What Have I Learned About Mindfulness from a Deer

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A week ago I took the kids to school, it was early morning, my car was still cold and I was driving slowly. In front of me, the sky started changing their color from the dark sky to the beautiful colors of an early sunrise. “Look at the beautiful sky in front of us,” I said to my daughter, who was sitting next to me.  While I was looking at the road and driving ahead I heard a big bump from the backside of my car.

“What was that noise?” I asked. I turned my head around to the window behind me and to my surprise, I saw a deer heading back to the other side of the road where it came from. It was really quick, but I couldn’t really see him, he crossed the street after I passed him in the dark and he bumped into the door behind me. I stopped the car and found that it had some dents and seems like the deer was fine if he was able to keep running, and I didn’t drive very fast.

Luckily it was minor damage, I don’t like how my car looks like right now, but we are all fine.
Now, what’s interesting is how my driving habits changed after this experience. I drive for many years, but I have never needed to deal with deer living next to us. Where we live now – driving in an area where deer can jump into your road is a daily reality and I realized that my driving habits and skills didn’t include the habit of being mindful of a deer that might jump into the road while I am driving.
Then Last night I have noticed while driving back home from a networking event that I changed the way I scanning the road with my eyes. If before I was looking mostly at what was in front of me and/or on the road, now I am also paying constant attention to what is happening on the sides of the road left and right, especially if I know that I am driving in an area where we can meet a dear friend.

The deer made me think about the practice of mindfulness in our life. So many times we let our life pass by without noticing what’s really happening, without focusing. We don’t really pay attention to other people or things in our life. Mostly your thoughts are running all over the place with no structure. You don’t really think about anything; you just do it. But when a deer bumps into your car you open your spectrum, you look back and ask yourself: “how for god sake I didn’t notice these events in my life?” Suddenly you start looking not only at what is in front of you, but also what is on the sides of the roads, your eyes are scanning all the time, and your mind is present with what is happening right here right now. “

So now you probably think to yourself: “Oh! Great! I understand the example of the deer, but how exactly it is applicable to MY life? How do I stay present and more mindful of my life? and don’t start telling me to meditate because I truly don’t have time for meditation in my life right now!”

Okay! I get it, and I am not going to convince you that meditation can help you practice being present with your life, I won’t! my only request to you is very simple and quick – just take one deep breath. Yep! That’s it. Whenever you catch yourself traveling with your thoughts all over and pass people and events without paying attention just take a deep breath and see what’s happening. Don’t stop after the first time, keep doing it every time you catch yourself wandering around. That’s only one second and one deep breath – that’s it. Now you know. I hope the deer will take a deep breath too….

Decluttering Your Life and Head Space and How it Related to the Fall

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Picture Noa Ronen

Before we moved to the US we lived in a country with two main seasons: Summer and a short Winter. This is why I enjoy living in an area with 4 seasons.

"Look how beautiful the leaves are!", I tell my kids, "look! look! at this beautiful tree, I have never seen such a bright red color in my life!", "Hey! I have to stop and take a picture of this Magnolia's flowers". The kids got used to it with the years, they will shrug and ignore daily comments about nature, sometimes they might even ask politely if I can stop repeating the same sentences every time we cross the same tree, oh well... I get them they grew up into this reality.
This is why when we moved from New York City to North Carolina which is warmer, I had no big expectations for the Fall season. But when Fall happened, it really happened. 

Now, living in a wooded area where trees are everywhere, it shifts how you look at the Fall season. Every day I drove or walked outside I have noticed that colors were changing constantly and Mother Nature invited me to keep looking with enthusiasm, to keep my eyes wide open and ask myself what Nature is going to share with me next???

Before I go back to leaves, colors, and Fall I want to share with you something about my relationship with the Fall season. Every year, when the weather is getting cooler when we can wear cute jackets and scarves, while orange is everywhere it brings joy into my life. For me, the Fall is a time of inspiration, the colors around me bring energy and creativity. But, there is also that heavy feeling that winter is almost here, the weather is going to get really cold, people will start dancing the slow dance and the brown color is going to rule everywhere.

But this year something shifted. One morning my husband was looking out of our bedroom window and called me to join him. "Look!" he said, "there is more light in our room.” He was right, behind our house there was a little forest and we both realized that the naked trees allowed the light to get access to our backyard, now we can even see the kids if they want to play in the forest. We could see.

It made me think about a different situation in our life, when people have so much clutter in their internal and external space they can't see clearly, but when they declutter their head and/or life space clutter they can see things with more clarity, there is more space to organize thoughts and emotions.  Maybe, like Winter to me, it can bring a new perspective and help see things differently.
So what are you choosing not to see in your Winter?

Stuck with my Sticky Notes

Once in a while, I get stuck. I get stuck between my thoughts and my beliefs about how I want my next steps to look like. 
Although I crave to move forward, something is holding me back and I just can’t, I am stuck.

What makes us get stuck? What is that THING? 
For me being stuck is about trying to fight the “not moving”, fighting my thoughts, the thoughts that are trying to convince me that I must do. I hear voices in my head saying: “you need to do this” and “you should do that” and “you cannot procrastinate and not do anything!!!”.
So, I sit, do nothing and feel even worse about myself.

But, what if I would just give in? What if I would just allow myself not to DO anything without feeling guilty about it? What if I would just allow myself to process where I am and let my thoughts and feelings move me forward to the next step? What will happen then?

Anyway trying is just pretending to be working….

So last week I just gave in, my husband and I came back from our first no kids’ vacation. It was one of our top 10 vacations together. We needed time to connect with no interruptions and just be with each other. But when we returned back from our vacation I was able to see things about my business that I couldn’t see or think about before, when I was focused on the DOING.
 One of the thoughts that came kept nudging me, or pulling my attention during our vacation was that I need to change few concepts and let go of others, which required from me to redesign my business. I could see bits and bytes but the hardest part was to sit down and write the new plan. I tried to pretend, but after few days I gave in. I gave in and dived into the deep sea.

In my deep sea of giving in, there were groups of fish with thoughts and feelings, a big octopus which likes to hug me with stories about "how I can't".  But then when I saw the dolphins skipping and flipping, I knew this is my sign, the sign that I am ready. I pulled myself out of the deep water and took a little breath and then I pulled my sticky note and started writing everything I saw during my diving experience. Suddenly all the quiet thoughts and even emotions made sense to me.

You will never catch me out without my sticky notes, I use them to capture interesting thoughts from books, from blogs, capture a new thought or idea about a project, or just mark my next 3 important things to focus on my day. They allow me to give a voice to my thoughts, fears, and emotions and create a structure out of it. From words that are floating around me, I create relationships and meaningful connections that can move me forward.

Some people call my system a workflow, some call it mind mapping, it can be either or neither, it doesn’t matter to me. What really matters to me is that it works for the way I think.

Now I want to share something with you, I believe that there are too many people out there who think their recipe is the one that will save your life, your business, your career. But, we are all different, even being stuck can mean to you something totally different than my own experience that I just have shared with you. Don’t get attached.

So next time, when you get stuck take a moment to pause and observe where you are, notice how you behave, notice what you think, what are the fears, the dreams, and expectations you have in the experience. Observe who you are when you get stuck, maybe it is time to just BE with it rather than resisting it. We run too many times to the doing of things before we are ready for it then we feel like big procrastinators. Maybe we just need to BE?
 I do believe that from the nothing something will show up.