Kerri On Down The Road

Something I find fascinating is how we perceive the events and occurrences that take place in our lives.  We can experience something today and decide it was negative or assign a negative association with it, and then experience something similar down the road and frame it positively.  Perhaps it was a tough workout or challenging issue at work - one time we worked through it and found it to be discouraging and draining and the next time we are faced with something similar find it to be an invigorating challenge or milestone that was part of our growth.  What I find so interesting to consider is that there is no good and bad until we decide to lean in one direction or the other. So what is it that causes us to lean in a certain direction?  Is it even correlated to the event or task at hand or is it dictated by the mindset that we happen to have in that moment?  Although both are logical causes, I feel that we have the ability to create energy and we also have th...

 Mindfulness is ironically something that I have been trying to wrap my mind around lately.  One might assume that with my yoga teacher background and many of the woo-woo topics I tend to reflect upon I would be a very mindful person.  This is not always the case.  In fact there are times when I catch myself going through the motions of my yoga practice without really being a part of it.  And this tendency to be on autopilot can also carry over into many other areas of life if one is not careful.   Watching a documentary on Plum Village, the Buddhist monastery that Thich Nhat Hanh founded, really brought the need for mindfulness into better focus for me.  Throughout the film I was struck by the pure joy and calm that the monks carried with them throughout their days, even while performing the mundane day-to-day tasks of life.  They seemed to move through the film, and through their days, with a type of physical flow and serenity that was intr...

 "The only constant in life is change" The first time I heard those words I remember pausing to consider their meaning and then slowly nodding my head in agreement.  In the years since, it has amazed me how that theory is put to the test and proved time and time again.  It sometimes feels like I have no sooner met a goal or hit a milestone when that sense of something about to change starts to percolate again.  Sometimes it is a welcome feeling, like the eager anticipation that comes at the start of a trip or vacation somewhere you have never been before.  And sometimes it is accompanied by a deep breath and that sense of needing to buckle up because things are going to become a bit unsteady for the next while. There are definitely times when I do not feel like taking that next step quite yet.  I feel like I have just arrived where I thought i was meant to be and would like to settle in, even for a little while, before needing to pack up again and move on....

Have you had one of those moments where you look in the mirror and wonder who the heck is looking back at you?  Maybe the light in the room has cast a different shadow across your face, or you have slowed down enough to actually take in your reflection.  What is it that looks different to you?  Is is purely physical changes you are noticing, or are there deeper ones that are also calling your attention? Maybe it is the time of year, or time of life, that has had me examining myself a bit more closely as of late. What stands out the most is how much my path has seemed to drift while managing to bring me closer to home.  The coordinates that I originally plotted into my internal GPS have needed to recalibrate more than once over the past few years, and I am certainly glad that they did. Where did those original coordinates even come from?  They seem so off-base and outdated and yet were something that I believed in so deeply and held on to even when I saw many opp...

This time of year seems to bring the idea of change to the forefront for many.  These quieter days during the holiday season provide an excellent opportunity to take inventory of the year that we are moving on from and to plot a course for the days that will unfold ahead of us.  It felt like an opportune time to look at what change is, or what it can be, and the phases of change that I have noticed in my own life. Having a desire to make a change is where many of us find ourselves as we prepare to ring in the new year.  There are differences of opinion around the validity of new year's resolutions and whether or not they serve to help us move forward in our lives, or provide yet another opportunity for us to look for short-term "fixes" and then return to our old patterns of being when these quick fixes do not meet our expectations.  I feel that any desire to make a change is cause for celebration and encourage anyone who is leaning towards embracing a new direction t...