our faith regularly strengthens it. 

With faith in our hearts, or by our side (wherever we choose to keep it) we can excel. Faith is the compass direction for our next step. Before you take on yet another New Year Resolution, I ask you: what do you believe? Do you believe in yourself? How will you define your faith today?

In that answer you will find your ideal first step toward your goal. Cultivate faith today and every day this month and you can guarantee yourself a successful beginning in the year 2024. 

Faith is building on what you know is here so you can reach what you know is there. – Cullen Hightower

faith image source: uua.org/re/tapestry/children/windows/session3

___________________________________

Monthly natural health and wellness column written for South Etobicoke News.
Would you like a natural health focus in your next newsletter, workshop or marketing news? Email me for collaborations, projects, articles.

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Learning Awareness

introspective-awaness-and-learning-to-reconnect-with-your-self-learn-here-with-the-healing-muse-contact-us-

Learning awareness is not all that natural, but it is learned. We tend to move toward automation and reducing awareness over time. Learning awareness is a practice that we cultivate. A practiced awareness is a skill we use in every aspect of our life. No breath is ever wasted – it brings life. Likewise, no moment dedicated to increasing awareness is every wasted – it brings richness to our life.

Where does learning awareness begin? here (read instructions below)

It begins at the beginning. To get there:
Simplify simplify simplify
clarify clarify clarify

How does one start practicing awareness?

Simplify simplify simplify
clarify clarify clarify

and focus

zen mind is not empty, it is simply free flowing and allows us to be aware of the thoughts passing through like cars on a highway. Learning awareness allows this to be

zen mind is not empty, 
it is simply free flowing 
it allows us to be aware of the thoughts passing through like cars on a highway. 
Learning awareness allows this to be
– The Healing Muse

What is awareness?

the state or condition of being aware; having knowledge; consciousness

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/awareness

Where does awareness begin?

Our heart is the driving force of who we are. But our mind governs what we choose day to day.
Let us begin at the beginning. We begin by looking into our mind. How?
We look within and take a moment to pause and look around.
Simple, profound, doable. All that is needed is: time

Begin at the beginning.

I ask you to step as far back to the beginning as you possibly can, from a simple daily chore.
Look at something like washing a simple dish or folding your favourite sweater or brushing your hair. Choose one as a starting point for practising the simplest, most familiar and natural behaviour pattern within you. Do it. Slower. Again with more attention. Attention is the gateway to awareness. Practicing and learning awareness begins like this.

Do it daily.

Need a helping hand?

No matter what path you are on in life, at times you need a helping hand.
You benefit from opening to a new way.
You thrive by allowing a shift in perspective.
It is possible to excel with additional insight.
Choose to live inspired with an introspective moment.
——-
Let’s do it together.
Learn awareness, listening and growth with me, your life guide, an intuitive healer.
Simply here to provide insight into your version of Inspired Living.

—— want to know more?
Contact me for a 15 minute insightful conversation.

Or join us for our monthly Inspired Living Chat – the last Wednesday of every month. Learn more here
#letsbegin#starthere
#Inspiredliving#inspiredhealing#healingmuse#thehealingmuse

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Save Money, The Planet and Get Healthy

person holding a green plant

save money and the planet! while you get healthy

Eating kale saves you money, grows a healthier you and supports your local community.

Join Monika Meulman, a wellness leader and natural health teacher, on a nutritious journey examining many recent developments in the world of nutrition and nutritional medicine.

sprouted kale salad with dressing

Planet Friendly Workshop Includes:

  • Practical experience
  • hands-on instruction
  • taste-testing fresh foods
  • learning to get your hands dirty in the home garden and more!

Date and Time

Thursday, April 13th, 2023
7-8pm

Location

Pape/Danforth Branch Library – East Toronto

701 Pape Ave.  directions
416-393-7727

Workshop Details

Practical, hands-on instruction, taste-testing fresh foods, learning to get your hands dirty in the home garden and more!

This workshop is created for our Earth, your well-being and a healthy wallet. We go over natural wellness basics such as: Shopping with a healthy groceries list; planning meals that save you time and money; what it looks like to be optimally healthy, while choosing green, sustainable and manageable food sources in our every day, and take home a green sample.  

Download the Slides Here.

Save Money The Planet and Get Healthy – Live Inspired with our workshops.

More spring 2023 workshops – start here

did you know:

Worldwide
1/3 or more of world’s food production is lost or wasted each year

Canada
 50% or more $$$ spent on food per year is wasted, or enough to feed every Canadian for five months.

  • Households in Canada on average waste $28 worth of food each week ($1456 annually)[v]

According to Statistics Canada, in 2007 Canadians wasted the equivalent of 183 kilograms of solid food per person.

Let’s Change that, starting today.

CHANGE

It’s possible, doable, actionable and you can have fun doing.

Start by joining a local community group or garden club. Share your wisdom, your knowledge, your skills and resources.

Save Money The Planet and Get Healthy – AND share what you learn!

FACE THE FACTS

cheap food is actually very expensive:

    From use of artificial fertilizer and pesticides to the effects of soil degradation, water pollution, climate change and the obesity epidemic 

– 

    our current food system has a significant number of hidden costs to the natural environment and human health.  

–

  very real costs far outweigh the benefits of “cheap” food.

   from: http://www.natureandmore.com/the-true-cost-of-food-how-it-works