This moment
Who of you knows the movie “Peaceful Warrior”? To be honest, I hardly ever watch videos, have even never seen a Netflix series. Yes, believe it or not.
But in my week of fasting this year, I followed the tip of my spiritual coach and watched this movie. What I took with me? “Here. Now. This Moment”. And I reminded me of my plans of integrating meditation into my life. Plans that I have been carrying with me for quite a long time. Trying to start several times. Never making it for long.
The next piece in this puzzle was a highly inspired founder I met earlier this year. He gave me the hint to use Headspace. An app to get started and continue with meditating. With all the known features, such as notifications, reminding me every morning at 6 to take my time of 10 minutes in order to meditate. I have been practicing for 29 days now, 4 hours in total — this I know thanks to my app 😉
I am pretty proud of my discipline in doing so but what I appreciate most is the new focus starting to conquer my life: In these days I am sailing with my husband in Croatia. He knows how to sail, while I am developing my sailing skills only in this one week every year, step by step. Needless to say, that this imbalance of skills every now and then leads to challenging situations while sailing the boat.
What is different this year, is the calmness and concentration we both have in these situations. Not getting angry or impatient with each other. Preparing before expectable situations arise, clarifying unexpected situations before acting. A new quality for our one-year-old marriage, that we appreciate a lot.
Last week, while facilitating a leadership meeting of 25 very diverse leaders from different countries, I experienced a similar phenomenon. While the team of leaders challenged our way of setting the 2,5 days up, me and my colleagues stepped out of the room (for 15 minutes), refocused our goal for further developing the growth mindset of this group and stayed open for any suggestions and variations for the rest of the day. Interested how this all ended up? The leadership team reflected our taking them into their growth zone as being exhausting, but exactly what they intended to experience and decided to continue! We all felt this was the biggest step for all of us (the coaches and the leaders) to get along. I am very thankful for this experience and opportunity to grow!
Does all that come from meditating every day? I am not sure. But I know that my meditation every morning helps me to focus on myself and this moment. My needs and the quality of my interactions with others.
What I added as a morning ritual, in order to align my mind and my body is the traditional yoga sun salutation. As it turns 8:00 in the morning now, I will step out on the boat and practice — enjoy your day!