Follow: Alignment

Musing…

“Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and it is secondary… Your outer purpose can change over time. It varies greatly from person to person.

Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success. Without that alignment, you can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering.”     - Eckhart Tolle

Charise’s Turn:

As a yoga instructor, I’m constantly aware of physical alignment, for my students and myself. How many times they’ve heard me say “knee over ankle…shoulders sliding down your back…feet hip-width apart” is anyone’s guess. Alignment is the foundation of a yoga practice, both on the physical level, as well as energetic. When you experience aligning, you feel spacious and free because nothing is tugging out of place or neglected in your awareness.

A spacious, free, aware feeling can be a metric for decisions and choices in your life.  When a decision is merely arbitrary, it’s like going through the motions without an enlivening effect. And when your actions aren’t in alignment with your being, there is a harming effect - in the same way physical misalignment can lead to injury. When a decision settles in your being like a welcome sigh, like a tap opening to a deeper wellspring, then you know you’re aligning with your “inner purpose”.

Get Fired Up:

Begin taking a personal inventory of your state of being as you go through your day. Notice what happens as you: sit at your desk; attend to a project, task or deadline; take a walk; talk on the phone; prepare food; read; dabble; think about different things. Let a mindfulness accompany you all through the day and be curious about yourself. Especially notice those moments that feel more effortless, even if challenging - see where your energy flows and where your inner listening goes. 

www.coachingmoves.com

Follow: Joy

watercolor by Kate Kroska

Musing…   

"Look for bright spots – your life follows your attention." – Martha Beck

It would seem that FOLLOW implies that we give up our will and just fall in line, like a lemming. But we have a choice about what/who we follow – let your joy lead you (as if it’s your own north star),  giving you direction, and well…joy!

Kate’s Turn:

Attention is a powerful nutrient. It amplifies and accelerates the situations on which it is focused. It takes a mental strength training to keep attention on the positives of a situation vs. the challenges, to find the beauty in all things; we are wired to look for threats. 

In my current challenge of “creating form from light”, I am mindfully following my joy, placing attention on when that bubbling up presence is felt for I believe this joy supports and sustains the effort it takes to see this desire through. Example: I feel joy when I am in a qigong state, and I’m joyful when I can facilitate that experience for my students – incorporating this practice in my work is the obvious direction I am given, and well, it gives me joy! This decision to follow your joy seems like a covenant with the creative forces. I will feel my way through rather than have some ideal shape the outcome; I will follow what brings me joy. This feel-good state will draw a feel-good work; a happy ending results from a happy journey all along the way. Where attention goes, energy flows…and I’m following my north star of joy!

"Your life follows your attention. Wherever you look, you end up going."   - Martha Beck

Get Fired Up:   

Notice when you feel that bubbling up presence within you…then follow that joy!

………enJOY

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray."

- Rumi

 www.kroskalifecoaching.com